Do you ever get the feeling that marketing is like right on the edge of
like a total transformation? Like we're going to go from you know just
like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what it takes to being able to
like actually hit the bullseye every single time. So that's what we're going
to dive into today. The world of AI and LLMs and marketing. So I had some really
interesting insights to share as a data driven marketer. So one of my recent
articles, top 10 AI and LLM trends which were transforming marketing in 2024. This
is something I wrote recently and I'm excited to share about that today. So
what's fascinating is that you know there's like a lot of shift happening
these days with everybody switching to AI. So it's not just being data
driven, that's just not like the anything that's going to cut it anywhere. We are
going to need to be constantly evolving, constantly shifting. It's about being
insight driven. So you keep calling us as data driven but it has to be insight
driven is the more accurate word to be using. So let's just talk
about AI right? And AI is not just something that just processes numbers, it
understands the why behind the numbers, helps you give you more clarity of why
those numbers are. So to help you connect the dots, let me help
you understand what does an insight driven marketing campaign actually look
like in practice. So imagine this, you're scrolling to your inbox right and you
see an email from your favorite coffee shop for example. Here's the kicker,
it's not just advertising their latest latte, it's suggesting a new
drink based on your previous orders. So right, what does that mean? It's
something like it's very personalized right, like it's using your previous
data to suggest you something new right. So let's just I mean the time of the
day, even the local weather, that's something you know it's more personalized.
It would know that information based on you know where you purchased from
in the past as well. So that's really the power of AI digging into the data to
predict what they'll actually want. So it's sort of just like sending an email
blast right to everyone, like an email broadcast to everyone with the same
generic message. You are actually personalizing what you're sending to
your subscriber. So really tailoring your experience to each
individual subscriber or customer that you have. That's kind of a next
personalization here. So this kind of personalization which used to be really
unthinkable before, you need to time and resource constraints and obviously
something like AI was not available before or not easily accessible. So people
are now able to think in these directions. Now it's all achievable thanks
to this enhancements in generative AI and enlarged language models
right and these technologies can analyze you know huge fairly massive sets of
data of customer information basically and it can understand patterns, what are
the customer preferences and then automatically just generate highly
tailored content from these emails and social media post to even get to the
better product recommendations. So we're not just talking about AI that knows
that you want a coffee but it also understands that you like a certain kind
of like iced coffee with like oat milk or like almond milk with an extra shot
right. Like your matcha latte with like four shots of vanilla foam. That's
something that you know it understands now. So that's really awesome
right and it can use that knowledge. AI can use that knowledge to basically
like you know craft a message that feels like it was written just for you and
even if millions of other people are getting a kind of a similar version of
that campaign right it would feel unique to you because there's a lot of
personalization happening here. It's like having a very dedicated marketing team
for every single customer and that's amazing and that's where we are with
things these days and this is and this is where it gets interesting too from a
business perspective. AI can map out the entire customer journey in a way that
was previously impossible. So let's say I'm trying to picture one of these you
know murder boards you see detective movies right with the strings
connecting all the clues but instead of the clues it's customer interaction. So
it's like a mind map. Yeah you know it's kind of like a it's like a map of things
right like how you're progressing from journey A to I mean from A to Z and that
whole journey is getting shown and yeah for lack of better terminology the
murder board was like a nice way to display things but that's because I'm
also into murder movies basically in these crime movies so that's why. But how
does it actually translate into actionable insights for marketers? How
do they actually use that information? So let me talk about that as well right. So
imagine being able to pinpoint the exact moment of customer abandonce their card.
All specific web page where they lose interest like AI can identify this
friction points within the customer journey highlighting areas for improvement.
