Artificial intelligence has many use cases, from automation to entertainment and everything in between. For many brands, it also has an invisible hand in personalizing the consumer journey. Whether it’s analyzing data or providing recommendations to your consumers, AI can help you create relevant digital experiences. At every stage of the consumer journey from awareness to decision-making, AI can play a role in making customers feel valued and engaged.
How can AI help you personalize the customer journey?
Rich data analysis and actionable insights
Today, among leading Fortune 1000 companies, investment in AI is almost universal: 99% of companies report that they’re actively investing, and another 91.9% say that the pace of investment is accelerating. The best way to account for this rise in interest is to think about the marketing ROI that brands could benefit from. By investing in AI-driven tools to analyze data, you can spot patterns and act on insights in a cost-effective way. AI can analyze large amounts of data and find patterns that your marketing teams may not have the capacity for.
An AI marketing tool can process data in real time— which allows you to adapt to changing consumer needs and behaviors and capture opportunities to engage with them at the perfect time. It can also create campaigns and act on insights quickly and affordably. For example, as a result of hot weather, an alcohol retailer experiences an increase in the sale of beer through its website. There is an opportunity here to capitalize on, but since many brands only look at data historically the opportunity for personalization could be missed by a human. An AI tool could help you analyze data in real-time and help take advantage of opportunities to personalize the consumer journey.
Personalized content and recommendations
In the example above, an AI marketing tool can also improve the customer journey by providing personalized recommendations for products that are relevant and timely. If Taylor is normally a wine drinker and sees recommendations for wine, a good AI tool could use contextual and temporal data to identify that in hot weather, Taylor might prefer beer. When Taylor is shopping online, they could receive product recommendations for both beer and wine, making them more likely to purchase something, or maybe even increase their basket size because they buy beer and wine that weekend. There are many opportunities for personalized recommendations and content, and using AI-driven tools can help your brand capture customers' attention and wallet at the right time.
Special offers for registered and anonymous visitors
The majority of visits to your site will be anonymous visitors, as opposed to registered customers. It is extremely important to make sure that your personalized experiences are not just for registered users. Whether it’s a visitor's first time to your site, or their twentieth, AI marketing tools can improve the customer journey for both registered and first-time visitors, which will encourage return visits and have a positive impact on conversions. . For example, first-time visitors can still see personalized product recommendations, while a returning visitor will see a banner ad with a promotional offer to buy something that is already in their cart. Studies show that 67% of consumers think it’s important for brands to automatically adjust content based on context, so these types of changes can make all the difference.
Timely notifications and omnichannel messaging
Another way that AI tools can impact the customer journey is by sending notifications and messaging at exactly the right time. While this may seem complex, it doesn’t need to be.
For example, Claro Colombia, , a telecommunications company, was losing business to third party recharge platforms because their customers would run out of balance before being able to recharge through the Claro app, thus forcing them to use a third party to recharge their phone. With Breinify’s AI-driven solution, Claro was able to provide timely push notifications to consumers just before they ran out of balance and a reminder to recharge, which resulted in an 18% increase in recharge rates as well as a 32% increase in sales.
Within the first month of this engagement, we were able to enable personalized messaging for every consumer, drawing from a bank of more than 180 variations in copy for the reminder notifications, making sure that each customer received messaging that was most relevant to them.
According to Gartner, enterprise use of AI has grown 270% over the past 4 years. Consumer experience is being shaped by AI more and more in today’s marketing landscape. AI-driven technology enables brands to deliver personalized experiences that add nuance and relevance at every step of the customer journey.