Your Privacy

This site uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience and deliver personalized content. By continuing to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies.
COOKIE POLICY

Are you leveraging technology to drive authentic conversations?

Are you leveraging technology to drive authentic conversations?
Back to insights

Technology doesn’t often find itself in the same sentence as authenticity.  We generally think of customers interacting with technology as quite the opposite – standardized, templatized and impersonal.  Not exactly the ideal customer experience we as marketers are all hoping to create, right?

But today, technology can be used to create authentic, truly personal experiences.  And no, I’m not talking about the creepy kind recently illustrated by Google’s Virtual Assistant.

Last week I attended a Richmond AMA luncheon where Samantha Stone talked about how we can use marketing technology to develop interactions that are MORE human.  The way we have historically thought about technology in the marketing process, while designed to be more personal, is in fact highly impersonal.  Just because you can put my name in the email, doesn’t mean you are speaking directly to me.  As Ms. Stone pointed out, much of that technology is rules-based and doesn’t interpret the situation or need, it only follows the given rule.  A rule cannot adapt to changing situations, moods or preferences and it is only as good as the human who designed the rule to begin with.

“We shouldn’t use technology to mimic human behavior, because humans sometimes suck, we must use technology to elevate interactions to the best of human behavior.” – Samantha Stone, Marketing Advisory Network

Artificial intelligence and machine learning give us the opportunity to customize to the current conditions and infer context that we as humans may even miss.  By taking in the full set of data we have about a customer and leveraging it to learn, we can improve the customer experience across the lifecycle.

Ms. Stone provided 4 tenants for using AI responsibly:

  1. Transparency – don’t pretend
  2. Address Bias – often data has an inherent bias, we must understand it and the impact on our data
  3. Empower People to Make Decisions – let humans do what they do best
  4. Find Ways to Integrate Human & Machine Intelligence – it’s the combination that’s powerful

Ultimately, AI is not about replacing humans in the marketing process.  It’s about helping to make us smarter.  Technology can help to eliminate the manual and repetitive tasks, so humans can spend more time doing the most value additive tasks.

We are currently using machine learning to help an organization leverage their data to better predict which of their members might have a need for a future service, helping a receivables organization to better score and predict the best potential purchases and helping an organization better understand their customer data to predict future buyers.  We love working with organizations to put their data to work to create meaningful impact.

How will you use AI in your marketing process?

Digging In

  • Data & Analytics

    Masking Data 101: Safeguarding PII in Your Organization

    In today’s digital age, data security and privacy are paramount. As organizations increasingly collect, store, and process personal data, protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) has never been more critical. One essential practice that organizations can implement at the database level to secure this sensitive information is to obfuscate it through the usage of data masking […]

  • Data & Analytics

    Unlocking the Full Potential of a Customer 360: A Comprehensive Guide

    In today’s fast-paced digital economy, understanding your customer has never been more critical. The concept of a customer 360 view has emerged as a revolutionary approach to gaining a comprehensive understanding of consumers by integrating data from different touchpoints to offer a holistic view. A customer 360 view is about taking an overarching approach to […]

  • Data & Analytics

    Microsoft Fabric: A New Unified Data Platform

    MicroPopular data services and tools often specialize in specific aspects of the data analytics pipeline, serving teams in the data lifecycle. For instance, Snowflake addresses large-scale data warehousing challenges, while Databricks focuses on data engineering and science. Power BI and Tableau have become standard tools for business intelligence tasks. So, where does Microsoft Fabric create […]

  • Data & Analytics

    Improve Member Experience: Maximize Engagement & Value for Associations

    As you know, member engagement is key to providing value and retaining members over time. However, you must also recognize that member needs and preferences are evolving rapidly, especially as they desire more seamless digital experiences. Additionally, member expectations for personalized, omnichannel interactions have risen in recent years, and this means that associations must strategically […]

  • Data & Analytics

    A Guide to Data Strategy Success in Your Association

    While countless organizations aim to harness the potential of data, few possess a clear strategy to transform raw information into actionable insights that fuel their operations and marketing efforts. Don’t fall into the trap of investing in limited, tactical solutions.

  • Data & Analytics

    ChatGPT & Your Data Strategy – Revolution or Evolution?

    You would be hard-pressed to find a single person who was not some degree of impressed when they first tried out ChatGPT. After its public release, the conversation in the tech space seemingly changed overnight about how AI would change everything. But much like past hot topics in the tech world – such as the […]