So instead of guessing what's working and what's not, they now have a
data-driven roadmap for optimizing the entire customer experience right. For
example say company notices through the AI powered customer journey mapping that
a large percentage of customers abandon their online shopping cards after
viewing shopping course right. So yeah I mean how many times has that happened
like you're trying to go you see a product you like you know maybe you
entered through a Google ad maybe you're looking for sneakers, you're looking for
sneakers and for men and you're also giving like a size of sneakers like a
wide sneakers might fit. So I have wide feet so that's why I'm just thinking
about that first. But that being said like so you're going into this you're
clicking into this ad and yeah you're basically just like you go into all the
funnel steps and eventually you are landing on the checkout page where you're
trying to pay and they tell you oh you know there's a shipping charge associated
with it. What do you do? Most likely you're gonna drop because there are
other companies which offer yes free shipping and you probably go for that
right. Yeah I mean but the company would notice something like this trend
happening with the AI powered customer journey. So it will give you like more
insights like oh you know what your customers are dropping, large percentage
of your customers are dropping during their shipping process. Yes you can do
it with data as well but like there's so many things that you're constantly
thinking about and you want somebody else to also do that thinking for you
and that's where AI comes in. So you're basically you're armed now with that
insight and now you could also experiment like do any B-test with
free shipping and see you know if that sticks and you can maybe adjust the
price or highlight faster shipping options to see how that also impacts
conversion. So it's like having like a complete top view, a bird's eye view
to be to say another word of the entire customer journey right and but instead
of just observing you can actually tweak things in real time to keep
people moving smoothly towards their purchase and that real time
aspect is key to another major trend right. It highlights the
rise of AI powered dashboards. So that's where I'm talking about right. You are
seeing it in real time with staging and you're able to react to it quickly.
That's where AI powered dashboards come into play. So they always sound cool in
theory but I admit the term kind of makes me think of endless spreadsheets
and just data overload and I'm sure like some people who are like not as
familiar they might think just that with not as familiar with the data aspect
they might be thinking that's intimidating in dashboards but
and that can be intimidating for any new person. So how are AI powered
dashboards different? I mean to explain in simpler terms let's just
forget about spreadsheets for a second right. Imagine like a very sleek
interface that pulls in data from all your marketing channels, the social media,
even your customer service interactions and then uses AI to distill it
all into clear action and insights. So instead of just drowning in the data
you're getting a clear picture of what's resonating with the customers, what's
falling flat right and where the opportunities lie. All in real time and
this isn't just about tweaking your marketing copy or adjusting your ad
spend. Just imagine like seeing a sudden spike in your negative sentiment around
the new product launch. How would you react right? I mean obviously that
that would be demoralizing. Now with AI what you're going to do is like maybe
you can with the AI you're analyzing your real-time feedback. Basically AI is
doing that real-time feedback analysis from your social media and your online
interviews and you can exactly look at the issue. You can pinpoint a specific
issue which is causing that negative sentiment and adapt your strategy
before it becomes like a full-blown PR crisis right. So it's like having a
crystal ball that shows you not just what's happening but why it's happening.
That's impressive I think. But this level of insight, this ability to personalize
its scale. If I think more about it, it feels like we're also stepping
into a whole new territory, ethically speaking right. And I don't shy away from
that like the ethical considerations. I do talk about it in my article. It is
data privacy is like a very important aspect these days with the rise of AI
and they want to be transparent about that in this era of AI driven
marketing. Because while hyper personalization with your coffee sounds
really awesome with your matcha tea sounds really great right. It is a
bit creepy that AI knows so much about you. It's like if I were to even
stop and think about how much like a company would actually know about me.
That can be scary at times. So brands are like walking that tight rope right. How
much information do they want to collect? So now how do you leverage the power of
AI to create these incredible personalized experiences without making
the customers feel like their privacy is being invaded. It's a fine line to walk
for sure. So where do we even begin to draw that line? What are some of the
guidelines or the best practices? You know one of my research has shown it's
a big part of transparency. Companies need to be upfront with their customers
about how they're using their data and give them control over their privacy
preferences. So no more buying those data usage policies and a wall of legal
jargon that nobody really reads right. You ever come across something that
you're trying to accept the terms and conditions of anything. So much legal
stuff there and nobody's even reading that. You just either make a
purchase or you're just trying to do something quick right. That's a
waste. So customers are more likely to trust brands that are open about the AI
practices. So you need to be very clear to the customer what kind of information
you're tracking so then they know what they're signing up for. And maybe that
gives you more leverage maybe because not all companies will do that and
people would get like a... So yeah like I said it's just be open as a company. So
you know the customers will also know more about you. They are more likely to
trust you, buy more from you because you're more open. That means more sales.
