Digitizing Marketing Through Automation

Human

Humans have been customizing and personalizing digital content for many years – long before machines started doing the work for us. 



Agencies and brands have been personalizing content to specific audiences through the use of ad targeting. This process looks like:

1. We talk to other humans to research where specific audience segments are consuming content.

2. Deliver our marketing and advertising directly to those people 

3. Curate specific messaging relevant to their wants and needs. 



It works because we know the audience and control ads and messaging that matters. Instead of machine-learning, we analyze data and optimize our campaigns based upon the findings with human interpretation.



With the explosion of chatbots and other AI mechanisms, such as Alexa and Siri, the digital experience is turning into something out of “Westworld.” The problem: You always lose something. 



As machines learn more and more, we constantly debate what we should automate and what tasks we should leave to humans. 



Humans are great marketers and use vehicles such as Facebook and Instagram to market their products and services. And they often to see great results. Many are still posting direct to platforms, and not using content and social management systems, such as Sprout Social, to program and release content. 



Is it better? Perhaps. Is it sustainable? Of course not. Thus the growth of social management software. Even with more automated tools, humans still provide the content. The more human the content, the better the engagement. 

Robot

Imagine a world where all digital content is served in a wrapper, housed in a content server and pulled and pieced together based on user input and behavior. 



Your B2B or B2C website could simply be a branded page with a virtual host that asks what you are looking for. Thus, tailoring an experience completely based upon a singular visitor at a specific moment in time. Each user experience would be designed on the fly and, with machine learning, would become more tailored over time and more exact in its execution.



Many questions arise. How do I tell the story of my brand? How do I let visitors know about ancillary services or products? How do I create a user experience that immerses the user in my brand? How do I create an experience that does not end in frustration?



It’s here already. Your experiences online are being tailored to you daily, whether you notice it or not. Content is being served based upon your demographics, your location and your behavior. Your digital path is being littered with content and ads based upon those factors, and compounded with content and ads that work for people that “look” like you do digitally. 



The problem? I may exhibit behavior like my neighbor, but I am in no way like my neighbor. My wants and needs are very different, and our digital journeys should be vastly different.



We spend hours creating journey maps that dictate wants, needs, emotions and thoughts along a given path. We try to create a digital experience that answers those in an impactful way and matters more to people. We are programming the robot, if you will. We take this data and use machines to tailor a complete experience for our user without losing the human touch.



Similar planning and architecture is employed in chatbot creation. There are real pros to using chatbots with machine learning to be the front-line of customer service. 

Pros

1. It’s always on. 24/7/365 customer service that never needs a break, never wants a raise, never calls in sick. 

2. Priceless data can be mined from digital customer service. It can make the next user experience better and help brands learn quickly of service issues and themes that rise on the dashboard. 

3. It is cost-effective with build costs that pay for themselves in short amount of time.

4. It can always be learning. With machine learning, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Not always true on the human side!

Cons

1. It’s a machine. Where is the human touch between my brand and the consumer?

2. It can be expensive to set up. 

3. Machines can be wrong.

4. People get frustrated when left to an automated machine, rather than a human.



Successful digital marketing lies in the middle of a robot and a human. It looks like a carefully designed strategy that uses machine learning and AI to enhance human experiences while allowing for old-fashioned human interaction.