How AI Is Changing Marketing Personalization

3 ways artificial intelligence is used to augment customer experience

Consumers are facing more choices every day and the sense of overwhelm is often paralyzing. Instead of making a decision, many simply defer making purchases.

In addition, when shoppers aren’t getting the products that are right for them, they’re more likely to return the items. This eventually increases cost and impacts profits.

Using AI-driven technologies, such as machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing, marketers can now leverage customer data and use marketing personalization to offer customized recommendations that help consumers reduce overwhelm and find the most relevant products.

Here’s how AI is changing and improving marketing personalization:

Personalize interactions at the individual level

Accenture found that 41% of U.S. consumers have switched brands due to lack of personalization in their customer experience.

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In the past, most product recommendations were made based on broad-stroke segmentation, static demographic, or transactional data that may or may not be the best fit for each individual customer.

By using AI technologies, marketers can now identify and analyze consumer data from all touch points to offer the most relevant content, products, and services.

Besides basic information, AI can incorporate real-time data such as location, context, and behavior to deliver the most appropriate customer interactions.

For example, by combining location information with a customer’s preferences and past purchases, TGI Friday was able to increase conversion rate by 35%.

Increase the effectiveness of content marketing

Prospects and customers at different stages of their customer journey have unique questions and concerns. You need to deliver the right content to the right place at the right time to effectively move them along the funnel and shorten your sales cycle.

AI-driven technologies can analyze user interactions with your brand on multiple channels in real time and deliver the most relevant content or offer through the most appropriate platform to increase your marketing ROI.

For example, when a prospect has visited your website multiple times, shown interest in content on a particular topic, and reviewed the sales page of a certain product, you can deliver content designed for the consideration or purchase stage to help close the sale.

Improve pre and post-sales customer support

Chatbots often come to mind when we talk about AI and natural language processing. From live chat to messenger apps, chatbots can facilitate pre and post-sales support to increase conversion and improve customer satisfaction.

By programming a series of chatbots to answer specific questions or send complex queries to agents, you can reduce wait time, help shoppers make better purchasing decisions, and provide real-time support to existing customers.

For example, Winne is a chatbot that assists website owners to choose hosting providers. 72% of users who use this bot on Facebook Messenger click through to an affiliate hosting provider.

 

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Effective AI-driven personalization Starts With the Right Customer Data

In order to optimize the use of AI technologies, you need to ensure that your customer information is well-organized in a centralized database and can be updated in real time based on customers’ interactions with your brand.

A robust data management platform (DMP) is the foundation of any effective AI-driven marketing strategy, which allows you to capture meaningful data and extract actionable insights.

To see how our customer data management system and decision engine can help you take marketing personalization to the next level, schedule a demo today.

Using Analytics to Choose Inventory for a New Season

Making purchasing decisions for a store or retail business is a complicated proposition. The decision-making becomes especially complex when you are trying to determine which products deserve permanent shelf space on your store floor; and which need to be discounted or sent back to the warehouse to make room for new inventory. It can also be difficult to know the answer to sourcing questions such as when to respond to trends, how much to purchase of a specific item and what price-points to sell at for maximum profitability. As a result, an increasing number of retailers are relying on predictive analytics to make more informed purchasing decisions. In fact, according to Martech Advisor, 57 percent of B2B marketers said predictive analytics was their “primary tool” for 2017.

Consider the following to learn more about how predictive analytics are helping companies to maximize sales and to make the most of their inventory budgets.

Determine Top-Performing Categories

Before a retailer can begin using predictive analytics to make better purchasing decisions, they have to determine the top-performing categories in their existing inventory. These can be found by collecting data on factors such including: sales numbers their POS system, consumer engagement with product images in specific categories and high-traffic areas on the company’s website. From here, a retailer can determine which categories are the most profitable, as well as what categories could be expanded to increase future sales.

Forecast Future Seasonal Inventory

Once a retailer knows where to expand their existing inventory, it is time to measure seasonal sales from past years against current industry trends to forecast seasonal sales. This helps determine how large of an order to place for a specific item, as well as where to take a well-calculated risk with a new trend or category. Targeted purchasing recommendations can be derived from this information, so retailers can order only what they need, when they need it – thus boosting seasonal sales and reducing the risk of end-of-the-season discounting.

 Adjust Strategy Where Necessary  

The capabilities of predictive analytics don’t stop once a retailer rolls out their new inventory. Analytics-based software monitors and reports on sales performance, so retailers can keep track of which seasonal inventory categories are the most successful and make modifications to their orders whenever necessary. This means that only the best-selling merchandise gets a place on the show floor. Since NectarOM uses the “Test and Learn” method, we are able to quickly respond to sales activity, so that clients can adapt their purchasing strategy in order to augment ROI.

