Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for some time now, but it is only really in the past few years that we have seen some major breakthroughs in the technology. The potential for AI in the mobile marketing industry is now huge and should be something mobile app marketers are beginning to adopt into their strategy. Already we are seeing big names such as Amazon use AI to predict buying behavior and make recommendations to their customers based on their previous purchases.
In fact, a recent survey by DemandBase has revealed that 80% of B2B marketing executives predict that artificial intelligence will revolutionize the industry by 2020.
1. Automated Reasoning
Automated reasoning is an area of computer science and mathematical logic dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning. It is perhaps one of the most powerful elements of AI and helps the consumer to achieve their goal faster and easier.
With AI and machine learning, we can now program apps to have a certain ‘human-like’ ability by enabling them to reason for themselves without any real human intervention. Once programmed, apps have the capability to analyze the actions of the users whilst in the app and make super quick decisions based on a number of factors. So rather than the standard ‘one size fits all’ approach, your app is able to give each consumer a more tailored, individual experience.
Uber, for example, uses AI to automatically suggest the best possible route for their drivers given the time of day and known traffic congestion. This helps them get their customers to their destination quicker, which is ultimately their main goal. It does this using an algorithm that takes millions of pieces of data from other Uber drivers who have taken similar routes and learns from their past trips.
Source: The Verge
2. Learn Purchasing Behaviors
Once you feel you have gained a decent number of downloads for your app it’s time to start thinking of ways to maximize your revenue from these customers. Up-selling to your current customers is the main driver of growth for any app company because gaining new users is simply too difficult, costly, and time-consuming. With that being said, sending out emails, push notifications and in-app messages selling everything and anything to your entire customer database is a surefire way to irritate your users and send them straight to the app uninstall button.
Marketers need to be targeted and make informed and cautious decisions about who, what, and when they sell to their users. However, this is no quick or easy task due to the sheer volume of data available.
Luckily, AI has the ability to process this data for you in a fraction of the time, analyzing the behavior of your app users and distinguishing between those who could be recognized as ‘hot leads’ from those who aren’t. An AI-powered system can learn when is the best time to push out relevant, targeted suggestions about the other products or services your app might offer to the users that care most.
3. Recommendations
A shocking 80% of app users abandon the app within 90 days from the initial download. One of the main reasons for this is that they fail to provide their users with fresh, relevant and engaging content.
Whilst you might be sending push notifications to your users every day in an attempt to engage them, if it isn’t something the end user has an interest in, you may as well not bother. As technology becomes more and more advanced, the expectations of app users is also increasing. They expect a tailored, personalized user experience so any less will simply not suffice and they will just find a competitor that meets their needs better than you do.
With artificial intelligence, you can apply a learning algorithm to easily monitor the choices your users make while using your app, learn what their likes and dislikes are, and use this information to make relevant recommendations that keep them engaging with your app. Anything that saves them time and effort and adds value to their life is going to be a winner.
YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix are all examples of apps who have set up similar algorithms and are already using AI to enhance their user experience. How else do you think they recommend videos, music or movies and series that suit you down to a tee?
4. Content Writing
Whether it’s a push notification, email or in-app message, the content of the message needs to be carefully researched, written and agreed before it is sent to the end user. From getting the wording right to ensuring there are a few elements of personalization, this is not as straightforward as some may think, and simply adds to a marketer’s already heavy workload. However, a study by Gartner has predicted that as much as 20% of all business content will be authored by machines by this year! This includes assisting with the research of potential relevant topics for the marketer to write about as well as making suggestions about the copy that might have worked well previously for the target audience in question.
Those first one to five sessions a new user has with your app are a crucial deciding factor in whether or not they continue to use the product. With artificial intelligence working in the background, learning their behavior and making each session more valuable than the one before, mobile app marketers are likely to see an increase in their overall user retention and engagement. Of course, like any new technology, AI has its limitations and will only be as good as the data it collects. Ultimately, AI takes the guesswork away, giving app marketers confidence that they are delivering the right message, to the right user, at the right time, via the right channel.
Emma is a Marketing Strategist at Hurree. Hurree is a marketing automation platform for apps that help engage your users and keep them active at a time that suits them. It goes one step further by automatically enhancing that 1 to 1 personal experience for the user without demanding any additional time from the marketer. If you would like to learn more about Hurree please visit www.hurree.co.
