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A few years ago, adding someone’s name to an email message was considered high-tech and deeply personalized. Today, that practice is standard if not antiquated. Big Data, machine learning, and AI are top buzzwords on everyone’s lips in the world of marketing personalization. But these terms don’t have to be intimidating for low-tech marketing organizations and they don’t have to be expensive for small businesses. Here’s what you need to know about data-driven personalization in your marketing efforts.

What Is Data-Driven Personalization?

Put simply, data-driven personalization is the process of segmenting audiences and making marketing decisions based on facts and information, rather than best practices or historic choices. At face value, that concept isn’t complex at all, but grows more advanced when you add data elements and smart tools to do the personalizations for you.

Here are a few common terms that you will encounter in data-driven personalization:

• Big Data: extremely large data sets collected on a variety of factors ranging from customer demographics to personal preferences. This is too much data for any one analyst (or team of analysts) to sort through and make sense of.
• Artificial Intelligence: bots that perform tasks that humans normally would. For marketing, this means analyzing big data and making decisions based off of it.
• Machine Learning: the ability for robots to create their own rules and make decisions based off of their experiences, rather than algorithms programmed by developers.

For example, an AI tool might look at swaths of big data and determine that the best time to send an email to customers is at 10 am on a Tuesday. A machine learning AI tool would study open rates over time, and adjust the send time based off what it finds.

Either way, machines are determining which times are most effective to generate email opens or sales and scheduling the emails instead of humans. This takes the burden off of marketing teams who would otherwise have to study the data and schedule the emails themselves.

Why Is Data-Driven Marketing More Effective?

Data-driven personalization in marketing allows brands to focus on their customer’s needs and intent. Not all customers have the same goals and needs, which can be challenging for marketers broadcasting the same message. Instead, data-driven personalization identifies customer needs and provides solutions for them. A business might have a dozen different messages or solutions based on a customer’s journey or demographics.

Data-driven digital marketing is also flexible. It allows brands to change that they do and how they do it with just a few clicks. If you don’t see the results you want, turn to data to understand why and change your ways. You can also test different ideas and determine their success based on clear analytics.

What Personalization Strategies Do Most Marketers Use?

You don’t need MIT-league developers to implement data-driven personalization in your marketing strategy. In all likelihood, you might already use data to make your marketing decisions and automatically personalize your content in some way or another.

Business Insider shared a survey of more than 220 marketing professionals about the types of data-driven marketing personalization they plan to use in 2017. The top tactics used last year include:

• Email message personalization
• Targeted landing pages
• Contact data segmentation
• Triggered email campaigns
• Retargeted advertising
• Lead generation and collection

Instead of mass promotions where you try to reach as many people as possible, data-driven marketing allows you to reach the best people possible (those who are most likely to buy) and reach them in the best-possible manner.

How Can Data-Driven Automation Improve My Workflow?

Along with making your sales and marketing tactics more effective, data-driven marketing tools can free up your time and make your sales workflow more effective. AI doesn’t necessarily take away the creative aspects of marketing, but rather replaces the menial tasks that clog up your day.

For example, some AI tools vet potential leads to see which ones are likely to become sales. Instead of giving your sales team 1,000 leads to sift through, the tool might present them with 200 highly-qualified leads that are already in the middle of the sales funnel, along with suggestions for what products to sell to them. This makes the sales team more effective by increasing their successful calls and conversion rate.

You don’t have to tap into advanced machine learning tools for effective data-driven marketing personalization, but you do have to base your decisions off of concrete information and not intuition. AI and machine learning can’t solve your problems, but they can boost your metrics and make your workflow a little easier.

Craig Smith is the founder & CEO of Trinity Insight, a leading eCommerce consulting agency.

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The post What You Need to Know About Data-Driven Personalization in Digital Marketing appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This video is called, What Impact Will Artificial Intelligence Have on Content Marketing? By Mike Pitt. This is video number 213 and blog post 432. You can subscribe to our channel . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London. In this video Mike Pitt discusses the likely impact of Artificial Intelligence on Content Marketing from his perspective. This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and everyone responsible for Content Marketing in their respective companies.

What Impact Will Artificial Intelligence Have on Content Marketing?

There has been a lot of discussion within the marketing community and society in general about the likely impact of Artificial Intelligence on Content Marketing. It will come as no surprise to you that many Social Media posts are now automated. Human input is required to create and establish the schedule and settings and then the tweets or updates can be distributed automatically. However, there is potentially scope for machine learning to have a greater impact on Content Marketing by aiding the creation of content. This is what I discuss in the  video . If you have enjoyed this post you will also enjoy, Streamlining Marketing Strategy through Marketing Automation.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 432. Please note – Videos posts are not always in the same order as on our YouTube channel.

The post What Impact Will Artificial Intelligence Have on Content Marketing? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.