Keeping Abreast of Trends 

It is essential for retailers to utilize predictive analytics when making seasonal purchasing decisions to remain competitive. In fact, Martech Advisor reports that 82 percent of B2B companies used predictive analytics in last year – and of the companies who did not, 67 percent intend to implement predictive analytics in 2018. It is not only important for retailers to have access to the consumer data, but also to have data-based forecasting software which enables them to quickly respond to industry trends and customer behavior. At NectarOM, we provide clients with software with real-time reporting capabilities that clearly outline actionable recommendations – so they can amplify seasonal sales and adjust to changing consumer preferences.

Here’s What to Expect from Marketing Personalization this Spring

There are plenty of buzz-words going around in tech right now, but the term that has the most practical implications for retailers in Spring 2018 is something much simpler than “voice search” or “virtual reality.” It is the ability to respond to data in real-time that’s more important to the marketing success of a company than any other sweeping technology trend being sold to retailers right now. For companies to have a high success rate with their marketing methods, they need the capability to quickly respond to industry trends and shifts in consumer sentiment. This allows businesses to send consumers marketing communications which can be quickly refined based on which social media platforms, preferred advertising channels and promotional messages appeal to that particular customer at a given moment.

Knowing When to Send a Message

The biggest factor in a company’s success with their personalization initiatives, then, is time. Consider this: AdAge reports that 80 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if it offers a personalized experience. It’s true that this refers to analytics compiled from long-term customer relationships that help brands know what marketing message to send to customers; but also – and perhaps more importantly – this refers to the analytics which help companies determine the best day and time to send marketing messages to a specific customer in order to incentivize them to make a purchase.

To better understand why you need to be able to send the right customer the right message at the right time, think about it like this: How much more likely are you to read, consider, or act on advertising messages from your favorite brands on payday, when all of your expendable income is just sitting there in the bank? Well… most customers are no different, which why this is just one example of how timing truly is everything when it comes to sending marketing messages with measurable ROI.

Following Up in the Right Way

Want to know how not to personalize your marketing efforts? Don’t send customers advertisements or promotions for an item they just bought. This happens in retail way more often than it should, and it stems from a company’s failure to fully integrate their back-of-house technologies to provide real-time data sharing across systems. When technologies aren’t fully integrated it results in an inability for a retailer’s POS system to communicate relevant information, such as the price point and SKU of purchased products, to their CRM system.

When there is this type of a disparity in information sharing between systems, there is nothing preventing a company’s software from making common marketing mistakes that can make customers feel undervalued, such as sending an email saying, “We haven’t seen you in a while,” when that customer just made an online purchase that day, or bombarding a customer’s iPhone with product images of an item they just bought.

An Opportunity for Fast-Action

A recent study by Accenture and Forrester found that customers are underwhelmed by the digital experiences being delivered by most brands. In fact, only 7 percent of existing brands are actually exceeding customer expectations. This means that the bar is still very low for omnichannel experiences, and that companies can set themselves apart by giving customers a targeted, synchronized experience along their path-to-purchase.

As the global conversation about technology continues, an increasing number of company leaders are getting distracted by advancements in arenas such as virtual reality and in-store robots. As a result, there is more opportunity than ever for business-owners to differentiate themselves by refining their customer experience and exceeding customer expectations with real-time personalization and targeted omnichannel marketing initiatives. NectarOM makes it easy for businesses to fully integrate their back-of-house processes, so they can accurately and skillfully respond to customer behavior in real time.

Stocking Produce this Holiday Season: Go Beyond Green Eggs and Ham

Holiday produce sales are upon us, and many retail firms are already predicting that the 2017-2018 holiday season will have the strongest sales numbers we have seen in years. Yet don’t make the mistake of thinking that this forecasted sales increase will only take place in gifts and apparel: According to Deloitte, “non-gift” spending will account for 65 percent of consumers’ holiday spending this year. The National Retail Federation is also optimistic about the coming holiday, forecasting that the average holiday shopper will spend 218 dollars on candy, food and decorations this year. Since customers intend to spend more on food and grocery items throughout the 2017-2018 holiday, there is an opportunity to reap the benefits of increased consumer spending in your grocery store.

 

However, in order to profit from the increase in consumer spending this holiday season you’ll need to compete with ecommerce megastores for your portion of market spend. Many grocers struggle to differentiate themselves from online megastores such as Amazon. Yet brick-and-mortar grocers have the advantage of being able to offer customers a festive, personalized omnichannel holiday shopping experience, which is something that even Amazon has yet to replicate. Consider the following suggestions to stand out from the ecommerce giants this holiday season.

