Using Big Data, AI To Improve Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing has become an integral part of brand promotion today. Companies that are looking to effectively promote their brands online, increase sales and market reach and build communities are exploring new technologies to appeal to their target audience. They are using big data, AI and machine learning tools to boost the success and performance of their marketing campaigns. HiveMinds, a digital marketing agency and a unit of Madison, is exploring these new technologies to enhance their brand strategy and increase their profitability. In an exclusive conversation with CXOToday, Jyothirmayee JT, CEO and Founder of Hiveminds, discusses how companies can adopt technologies such as AI and big data to boost their digital marketing strategy.

CXOToday: What is the importance of big data and machine learning in digital Marketing?

Jyothirmayee JT: While AI focuses on optimizing results for Voice searches, chatbots, dynamic content generation and curation – it all aims at delivering better customer experience by using predictive analysis. On the other hand Big Data focuses on deriving real time customer insights for improvised data mining, targeting and more effective campaign execution.

Both Big Data and Machine Learning are fantastic tools for marketing, but only if done right; this combination can act and react like humans, make decisions on your behalf and also alert you if required. With, intent based searches seen most prominently in the industry, the better the customization the better are your chances to be competitive. This being done at scale is the challenge we try to solve. Both can work well when marketers try targeting better; by learning through use case campaigns and data sets, and eventually going on to predict what works best.

When digital is all about ‘dynamic’, AI and Big Data are the ones that can surely address this. These aim at delivering better customer experience which can aid in your business boost.

CXOToday: How can companies improve their marketing strategy in the digital era. What are the key things they should pay attention to?

Jyothirmayee JT: Marketing is ever-changing, and constantly evolving. Something that worked even just a few years ago can be completely irrelevant today. Reaching out to the target audience through proper channels with the right message is extremely important to achieve success in marketing – whether it’s digital or offline. However, if you are not getting the expected results from your marketing efforts, then it’s time to fix your strategy. No matter how great your product or service is, you must be willing to adapt to change as it occurs, as success is going to be minimal without an effective marketing strategy. Here are a few ways to improve your marketing strategy:
– Competition: The first step is to analyze the competition. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and if you want to be a step ahead, then you have to delve deeper. Ask your customers on what is the difference they find between you and your competitors’ offer. Get real-time feedback.
– Data, and data: Identify the problem areas and try to solve them. Determine through which marketing channels the bulk of your traffic is coming from and then move your budgets accordingly. Be aware of the latest trends in the industry. Old techniques which give minimal results can hurt your overall marketing strategy. Stay in the loop by researching different options which can expose you to newer ideas and keep your campaign going.
– Provide Value: The Pareto’s principle relies on the 80/20 rule which means that roughly 80% of customers bring in 20% of sales, and the remaining 20% bring in 80% of the sales. Thus, by providing value to your customers, you can gain a significant competitive advantage. The more valued your customers feel, the more likely they are to recommend your brand to others.
The most important thing to remember is that marketing is a fluid field. There is no overnight success because a big part of success is trial and error. To be even more successful and profitable than your present, you must be absolutely willing to evolve to meet the changing wants, needs, and problems of your audience.

CXOToday: Why do organizations need AI for SEO Success in 2019 and beyond?

Jyothirmayee JT: AI has become a major component in developing new-age search engines. Be it Google, Bing, Yandex or Baidu, all major search players have heavily invested in AI. Using AI for SEO accomplishments will be crucial for companies to get visibility on search engines.
Here are some advantages:
● Content Strategy – Knowing your audience well is a gold mine and AI is the tool to get to that. Specifically,
○ Specific landing pages
○ Dynamic content
○ Unique experience for people based on their online behavior
● Hyper-personalization – Nothing captivates a customer more than knowing that a brand put thought into personalizing their messaging
● Changing Keyword Intent – To satisfy a user query, it is paramount for SEO to understand the intent behind a query entered. With the help of AI, we can predict if a keyword’s intent is going to change based on seasonality, trend, elections etc
Search engines are becoming cleverer, and to keep up with the enormous changes in algorithms of these engines is essential. SEOs with smarter tools coupled with AI should reap the benefits to take companies to the next level.

CXOToday: How important are ‘keywords’ and ‘key phrases’ in digital marketing Strategy? What should every marketer need to know?

Jyothirmayee JT: SEO or search engine optimization is becoming competitive by the day. Enormous piles of content is being created, and more companies do it extremely well today and Google gives less real estate to organic listings. So, keywords strategy is critical in order to stand out from the rest. Here are the ways to do so.
● Take few seed keywords
● Put them into various keyword research tools and get all the required data like search volume, competitiveness etc
● Prioritize them
● Create content based on keyword mapping
However, the above approach doesn’t cut it anymore because it doesn’t solve a modern user’s problem. Why, you ask us? Because of the intent! And SERP has more than 30 features. It is not just 10 blue results anymore! People now use search engines to solve problems and social network to talk about them. This doesn’t only apply only to organic searches. It is applicable for performance marketing as well. Understanding the keywords and their intents will help you create a digital marketing funnel for the new age. The aim is to optimize the funnel at each stage to get maximum results possible.

CXOToday: How to evaluate a digital marketing agency for an organization?

Jyothirmayee JT: When evaluating a digital marketing agency, there are 3 critical questions to first ask yourself.
1. Assessing your marketing needs and budgets
2. Are you looking for a specific digital function or a full-service marketing agency
3. Define what you think would be successful output from the agency
Organizations tend to look at a digital agency’s credentials, industry reputation, clients handled or sometimes even media mentions and ‘popularity’.
In most cases this may not be the best way to zero in on an agency partner whom you expect to understand your business and work along with you towards a common goal.
It is critical, as an organization, to look at what would give you the confidence to partner with the agency. This could be identifying certain parameters in your evaluation:

1. Do they attain your objectives?Check if they understand your digital marketing objectives and goals as you understand them. Always ask the agency on how they define ‘success’ on the project and how they intend to measure or assess their efforts. Ideally this response should not be templated or trivial. If they have taken the effort to understand the context of your business or industry and are confident in outlining the challenges in achieving your goals, it’s safe to assume that they are thinkers.
2.Are their solutions personalized? Ensure the team you work with is capable of tailor-making their recommendations for your marketing needs, instead of adopting a one size fits all approach to your organization
3. Look for client recommendations.Most digital agencies with a proven track record will have a good handful of clients who would always be happy to recommend them to their networks. Check if the agency you’re evaluating has industry associates who give them a thumbs-up.
4. What is their working style? Knowing what the agency’s mode of working is will also help you get clarity on their accountability. Check on the agency’s ability to plan long-term, do they have a sound project management structure or idea to results plan and strategy.
5. Understand Fee structures. Digital marketing can involve various aspects like performance spends, creative costs, content creation, influencer marketing spends and so on. Ensure you ask the agency for clarity on their fee structure and how your own marketing budget will be allocated. This will lead to transparency, which is critical to a strong partnership with the agency.
6. Get an idea on the personality fit. Whether it’s a 10 member team or a 2 member that you will be working with, it always helps to know that your organizational culture and the agency’s culture have a match. A lot of agency-company partnerships work well when there’s a personality fit and a strong partnership between agency and organization.