Why you should use AI to help drive your decision making and not rely on the luck of the draw.

 
One of the biggest events in the Racing calendar is coming up, The Grand National. Many people will get involved and place a bet, even though they know nothing about the horses, jockeys, trainers etc.
 
In marketing many do the same, creating a campaign and making decisions without basing it on the data they hold on their customers and hoping for a big pay-out at the end.
 

The Grand National of marketing

 
Understanding your customers is key to your marketing strategy, and much like horse racing, it’s better to review the data to make the best-informed decision on who to target (or where to place your bet).
 
For Marketers, analysing behaviours and being able to predict your customers most likely next move is an invaluable insight to help tailor your marketing messaging and win.
 
Sending mass emails to your database and hoping for the luck of the draw with a conversion, or even engagement is now outdated and tailored campaigns to your customers’ needs are the only way to hit the jackpot.

The bookies faviourite is a single customer view

 
We all have that friend who picks their horse by the colours the jockey is wearing or the name that stands out to them and goes on to place a random bet that isn’t based on facts or information. Don’t take that same gamble with your marketing campaigns.
 
Those marketers with the best chance of winning are those who start by building a holistic single customer view, combining all of the customer data points you have, such as transactional, behavioural, engagement or CRM information.
 
Then apply an AI-powered predictive model on top of your database to take the guesswork out of who to target and discover new insights and opportunities you never knew existed.
 
This gives you the ability to focus on specific customers with a targeted campaign to keep them engaged with your brand, getting as granular as you like.

The runners and riders taking part in the race

 
There are a number of different AI-powered models that can be used to uncover hidden opportunities such as:
 

• Prospect conversion – Know which prospects are likely to make their first purchase and grow your customer base

 

• First to second purchase – Achieve more repeat purchases by predicting which customers will purchase from you again

 

• Likely to become VIP – Increase loyalty by uncovering who will become your next most valuable customer

 

• Predicted churn – Re-engage customers with key campaigns before they turn to a competitor

 

• Predicted unsubscribe – Act before your customers opt-out and you lose the value of that customer forever

 

• Frequency optimisation – Learn the optimum frequency of campaigns for your customers to avoid over mailing

 
Then with the power of automation, you can automatically trigger personalised campaigns to individual customers when your customer matches certain behaviours, enabling you to craft your messaging based on what they are predicted to do next, completely tailoring the marketing experience for each customer.
 
Hugely benefitting the marketer as they can easily do personalised marketing at scale, which is otherwise impossible to do manually.
 
These campaigns you can launch and leave thanks to the AI and automation technology which are continuously using machine learning to get more accurate the more data it analyses.

From the horses mouth

 
As with the Grand National they’ll be some winners and we have a number of examples from RedEye customers who have utilised predictive analytics to help them achieve big wins.
 
Travis Perkins understood that their VIP segment had the highest lifetime value when compared to any other customer segment and expanding this group not only meant increased revenue, but also strengthens their customer retention and engagement.
 
Through the help of RedEye, they utilised the VIP model to search for patterns of behaviour that reflected the behaviour of their current VIPs and used this to identify customers who were most likely to become VIP customers.
 
This gave Travis Perkins the opportunity to use multi-channel communications to engage those customers, encouraging them to join this incredibly valuable customer segment successfully increasing their VIP segment by 5.3%
 
allbeauty understood that each of its customers was unique from the products they bought, how much they spend and how often they purchase. Like many businesses, they had a re-activation campaign in place to help try and bring back any customers who have stopped purchasing with them but were treating every customer the same.
 
With the help of RedEye, they applied the predictive churn model over their customer database to identify which customers are likely to lapse based on their individual purchase behaviour.
 
Applying the predicted churn model allowed them to optimise their reactivation campaign to target and convert more customers who would have previously lapsed. This achieved an impressive 414.6% increase in sales and 518.7% increase in revenue, simply by letting their customer data drive the decision.
 
When upscaling the occurrence of their email marketing Gtech was initially worried about what impact that would have on their customer base, as well as their deliverability.
 
With the help of RedEye, they utilised the frequency optimisation model to help determine the number of emails a customer is most likely to engage with, enabling them to send the right volume of emails to the right people, at the right time also without damaging their IP and domain reputation of sending all emails to everyone.

And the race is off

 
Using your customer data to its full potential is the best tip we can give. It will enable you to create marketing that not only is relevant to your customers but enhances the experience they have with your brand.
 
And just like all the horses are trying to get to the finish line first, brands are always trying to get ahead of their competition and so by applying the power of AI to your marketing campaigns, you truly can take the gamble out of your campaign planning and become the front runner.