 

Focus On Healthy and Organic Options

 

Grocery shoppers are eating more healthful foods and the availability of organic and low-calorie food options is a determining factor for customers when choosing which grocery store to patronize over the holiday season. In fact, Statista reports that 80 percent of U.S. consumers said that whether or not there were healthy food options factored into their decision-making process when choosing a restaurant in the past year. The United States government has also become increasingly proactive about encouraging customers to opt for healthy and organic food options. Among the initiatives dedicated to inspiring Americans to live more healthily are Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” enterprise devoted to decreasing childhood obesity rates, and the USDA’s “Choose My Plate” initiative, which offers a wide variety of healthy meal-planning options for Americans to maintain healthy weight levels during seasonal meals.

 

Plan of action: Cater to customer demand for organic and healthy options by offering gluten-free, vegan, and low calorie alternatives to some of your best-selling holiday dishes. Bookmark healthy food options in your store aisles with eye-level signs marking the areas where the diet-friendly alternatives are stocked. Instead of making customers search for their favorite products, lead them to the right place with large and pronounced signs which are easily-viewable from the high-traffic main aisles of your store. This way your customers looking for diet-friendly holiday meal alternatives will be able to easily locate the aisles that house their favorite ingredients.

 

Stream Holiday Recipes On Your Website

 

There is an opening for independent grocers to build a following by offering customers a unique shopping experience this holiday season. Retail Dive reports that in light of an overabundance of discount grocers in 2018, “price is no longer a competitive differentiator.”  Instead of trying to compete based on price alone, focus on establishing your company as an innovative leader in grocery with the addition of a seasonal recipe section to your business’s website. Your website’s recipe section should include cost-effective and diet-friendly classic seasonal dishes with a nod towards the traditional holiday dishes of your company’s prime consumer demographic. By monitoring customer demographic information as well as the sales of particular food items, you will be able to populate a list of holiday recipes that are uniquely targeted for your customer base.

 

Plan of action: Holiday recipes can boost margins only when customers can easily find the recipe ingredients on your website. Give customers a clear click-path to purchase the components of your holiday recipes by linking the produce, spices, and sauces from each recipe to buyable items in your online inventory. In addition, while low prices alone are not enough to differentiate your grocery store from the competition, offer your customers value in addition to your holiday recipes by adding links to online coupons and sale items in your ingredient lists. Appeal to the novice or holiday-only cook by keeping the ingredients and steps in each recipe simple, cost-effective and easy-to-locate on your company’s website.

 

Stocking produce for the 2017-2018 holiday season doesn’t have to be complicated. Edge out the ecommerce competition by loading up on healthy holiday meal options and by streaming fresh seasonal recipes on your company’s website and mobile app. Go beyond the standard holiday dishes by researching your company’s target consumer and loading up on economical versions of their favorite seasonal foods, so that your company can profit from the strongest holiday shopping forecast we have seen in years!

Data Is Driving Delivery: How Food Delivery Services Are Using Analytics

Improve menu, cut delivery time, predict demand, and get more loyal customers with data.

In the age of UberEats, Muchery, Amazon Restaurants, Favor, and other food delivery services — how can you stay top of mind and competitive?

The key to unlocking the success for the next generation of food delivery service is data.

A world of opportunities and possibilities opens up when you gather, analyze, and implement customer data:

Improve Menu

Leverage data on customer orders, reviews, social media posts, etc. to gather feedback on menu items so you can refine ingredients and flavors to suit your customers’ tastes.

Generate more sales by offering promotions on popular items while eliminating those that aren’t ordered often to boost sales and increase operational efficiency.

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Reduce Delivery Time

You’ll lose customers if you make them wait too long for their orders, which arrive cold and soggy because they’ve been in transit for too long.

Use data such as food preparation time, delivery location, GPS, and real-time traffic updates to help dispatch drivers, find the most efficient route, and reduce average wait time.

In addition, leverage big data and predictive analytics to estimate how many drivers you’ll need on a particular day to make sure you have the right amount of manpower to handle the deliveries.

Customize Recommendations

Offer personalized recommendations based on a customer’s habits and preferences using data from his or her profile.

You can also compare a customer’s habit and preferences with data from other users to suggest menu items that they may also like.

Make it easy for customers to reorder their favorite dishes and offer ideas that are timely and seasonal.

Predict Demand

Analyze browsing history and customer orders to predict demand, such as volume and popular menu items at specific day and time.

Use predictive analytics to estimate how many customers will order a particular dish, when and from where.

You’ll be able to better forecast customer demand, manage inventory levels, and cut delivery time to increase customer satisfaction.

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