Artificial intelligence in marketing as a factor in the development of an enterprise
Industrial products created and produced in order to meet the needs of consumers are considered as a set of measures or as systems. The well-known economist Philip Kotler defines marketing as follows: “Marketing is a type of human activity aimed at satisfying needs and requirements through exchange.” He also describes the necessary functions of marketing as important strategic mechanisms for the sale of products: analytical, product manufacturing, marketing, management, communications, and control.
The main aspects of the marketing system are as follows: research on the market situation, market segmentation, target market selection, cost analysis in the production of complex objects, planning, and establishing sales channels. All of these determine the characteristics of the components of the marketing mix at different stages of a product life’s cycle.
For example, during the development and production stages, the following elements of the marketing mix can be included:
1. Development stage: the formation and expansion of distribution channels, the rapid formation of primary demand in order to shorten the implementation stage, a marketing strategy for consumer education, and an increase in coverage to increase market capacity.
2. Production stage: production of the main (not upgraded/updated) versions of a product, an exclusive marketing system, and an informative communication program.
It is well-known that the problem of product quality assurance is a very topical issue for many industrial enterprises. Ensuring product quality in the production process is an integral part of the product quality management process which is carried out at all stages of its life cycle: design, development, production, operation, and consumption of products. Product quality is ensured by a set of activities which are systematically carried out and necessary for meeting certain quality requirements. At present, the use of artificial intelligence technologies to ensure product quality and improve production efficiency is one of the main trends in all industries, and not only in a particular country, but also in the whole world.
To improve competitiveness, many enterprises have begun to develop their business processes based on artificial intelligence. This is understandable because each enterprise, in order to create its own standards and develop technologies that help determine their future and ensure competitiveness, must implement and utilize artificial intelligence-based technologies to improve production efficiency. Today, every enterprise must set important tasks for itself to provide consumers with high-quality, innovative products and improve the quality of people’s lives.
That being said, how can artificial intelligence help marketers sell products?
As another point, there is the question of the loss of jobs if workers are replaced by robots in production. We must understand that artificial intelligence for personnel is not a competitor, but an ally. With the use of innovative technology in industry (i.e., artificial intelligence), marketers have new opportunities for saving time and resources on performing routine tasks.
At present, many enterprises are interested in how to win the sympathy of consumers in the demand for products. At the same time, what kind of modern technologies are we seeing in artificial intelligence, and also what types of marketing should benefit from them? Today, many industrial enterprises sell their products through distributors or dealers, as well as through online commerce, which is one of the leading areas in retail that uses artificial intelligence.
If in the first case, the trade between the manufacturer and consumers is digitized, then in the second case, the consumer leaves a unique digital footprint that allows enterprises to form a database of their customers. This information will help to analyze when developing a “buying model.”
Such models are necessary when setting up advertising businesses that take all possible factors about the consumer. In turn, this information helps artificial intelligence to set up and direct trade offers for a specific consumer.
Such an approach as the individualization of services is a reliable direction for the development of a business process. For example, this could be illustrating advertising banners, taking into account the previous experience of consumers, or offering them other products that are of interest. Some European distributors, based on this information, track the required minimum balance in their warehouses of shopping centers and set the time and volume of the next delivery so it’s convenient for them. This is much more convenient and minimizes logistics costs.
Recently, marketing has become more confident in using artificial intelligence to solve complex and important tasks for production, for example, personalization of client offers made on the basis of machine learning. Personalization is one of the most notable AI trends in marketing that can be used in many different ways.
For example, in the field of e-commerce, we have machine learning tools that remember preferences and a list of previous purchases, suggesting to buyers those products and services that should be of interest.
One of the newer personalization tools is a technology that allows one to recognize human emotion. This technology allows for improving the process of analyzing information and determining the scale of impact on consumers at no extra cost.
From the point of view of improving the accuracy of market research, the following can be noted: The well-known American company Emotient has developed software training based on the synthesis of deep learning technologies, cognitive neuroscience, and machine vision. It allows one to scan micro expressions of human facial muscles (for example, delight, smile, joy, and anger) and evaluates the emotional state, attentiveness, and involvement of the consumer. Such innovative technology will eventually become a replacement for other, currently popular methods of market research. Therefore, some advertising agencies have recently adopted it in order to assess the reactions of a target audience to a new and innovative product.
Without knowing how consumers actually feel, one can guess that sales are based on people’s emotions. Many large companies in the process of conducting research are trying to understand what criteria consumers use to choose products, and to learn about their motives and consumer experience — all of which requires a lot of money to acquire new customers.
Against the backdrop of competitiveness, large enterprises are focused on purchasing online advertising at auction, which involves the use of automated systems and algorithms, that is, programmatic advertising or programmatic ads buying (algorithmic advertising placement). Both these technologies are gaining popularity, shifting traditional types to the background of the advertising industry. At the same time, the term (programmatic ads buying) is unfamiliar to most network users. Its main feature is the optimization of advertising campaigns for a specific user or online company, taking into account many parameters.
What about the question of managing an advertising campaign in real time, which is one of the main tasks for any enterprise, in a competitive environment?
a) The system of automatic management and control for many marketers is an important mechanism in the implementation of programmatic advertising. In the future, programmatic methods will be one of the sources of income in placing video ads on the web. From this you can guess that for marketers, artificial intelligence is an everyday tool. For example, for advertising, AI (Artificial intelligence), a technology for creating intelligent machines and intelligent computer programs, uses the LoopMe mobile video platform, depending on the category of viewers.
b) In addition, innovative AI-based visual perception technologies allow marketers to evaluate user behavior. To confirm this, we can give an example where, with the help of an AI system, a person from a company’s website can quickly, conveniently and without a consultant find what they need in the product catalog. In the process of getting acquainted with the contents of the catalog, a person can click on the product feature they like in order to see motivating and ranking recommendations. They are selected thanks to the filter of visual information.
We can also note the advantages of this technology which makes it possible for the company to get a clearer understanding of their customer base. In the process of studying the consumer’s interest in a particular product, one can understand their desires and learn about individual preferences. This allows companies to overcome an effect called “clustering,” whereby an individual receives an average offer based on the preferences of a similar group of consumers, instead of being sampled based on their own preferences.
What might be the difficulties in introducing artificial intelligence into marketing? The conducted studies show that when introducing artificial intelligence, businesses may face the following challenges:
First, there are very high expectations for technology. You should not expect artificial intelligence to instantly solve all difficulties. Robotic systems can perform simple tasks that would normally be assigned to a line worker.
Secondly, many managers and specialists do not fully trust an unfamiliar “device” and are not ready to transfer a staff member’s authority to this “device.”
In addition, the necessity arises to have trained employees who are able to manage new technical solutions, as well as developers and specialists who understand the principles of customization, work, analysis, and optimization of machine learning algorithms.
Thus, in the process of strategic development of an enterprise, a comprehensive study of forecasting demand for products is required. In this regard, the Russian Federation introduced the Federal Law “On the use of cash registers when making settlements in the Russian Federation,” obliging enterprises to send information on checks through operators directly to the tax service, and the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, “On the system of labeling goods.” According to these documents, suppliers must track the turnover of such products, consolidating all information into a single database for individual regions. In this case, artificial intelligence would greatly help to analyze the information and predict in advance the volume of products that need to be delivered not only to each region, but also to each locality.
