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How AI Helps Marketers Build Customer Profiles and Drive Revenue

August 24, 2018 No Comments

Forbes recently stated that 80% of enterprise companies are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions today. AI is a machine’s ability to imitate intelligent human behavior by perceiving a set of inputs and processing that information in order to reach a desired outcome.

In the martech space, companies are utilizing AI to build customer profiles, resulting in more precise ad targeting as well as unprecedented customization. Below are three recent examples of how companies are using AI to build customer profiles and drive revenue.

1. Teleflora Uses AI to Deliver Personalized Product Recommendations

A recent article in Direct Marketing News details how Teleflora, a leading floral arrangements vendor with more than 15,000 member florists in the US and Canada, uses AI to build customer profiles and provide a personalized touch.

Source: Teleflora.com

When Tommy Lamb, Teleflora’s new director of CRM and loyalty, joined the company, he immediately realized their marketing strategy was underdeveloped. Since customers typically only used Teleflora at spread-out points in the year, the company needed strong remarketing and customer service to build brand loyalty. But rather than providing personalized offers, they only utilized a few generic holiday email campaigns.

A retail marketing platform called Bluecore gave Lamb and Teleflora the AI capabilities they needed in order to execute a three-pronged personalization plan:

Teleflora first created more comprehensive customer profiles by combining their product data with their individual customer data.
Next, Teleflora paired Bluecore’s machine learning capabilities with these comprehensive profiles to anticipate the future purchases of various audience segments.
Finally, Teleflora integrated advanced analytics, allowing them to identify best-selling items and other purchasing trends.

This AI strategy allows Teleflora to accurately anticipate customer needs. They can target customers who are ready to buy and make personalized recommendations, driving customer loyalty and ROI. Then, their analytics solution allows them to view the results and promote high- or low-performing products accordingly.

2. BMW Leverages AI to Personalize Ad Spend and Lower its Cost-Per-Acquisition

In order to execute a recent campaign, BMW Mini worked to connect and organize its data into an actionable format. Its goal: to target adults searching for a premium vehicle who had shown interest in the BMW brand.

Source: BMWBy partnering with ad agency Universal McCann, BMW was able to leverage its first-party data—which included people who had visited the BMW website or were already in their CRM system. BMW used this data to enhance its existing search strategy, ensuring its ads delivered relevant messaging to interested car shoppers.

BMW then utilized an AI solution to optimize the efficiency of its targeted ads. Over time, this solution optimized BMW’s ad targeting so the messaging would reach the right person, based on factors like time of day, previous searches, and BMW website visits. As a result of this strategy, BMW Mini’s conversions tripled and their cost per acquisition declined by 75%.

3. Comfort Keepers Utilizes AI to Target Caller-Ready Audiences

Comfort Keepers, one of the nation’s leading providers of in-home care for seniors, uses AI-powered conversation analytics to understand what happens on calls to each of their 450+ franchisee locations. Since phone calls make up 70% of their marketing conversions, they analyze the calls to determine who each caller is, if they are a quality sales lead (vs. a non-sales call), and if they converted to an appointment or customer.

By using this conversation analytics data, Comfort Keepers is able to fully gauge the success of their marketing efforts and prove it to each of their franchisees. Not only are they able to identify the quantity of the calls their campaigns drove, but they can also understand the quality. For example, rather than simply saying “we drove 2,000 calls this week,” they’re able to identify how many of those calls are potential new customers versus current customers. This gives them a full picture of the ROI from each of their campaigns to each location.

As a next step, once Comfort Keepers understands who converted on their calls and who did not, they can use that same conversation analytics data from AI to retarget their prospects with search, social, and display ads and use good callers in their lookalike campaigns.
Read more at https://www.business2community.com/marketing/how-ai-helps-marketers-build-customer-profiles-and-drive-revenue-02091198

By Derek Andersen

Sourced from Business 2 Community

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Sharpen Your Marketing Strategy With The Top Digital Trends Of 2018

July 20, 2018 No Comments

By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

With 2018 already well under way, my mind is bursting with ideas on how to make the most of the latest digital marketing trends. Change is happening right before our eyes. Every year I like to take a step back and revisit key sales drivers, writing down probing questions about recent technological advances, search algorithm changes, SEO drivers and changes in consumer behavior.

