Artificial Intelligence (AI), or machine learning, has been a part of consumers’ lives for years in the form of suggested purchases at Amazon, videos on YouTube, and places to go on Google Maps. AI takes a set of data points about a customer and makes the decision on what to show that customer based on past interactions, purchases, searches, location, and other behaviors.

As AI becomes more evolved and less expensive, the data sets become bigger and broader, and advertising strategies become contextual rather than disruptive, a CRM with AI integration becomes an essential tool for modern marketing. Here are three ways AI is changing the marketing world:

Data Analytics

The first widespread use of AI in the marketing industry will be in data analysis. Using a CRM with the ability to connect to an AI data analysis program will allow your team to focus on the important things.

Computer systems are capable of analyzing vast amounts of data and using complex algorithms to recognize buying patterns, demographic correlations, customer churn causes, and other valuable connections. It takes the computer much less time to complete its analysis than human analysts and, being an unbiased machine, AI doesn’t approach analysis with preconceived notions that may color the results.

Using AI to do time-intensive tasks like data analysis frees marketing experts to do the jobs that require a human touch—writing the creative for the next big marketing plan, reaching out to customers personally and other activities that get swallowed up in the minutia of managing a data-heavy industry.

Improved Contextual Marketing Abilities

Once again, this is the “Year of the Customer.” It’s been the “Year of the Customer” for at least a decade, but now technology is finally catching up with lofty marketing aspirations.

You should be interacting with the customer in the ways the customer wants, through the channels they prefer, and with the ads that are appropriate to the customer’s situation—also known as contextual marketing.

Though some form of contextual marketing is possible through targeted online advertising and careful analysis of up-to-date customer interactions, a CRM with an AI integration will take contextual marketing to the next level. As AI integrations become more advanced, AI will be able to analyze a customer’s interactions with the company in real time, add information from their social media posts and other online actions, and quickly make the appropriate sales offers based on their current actions, posting behavior, and even their mood.

Less Marketing, More Results

Disruptive or push campaigns are expensive, time-consuming, and increasingly ineffective. Campaign after campaign is cast with a wide net in the hopes that a single percentage of the audience will convert through the latest offer. With AI improving contextual marketing abilities and the ability to reach prospects through several different channels, it will change the way you market.

Instead of a set number of push campaigns throughout the year, by using a CRM with AI integration, your company will be able to switch to always-on marketing. Despite the name, always-on marketing decreases the amount of marketing you do. Instead of massive wide-net campaigns, the AI incorporated into your CRM constantly uses its predictive marketing abilities to push appropriate offers to the appropriate people at the appropriate times. In this highly targeted manner, less advertising leads to more sales at a lower cost.

Prepare for the Future

It’s increasingly apparent that AI is an important tool that will have a transformative impact on the marketing industry. Your company may find that incorporating AI is impossible because of disparate CRM software systems, or because your CRM does not have the capability of integrating AI. If this is the case, you should begin planning for an upgrade.

Many companies have integrated AI capabilities into their workflow for years and are already reaping the benefits. If your company wants to maintain a competitive advantage, then AI integration is a must.

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