The future of marketing: Embracing transformational strategies

The future of marketing is centered around embracing transformational strategies that go beyond traditional, linear marketing methods.

In today's rapidly evolving technology landscape, we believe that businesses need to embrace a marketing strategy that combines the use of Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI.

By investing in a transformational technology stack retail and restaurant industries can quickly adopt and leverage transformational marketing strategies to drive growth, create meaningful customer experiences, and stay ahead of the competition.

In this article, we will provide a transformational framework that retail and restaurant businesses can readily apply to their marketing strategy.

In this article you will learn:

• New age technologies: AI and Generative AI and their key benefits
• Harnessing data, machine learning and AI in marketing
• Deeper dive: The role of AI and Generative AI in Marketing 5.0
• Building customer centric experiences takes time

"Digital transformation must be a cornerstone of the ongoing evolution of your marketing strategy."

- Philip Kotler, Transformative Marketing

Let's dive in:

New Age Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

Artificial intelligence and Generative AI are two of the eight new age technologies driving the future of marketing (see Transformative Marketing  by Philip Kotler and V Kumar).  We are living in exciting times where powerful technologies and human centricity are closely integrated.

This article aims to provide insights on how businesses in the retail and restaurant industries, regardless of their size, can effectively incorporate these powerful technologies into their marketing strategy.  

Artificial Intelligence

AI enables continuous learning and automation, driving data-based analytics and automated decision-making. AI can analyze vast amounts of complex data to identify patterns and insights in a matter of minutes.

Sample use case:

A multi-unit restaurant that is experiencing growth wants to gain insights into their top-selling menu items in each market. They are interested in understanding the number of units sold and the revenue generated. This information needs to be presented based on location, sales channel (in-store, online ordering for delivery or pick-up), and time of day.

Purpose:

Using human insights, the corporate marketing team can strategically plan a national program that combines menu items and tests specific offers tailored to each market's preferences.

Artificial intelligence empowers the marketing team by quickly generating projected revenue performance results for the proposed campaign, streamlining the approval process.

Generative AI

Generative AI is the category of Artificial Intelligence that creates new outputs like text, images, video and concepts based on a combination of trained data from a variety of ecosystems like Stable Diffusion, Mid Journey, Dalle, Chat GPT, Gemini and Claude. These ecosystems uses deep learning and other techniques like reinforcement learning.

Sample use case:

A multi-unit coffee brand with an eCommerce sales channel wants to create personalized product marketing recommendations for their existing customers based on their previous purchase history. To truly personalize the experience, the coffee shop marketing team needs to further group their test target audience into three categories:

• Frequent in-store buyer, coffee connoisseur
• Frequent in-store and online buyer, coffee lover
• First-time in-store buyer, new customer

The marketing team can test email marketing campaigns and digital ads targeting each segment to deeply personalize their engagement with the brand.

Purpose:

Generative AI can analyze the customer data, understand their coffee preferences and purchasing patterns, and generate unique product recommendations that align with their individual tastes. Generative AI can provide the business intelligence and sample assets for the marketing analyst, product marketing manager and design teams to execute on the campaign.  

Generative AI not only enhances the customer experience but also increases the likelihood of conversion, repeat purchases and speed to market.

Harnessing Data, Machine Learning, and AI in the Future of Marketing

The ability for an organization to stay ahead of the curve and stay ahead of its competition relies on its agility and adaptability. In this context, big data, machine learning, and AI play pivotal roles in the planning and execution of a customer-centric marketing strategy.  

Uncover human insights from vast amounts of data

Access to the right data at the right time, positions your marketing team to gain valuable insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends not immediately visible to the naked eye.

By collecting and analyzing large amounts of data from technology solutions you already use, marketers can be more strategic with their approach.  Data and human insights driven marketing empowers businesses to create personalized content, offers and targeted campaigns to specific segments of your audience. Customer-centric focused campaigns and programs often result in higher customer engagement and rates.

The role of machine learning algorithms

What is machine learning?

Machine learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence. It is a computational method that utilizes past information to enhance performance and make accurate predictions. It allows machines to learn and improve while they perform tasks. The effectiveness of learning depends on the amount and quality of data, with the ultimate goal of predicting important variables.

"In the span of 5 to 10 years, Machine learning has become arguably the most important part of AI. In fact it is how most parts of AI is processed."

- Thomas W. Malone, an MIT Professor and the Founder of the MIT Collective Intelligence.

In simple terms, machine learning is a part of artificial intelligence that trains machines to learn and improve the insights gleaned. With machine learning, businesses can create algorithms that forecast future behaviors and trends by analyzing past data and patterns.

In 2020, Deloitte conducted a survey that revealed 67% of businesses have integrated machine learning into their processes.

Unleash Marketing 5.0: Digitalization vs. Transformative Marketing

New age technology as defined by Philip Kotler in his latest book, Transformative Marketing (we highly recommend reading this!) is comprised of 8 key technologies:

1. Artificial Intelligence
2. Generative AI
3. Machine Learning
4. Robots
5. Drones
6. IoT
7. Blockchain
8. Metaverse

These transformative technologies enable retail and restaurant businesses to transition from simple digitalization to integrating technology and human insights into the core of your marketing strategy.  Transformative marketing is Marketing 5.0 - the next frontier that integrates new age technology and powerful human insights into your business strategy.

In contrast, digitalization is a channel for communicating with your audience and customers. Social media channels have empowered both small businesses and large enterprises to showcase their products and services through visually appealing and engaging content formats on multiple platforms.

The core areas of Transformative Marketing

The digitalization movement allowed businesses to connect, engage and learn from their audience. Meanwhile, businesses that are using Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI are effectively using large datasets to power their predictive, contextual, and augmented marketing.

(Source Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2021). Marketing 5.0: Technology for humanity. John Wiley & Sons)

Building Customer-Centric Experiences

Before embracing Marketing 5.0 and its transformative strategies, it is crucial to do your homework and gain a thorough understanding of the key technologies involved. Get your team excited with the idea and possibilities first. Give  them the space to explore, learn and form their own well-researched opinion on how Transformative Marketing 5.0 could potentially enhance your organization's approach to customer-centered engagement.

Tactics we recommend

• Host regular team meetings to discuss the latest trends and innovations in Transformative Marketing and how they can be implemented in the team's strategy.
• Encourage team members to attend webinars, workshops, and conferences related to new age technologies to stay updated and inspired.
• Create a collaborative environment where team members can share ideas, feedback, and success stories related to transformative marketing efforts.
• Evaluate your current technology stack, find small opportunities to integrate new age technology into your workflow. Share performance results that could help your team embrace new age technologies.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, the future of marketing is evolving rapidly, driven by advancements in new age technologies and a desire by retail and restaurant businesses to deliver a more customer-centric approach to engagement.

To stay ahead in this dynamic environment, businesses need to embrace transformative marketing strategies. At GoGoGuest, we help businesses harness the power of vast amounts of data, machine learning, automation, and AI for a more customer centered approach to marketing.

Reach out to us today to discuss how a transformative marketing framework can take your business to new heights. Our team will help you assess your organization's readiness for Marketing 5.0.