Every key driver gives me new opportunities to experiment and measure the results. I’m always up for a challenge, and the results almost always surprise me. Here are the trending projects I have my eyes on in 2018:

Live Videos

I’ve had success using pre-recorded videos on our blog and other marketing channels. In 2018, live video is bringing us even closer to our customers. If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ll notice that more people and companies are using live video to promote products, services, events and more. You’ll also notice that people are tuning in, and comments come pouring in on the live feed in real time.

Think about how to use live videos to publicize company events. Offer a promotion for those who tune in live during the event. Take advantage of the opportunity to get live customer testimonials from your satisfied customers.

Personalization

This year, I want to spend time on personalization by focusing more heavily on our customers and their experiences. Using personalization in marketing means knowing more than your customers’ names and general demographics. Voice why your customers appreciate your services and what a difference they can make in the quality of their lives. Develop new content that assures your customers that you understand them and their needs. Good experiences from current clients create brand loyalty. I’m happy to share with new customers how our services have changed the lives of our current clients.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest marketing trends on the horizon. AI can already do more than many of us can fathom. I predict that 2018 will bring marketing apps that use machine learning to help us identify customer needs. AI will also take advantage of natural language processing to give us increasingly precise details. Future applications may allow marketers to monitor the activity of programs that use data to signal the start or end of marketing campaigns. Whatever AI brings us in the coming months is certain to be valuable.

Meaningful Content

I’ve found that articles are a more cost-effective marketing tool than paid ads. Create new content for your platforms that enhance the connection between your customers and your brand. I strive to get our customers involved in a story using words or videos that establish a warm and comforting relationship with our services. The goal of any piece of content is to make it truly meaningful and memorable for the customer.

Voice Search

Last year, smart devices got even smarter as voice search applications on laptops and mobile devices made searching, connecting and multitasking even easier. Voice search will become increasingly popular as more applications become available and consumers get better acquainted with how useful they can be. Marketers should be aware that voice search uses words more naturally than written content. Voice apps are a great place to plug in those long-tail keywords and conversational phrases.

Paid Ads

While it’s true that content is more engaging than paid ads, there is an effective way to use paid ads in marketing. Marketers must face the reality that many consumers are annoyed by ads that block the information they are looking for. Some customers will even pay a small fee so they don’t have to see any ads. However, I find that customers are more amenable to target ads that appear alongside content they are already perusing. If they’ve checked out our services in the past, they’re more inclined to click on an ad that appears to be a subtle reminder.

Customer Trust

Today’s consumers are over flashy ads, but they do have new appreciation for brands that work to establish trust. People still like reviews. Our customers have taken notice of disclosure laws that motivate marketers to obtain honest reviews from real consumers. Additionally, data breaches have caused new concerns about privacy. Developing a trusted relationship means letting customers know how their personal information is being used and how well your company is protecting it.

The Wrap-Up On 2018’s Digital Trends

A good digital marketer completes assignments and meets deadlines. A great digital marketer is a trendsetter, not a trend-follower. Look for new ways to leverage live videos, targeted ads and developments in AI and voice search. You can start by taking a fresh look at old content and revamping it to take advantage of 2018 trends.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

Karina Tama – Rutigliano is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Caring People Inc. where she leads SEO, PPC and content marketing.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

5 Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2018

March 5, 2018 No Comments

Make sure to keep an eye out for these five social media marketing trends that are taking over the digital marketing world in the upcoming year.

Did you know that on an average, we scroll through at least 300 feet (90 meters) of content daily? Not every brand’s campaign grabs our attention. It is a difficult and competitive game, as brands are trying harder to grab our attention, while our attention span has been reduced to a mere eight seconds. Brand strategy in the coming years will try more than ever to connect with their audiences across a variety of social platforms. It becomes imperative that your campaign works, more so taking into account the speed of feed. We have curated a list of five trends that we believe will impact your social media strategy in 2018.

