7 Reasons Why AI Is A Good Thing For Mobile Marketers

Whether you want it to or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to change the way marketing is done across all industries, including mobile. We are quickly moving away from relying on human interaction alone to understand exactly what our customers need. Instead, we are turning to tools and machines programmed to be artificially intelligent.

To some of you, this might be a scary prospect, as you question whether or not a new and improved (and probably better looking) robot version of yourself is going to sitting at your desk in 5 years time.

So let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you shouldn't be scared of AI and how it will actually be very beneficial and important for mobile marketing...

7 Advantages of Artificial Intelligence to Mobile Marketers

    1.  The Right Content, to the Right User, at the Right Time

Way back when, before a time of sophisticated technology and artificial intelligence, a marketer's job would have involved a lot of guesswork. A lot of time was invested in pulling data together, segmenting customers into smaller groups based on said data, and trying to understand exactly what content to send to each one of these segments in order to achieve the best results.

However, with the aid of AI tools, the accuracy levels of measuring the performance of marketing campaigns and making effective predictions has increased drastically. These intelligent machines are able to learn over time about each app user and be able to send the right content, to the right user at the right time, with just a click of a button.

By spotting consumers' behavioural trends and patterns, an AI-powered tool makes it easy for a mobile marketer to create highly targeted and personalised content that is more likely to convert. So whether it's a push notification that suggests a similar item based on a users past purchase, or the personalisation of your website for a specific viewer in real-time, AI can help marketer's achieve this. 

When it comes to timing, it's not uncommon for marketers to schedule messaging based on times they assume their users would be most likely to engage e.g. during the early morning commute or in the evenings when people are winding down after a day's work. But the truth is, not everyone works Monday to Friday, 9 - 5. Thanks to AI, we now have tools that incorporate Intelligent Delivery. This means the system will learn about each individual user and the marketer can leave the timing in the hands of the AI-enabled machine, with the confidence that it will reach the user at a time that is unique and personalised to them. 

    2.  Minimise Churn

All companies are faced with customer churn, and your app is no different. In fact, on average, 80% of app users churn within 90 days. 

Acquiring a new customer can cost anywhere between 5 and 25 times as much as it does to retain an existing customer. That's why user retention is so important, and companies need to be exploring all the possibilities that might help keep churn to a minimum. 

As marketers, we do everything we can to hold on to those users for as long as possible but sometimes our efforts aren’t enough and we can’t keep up with the needs of each individual user. As we touched on earlier, AI tools help you get the most relevant content to each individual user, taking your personalisation to a whole new level without any of the hard work. People want and expect a personalised brand experience and this has been proven to help encourage repeat business and customer loyalty.

Furthermore, the predictive techniques of AI allow you to compare more accurately the attributes and actions of past users with the existing user base to help spot the drop off points. Having a better understanding of why your users are churning in the first place, will help you to develop a plan of action to prevent it from happening in the future.

    3. Removes Any Human Bias

Whilst you and I have the capability to identify patterns in data, we do this poorly in comparison to machines. But we are only human after all. First of all, in this day and age, there is simply too much data for us to get our heads around, and secondly, we’re biased. We only ask what we know to ask for and sometimes only choose to see the things we want to see. Yet, when machines sift through huge amounts of data they aren’t necessarily looking for anything in particular and so they are able to find much more surprising patterns and impactful trends that our mediocre human brains would simply have overlooked.

    4.  Real-Time Personas

In an ideal world each one of your users would fit nicely into one particular persona where you would know exactly how and when to market to them. However, that is not real life. People change. Situations change. Priorities change. Keeping up with these changes in real-time is simply impossible for a marketer to be able to manage manually. No matter how updated you try to keep your personas, you will always find yourself lagging behind. 

Old school personas are simply rough guidelines on our target audience, and are typically pre-defined using basic demographical data such as the age, gender, sex and location of consumers. They don't account for online or in-app behaviours, yet it is these behaviours that are much more indicative of their preferred likes, dislikes, needs and wants. 

AI platforms are capable of collecting and analysing consumer data from a wide range of sources at a ridiculous scale, one that is far greater than even the largest and most experienced marketing team. With this data they can then easily monitor and identify any behavioural changes in real-time, and continually move your users into the persona or segment that they fit into best at that time, ensuring they receive only the most relevant messaging. 

    5.  Always Learning, Always Improving

AI has the ability to learn and make ongoing decisions based on the data it has been given without further instruction to do so. Once it’s set up the marketer can just forget about it and let it do its job. As humans we make mistakes all the time, and sometimes even repeat the same mistake twice. With AI, this is not a worry, as the system will do exactly what it was programmed to do exceptionally well and without error. It also continues to learn about each user's individual preferences over time as it gathers more and more data.

    6.  Lead Identification 

AI tools can help free up a lot of a marketers time when it comes to identifying which users you should focus most of your energy towards. Which in your case, would be the users who are most likely to make you money through in-app purchases. The sheer volume of data you have available to you when it comes to doing this can be a little overwhelming.

AI is able to process data for you in a fraction of the time and separate the good leads from the bad, recommending the perfect touch points and messaging for each target along the way. This allows you to focus on creating the most effective campaigns for the users who matter and get rid of those who are simply taking up space in your database.

    7.  AI Content Writer 

As a mobile marketer, keeping your app users engaged is up there at the top on your list of priorities. Content is a vital method of engagement, whether it is a push notification, in-app message or email. However, between brainstorming, researching and composing these messages, content takes up a huge amount of the marketer’s time.

Thanks to AI, things are definitely headed towards the idea that machines will be able to write the content for us at the click of a button. From a simple push notification to a completely personalised and targeted email, marketing professionals will be able to rely on an AI content writer to assist them in writing these in the near future, saving huge amounts of time.

Conclusion

AI will be able to work alongside the marketer, making their lives easier and be much more efficient than either one alone. By generating insights from haystacks of data, it removes the tedious guesswork that comes with any marketing campaign, whilst the marketer focuses their efforts on the more creative and strategic sides.

The expectations of the everyday consumer are constantly rising and marketers are forever playing catch up. Artificial Intelligence is simply the massive step forward in trying to predict the needs and wants of your app users before they even know themselves.

Find out everything you need to know about AI with our Marketer’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence. Or you can reach out to me directly via emma@hurree.co. I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have with regards to AI and how it can enhance your mobile marketing strategy.