Marketers are counting on AI to streamline their campaign workflows and speed up production work through the use of autonomous agents. But before that can happen, warns Salesforce's Martin Kihn, they need to rethink how the work gets done, learn how to build and deploy agents, and build a unified data infrastructure that can be trusted.
Many consumer buying choices are now known to be ruled by subconscious emotions rather than rational thought and those decisions often get made in the "blink of an eye". Design expert Jean Pierre Lacroix calls this the "Blink Factor" and he believes brands need to own the single emotion that triggers consumer choice in their category.
Where brands almost always go wrong is assuming customers are more loyal than they are, rewarding them solely on the basis of their repeat buying behaviour. But customers who are truly loyal don't need incentives to buy - they just need confirmation that their trust and belief in the brand will be reciprocated, says loyalty expert Aaron Dauphinee.
AI is paving the way for marketing to finally usher in an era of true one-to-one marketing. As the technology evolves, it should free up marketers to give greater creative thought to making customers happy, believes Jim Sterne, who has helped steer marketers through successive waves of innovation ever since the advent of the worldwide web.
The old "give-to-get" loyalty model has grown stale. Loyalty fatigue has set in, as members tire of programs that all look the same. To break out of this sameness trap, loyalty programs need to go beyond rewards and offer members greater value to stay engaged, according to the latest edition of the Antavo Global Loyalty Report.