In conversation with Enterprise IT World, B.S Rao, VP-Marketing, CtrlS Datacentres, talks about the evolving role of technology in Marketing and Communications. He elaborates on how AI and ML can be the game changers for the automation of Marketing operations and might even replace the human in Marketing with the robotic.
In fact, by 2030 it is my belief that 95% of all marketing activities will be performed by ‘Marketing Robots.’ Majority of human processes shall be eliminated, human marketers will be replaced by automated processes through RPA combined with AI, ML and DL.”
BS Rao, VP – Marketing, CtrlS Datacenters
Enterprises today are facing a lot of crisis while coming to the marketing and communications because there is a strong upswing in the consumption of digital content? What are your views on this?
With the advent of Internet, web and new digital technologies the approach to marketing has transformed. Internet offers the digital consumer a wide range of choices, convenience to select and buy at a price that’s comfortable to them. This apart, with the growth of smartphones, tablets combined with seamless availability of wireless and broadband (wired) networks have given them choice to buy products and services from their mobile devices. For enterprises (both B2B, B2C) the new technology platforms allow them access to consumers cutting across geographical barriers.
Consumption patterns are changing from Gen ‘X’ to Gen ‘Z.’ Marketeers need to take cognizance of this behavioral seismic shift as Gen ‘Y’ and Gen ‘Z’ are major consumers of digital content. It is imperative to shift the right gears to align with the changing ‘digital consumer tastes, needs and mind-set and ‘Re-invent’ themselves to appeal and attract the ‘digital customer’ through intelligent personalization and enhanced buying experience. All touchpoints should be mapped to attract, generate the interest and ensure the purchase decision is made in the marketeers favor.
Can you enumerate the challenges faced by the marketeers?
Especially in the digital age, reaching, attracting, engaging a prospective digital consumer and converting them to a paying customer is an ongoing challenge as the internet offers a multitude of choices to consumers. Further, acquiring new customers, budget wastage, attributing sales revenues to marketing, target market segmentation, delivering improved customer experience, integrating data across platforms, ensuring data integrity, disparate data, difficulty in leveraging data from various sources, achieving alignment with the targeted segments, increasing marketing ROI, quantifying marketing contribution, reducing cost of customer acquisition and enhancing marketing efficiency are the key challenges faced marketeers today.
What is the role of technology in alleviating challenges?
Technology is helping achieve personalization, improved customer experience, price/product optimization, marketing resource(s) optimization, predictive analytics, eliminate marketing anomalies and gain the much desired competitive advantage. It can help understand attitudinal shifts, buy patterns, enhance customer loyalty/CLV, perform sentiment analysis, media performance monitoring, competitive analysis, enhance brand value, connect consumers and products/services most optimally.
How can Marketing Automation along with AI-ML help scale up the marketing activities?
Marketing Automation will help simplify processes, enhance marketing efficiencies, uncover high quality qualified revenue opportunities, execute laser-sharp and precise marketing campaigns, automate content creation based on intelligence and improving dark social sharing. Varied ways to by which both AI and ML can be leveraged in marketing include ML based PPC campaigns, ML driven content campaigns, predictive (marketing) data modeling, AI driven personalized campaigns based on customer interests and preferences etcetera. Netflix is reported to have prevented $1 billion revenue loss through ML driven personalized recommendations. Amazon too managed to size its shipping time to 15 minutes due to ML.
Automation combined with ML and AI can robotize marketing activities and use compute power and crunch data round the clock. RPA is playing a key role in optimizing positioning of marketing messages with the targeted segments (consumers) with 90% success, and driving revenue driven conversations with 85% success.
In fact, by 2030 it is my belief that 95% of all marketing activities will be performed by ‘Marketing Robots.’ Majority of human processes shall be eliminated, human marketers will be replaced by automated processes through RPA combined with AI, ML and DL. The ‘Marketing Robots’ will be self-learning, intelligent and make the most prudent marketing decisions on how to attract customers, how to maximize the marketing spends to achieve the business goals.
What are your views on finding the right challenges?
In medical science, early diagnosis of a disease is key to the patient’s survival. Similarly, early ‘Marketing diagnosis’ helps uncover the ‘right marketing challenges’ such as a website not converting as many visitors into paying customers, poor customer experience, inability to obtain qualified leads, marketing non alignment, consumers not responding to marketing offers etc. Hence, ‘Marketing Diagnosis’ uncovering the ‘right marketing challenges’ act as a guide to aid marketeers to overcome these very challenges by deploying the right technology and/or right strategy at the right time for the right business outcome.
