The Change Leader’s Guide to using AI to (actually) promote scalable growth
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the way companies develop and implement profitable business initiatives. Change leaders are constantly discovering high-impact use cases that create sustainable revenue and eliminate costs— from AI-assisted agents that automate production of complicated reports to machine learning algorithms and smart campaigns that expand the sales funnel and provide reps with new high-quality leads.
These discoveries come at a time when excitement around AI has never been higher, with the search volume for the term “AI” reaching its highest peak of the decade, according to Google Trends. Furthermore, despite economic challenges and technology investment constraints in various countries, especially in Latin America, AI has been increasingly integrated into corporate environments, with a report from IBM [AD1] indicating that approximately 41% of Brazilian companies have already incorporated Artificial Intelligence into their operations.
And yet, many innovative corporate change-leaders remain on the outside looking in.
Despite the clear benefits and rapidly growing interest, the path to AI adoption can be nebulous for change leaders at companies who recognize the need for transformation but are uncertain where to begin. It’s not just about having the right technology but understanding how to weave it into the fabric of existing business processes. The result? Maximized ROI. Maximized ROAS. Capital invested in meaningful change initiatives instead of black holes disguised as “artificial intelligence”. It takes a knowledgeable change leader to recognize the need for AI, but discovering the roadmap to implementation is where knowledge becomes power—the power to demystify AI and turn it from a buzzword into a tangible tool for growth.
Therefore, in this post, we will explore how AI enhances strategic marketing efforts by synergizing with Advanced Analytics and Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to provide personalized customer experiences and strategic marketing insights. With proper knowledge, you can integrate these advanced technologies to sharpen your competitive edge and develop a powerful digital business strategy.
The Old Secret of Differentiation and its Young Ally
In the highly competitive landscape of modern marketing, the ability to gain a strategic advantage is crucial. One age-old competitive advantage is the ability to leverage data effectively.
The increasing volume of available information provides companies with unprecedented potential to tap into consumer behavior and preferences. However, the real key to success lies in the ability to transform this data into actionable insights, and this is where the “young ally” comes into play: artificial intelligence (AI).
Advanced AI has the potential to analyze vast amounts data quickly and precisely. It can uncover hidden patterns, identify trends, and predict customer behavior based on historical data.
These insights are essential for guiding marketing strategies, helping companies target their campaigns more effectively, personalize customer experiences, and make strategic decisions.
Therefore, a marketing team’s ability to adopt and harness data analytics AI is the greatest differentiation that can drive success in today’s business world.
Without AI, you may be wasting the potential of your Customer Data Platform (CDP) to enhance customer experience.
A CDP, also known as a Customer Data Platform, aggregates data from different sources to provide insights to marketing professionals and company leaders.
The aggregated data can include:
- Demographic: name, date of birth, and customer location
- Behavioral: customer actions taken in each channel, including duration, frequency, and quantity (such as how many times a customer accessed an application within a specific period)
- Transactional: How many people purchased specific products from a specific brand
- Third-party: Sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and other premier research and data sources
Imagine this scenario: you send an email to your customer base, but the CRM doesn’t provide data about which specific customers have made a recent purchase. In other words, it becomes challenging to send emails curated for customer’s specific interests.
Customer Data Platforms, or CDPs, play a fundamental role in personalizing the customer experience. These platforms unify customer data by merging scattered information from different systems and channels, creating a consolidated consumer base.
By owning a CDP, businesses possess a unique advantage in leveraging Artificial Intelligence to analyze customer data. With this multifaceted, unified database, companies can better identify customer behavior patterns, create detailed segmentations, and anticipate consumer behaviors.
The use of AI for customer segmentation can be implemented in two ways. The first option is to embed the AI model directly into the CDP, allowing real-time analysis. The second option is to build machine learning models externally and then feed the CDP with these models. This approach offers more flexibility in customizing the algorithms but requires careful integration.
Lima Consulting Group’s recommendation is that organizations maintain ownership of their own AI models, especially in the context of predictive segmentations. Having control over these models means companies can adjust them according to their specific needs and business goals.
In addition to helping the company gain insights into the profile and behavior of its customers to create more targeted campaigns, a CDP provides an impressive range of features, such as:
- Unifying data from online and offline sources, which are often analyzed separately.
- Identifying customers most likely to be loyal through segmentation and persona creation.
- Providing a comprehensive view of the customer to drive actions that contribute to personalizing the experience.
- Highlighting customer behavior and interests to promote a more analytical understanding of each customer’s lifecycle.
CDPs stand as a testament to the power of data, underscoring the importance of it yielding actionable insights for businesses.
💡 Lima Consulting Group knows how to investigate and understand your challenges to recommend and implement the right solutions, supporting the ongoing evolution of your digital business strategy and operations every step of the way. Count on LCG for building customized AI models with machine learning and integrating them with CDPs and platforms.