You can even raise the prices because of your transparency. Give them that
opportunity to opt out of certain types of data collection or personalization
should they not want it. This is where something like GDPR comes into play
right. Setting important standards for data privacy and the seed of AI. So it's
not just about technology. It's about building trust like I mentioned.
It becomes even more critical the trust that is when these AI powered
experiences become more sophisticated and more integrated into our lives. So it
brings me to other fascinating aspect like how AI is poised to completely
shape the basically reshape the customer experience. So we've talked about AI
working its magic behind the scenes in marketing but let's bring it's you know
let's bring the focus for the average person listening. How AI is going to
change my experience as a customer. That's the million dollar question right.
Like this is where it gets really interesting because AI can make our
interactions with brands not just more efficient but like way more enjoyable.
So if I were to paint you a picture what does that look like in the real world. So
think about time you've been stuck like you know chatting with the really
frustrating customer service chatbot. Try to get answers from it and you know
you've seen those customer service chatbots you interacted with it probably
at some point and you know had a great reaction great interaction right. Feels
like you're just talking to like a brick wall you just like oh I'm sorry I don't
understand oh I'm sorry you don't understand. It's the worst. Those days are
numbered with these large language orders we're talking about AI powered
chat assistants that don't just get your problem they also try to
solve it and they do it fast often without ever having to pull in like a
natural human. So yeah you had those interactions with like oh this
customer tries to when basically you as a customer are trying to interact
with the chatbot and the agent joins in because the chatbot is not able to
answer some of these questions. Yeah those days are definitely numbered.
AI will solve those problems. So I've had multiple cases where I've had to like
repeat what I'm saying a hundred times. We'd be on phone or on chat it's really a
pain and other things to do so does everybody else who does interact with
the chatbot or like a voice assistant on the like a actual human assistant on the
other line. So there's been frustrating times but good news those days are
going to be behind us soon. Let's even go deeper than that like remember how we
were talking about AI mapping out your customer journey the whole
customer journey. Now imagine your chatbot has that map right it knows what you
brought what you looked at even what you asked the customer service about before.
It could know what you need before you even ask making everything smooth and
easy. It's like having a personal assistant who knows all your stuff and
it goes way beyond just customer service. Imagine you're shopping online for some
new shoes right and AI could be working in the background. The website actually
changes how it looks based on what you brought before which you've clicked on.
So AI is more like personalized. It's more personalized to you on the platform
as well. So the website itself is like adapting to you right and that's crazy.
It's the future and get this like it could it could go beyond just suggesting
stuff you might want. It could nail your size perfectly maybe even warn you about
potential issues based on what other customers said. This is like the future
of shopping right now and the best part is this is just the beginning right. It
could only get more finely tuned more intuitive basically a seamless part of
our lives as the tech even gets smarter. We'll just talk about the elephant in the
room just because AI can do all of this doesn't mean it should. As a responsible
tier transparency trust like I spoke about before those are non-negotiable and just
like to reinforce what I said before companies do have to be very upfront
about what they are using AI for. Give customers at any point the control to
opt out if they want to and be ethical about everything. It's a very fine line
that you're walking on. AI that makes things better without going fully creepy
and invasive right and it's about finding that sweet spot where AI just
works. You barely even notice it it's just there making things easier more
enjoyable. So yeah I mean thank you my name is Mukundan again and thank you
this has been incredible. We've gone from just using data to actually getting
insights from it. From marketing to the masters to hyper personalized
experiences clunky old chatbots to AI that's practically reading our minds and
like I mentioned before this is just the tip of the iceberg we're going to see
even wilder wooden back for stuff in the coming years. Whereas we headed to this
uncharted territory it's not just on the brands it's on all of us. We get to
decide how comfortable we are with all of this right. So next time you see one
of these super personalized ads or a website that seems to know you better
than you know yourself ask yourself is this legit is it actually useful and
most importantly how do I feel about how they knew that about me right. It's a
conversation we all need to be part of because in the end the best marketing
the kind that lasts is going to be like a two-way street. It's about balancing the
cool new tech we're doing what's right. Personalization that respects our
privacy and that's a wrap on this deep dive into AI and LLMs in marketing. I
hope you enjoyed it. Stay curious stay informed and until next time keep those
questions coming. Thank you.