Adopt Chatbots

https://giphy.com/gifs/11FyVJOvLleR5S

Gone are the days when chatbots meant unresponsive, hilarious and outright ridiculous software. Today, chatbots can do a lot more than just solve customer issues or order pizza for you. Various studies state that 20% of business content could be machine generated by next year. When we teach machines how to create authentic and engaging stories, the potential for advertising and marketing will become multifold. Chatbots interact with the users and deliver the solutions that they are looking for at the speed of light. Bots are developing to become smarter and empathetic. This engagement feels personal, from the user’s perspective. Chatbots are definitely a must-try social media marketing strategy in 2018 for your business.

Momentary content makes for good engagement:

Snapchat was the early adopter of momentary content. Instagram and Facebook followed suit, owing to the huge popularity of Stories format in a short time. These content are ephemeral and disappear in 24 hours. Brands are creating a whole new digital marketing strategy for their momentary content marketing. Having your stories appear at the very top of your follower’s feed keeps your brand at the top of their mind. Many brands do a live story session with a subject matter expert. This helps the user look out for the brand more so as to not miss an informative session. Ephemeral content marketing strategy is something that you should try in 2018!

Augmented reality boom

Augmented reality blurs the line between reality and computer-generated content by enhancing what we see, and hear. The adoption of augmented reality on mobile phones is a quick and easy way for brands to reach their target audience. Many brands are taking their products right inside the homes of users through exclusive filters. IKEA has released an app called Place which allows users to preview how the furniture would look in their homes before they buy. As more people get warmed up to augmented reality, more people will start to feel like they are missing out on things and want to become a part of it. However, you would also have to check where your strategy fits. Make sure your AR adds value for the user and don’t simply create one for the sake of it.

Influencers are here to stay

Influencer marketing has grown so much over the last two years that the popularity has made it difficult to know whom to trust. Consumers expect genuine reviews from genuine influencers. Brands must seek to work with relevant influencers with industry background or knowledge. Viewers are already bored of seeing brands engage popular influencers who promote teeth whitening and a mobile phone app with the same vigor. In 2018, try and create worthwhile relationships with influencers and maintain them. Influencer marketing is going to become more authentic with brands moving to real experts instead of social influencers.

Make more videos

We are addicted to mobile phones, and we love our videos. In 2017, 90% of the most shared content on social media was in video format. If you are not using videos yet, you will have to quickly start using them and master the art of capturing the user’s attention in the first 3 seconds. Video is the quickest and the closest way you will come face to face with your target audience. As with everything, you need to have a clear strategy before creating a video. Taking advantage of Facebook Live and Instagram Live is also a smart strategy. Ensure that the video is of the highest quality and engaging. You will also have to consider making the best design and make sure to add subtitles to attract users when they are watching with sound off.

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Are you a Tourism Marketer? Here’s What Travellers are Hashtagging the Most

February 23, 2018 No Comments

If you are marketing anything in the tourism game, this is what you need to know.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

For those that are lucky enough to get away on holiday or go on an extended travel stint, we can predict what actvities you might be doing after a new study has been published by Hotels.com

The company have used a data-crunching bot to track what people are hashtagging the most on their sojourns. More than five million brags globally were analysed using a combination of Tweet data, Instagram posts and travel keywords and destinations mentioned on other social media. So here are the results.

Worldwide travellers are all about the culture: they enjoy musing around museums (300,000 brags), old-town charm (170,000 brags) and a spot of sunshine (130,000 brags), but they can also be found in floating restaurants, erotic museums and night markets.

TOP 10 GLOBAL THEMES

Museum
Rooftop bar
Old Town
Modern Art
Opera
Sunshine
Olympic Games
Cathedral
Gallery
Ballet

This travel bragging trend echoes the findings from the recent Hotels.com Mobile Travel Tracker report, which revealed that one in six travellers search social media before their trip to plan the photos they’ll take. And 56% of people surveyed admit to spending more than an hour a day on their smartphones while on holiday.

While travellers naturally brag about taking in the tourist hotspots and cultural offerings, more people than ever are sharing foodie ‘grams, shopping stories and luxe posts.

#Foodporn
You’re never more than an Insta-scroll away from #FoodPorn and the brag lists are brimming with culinary treats. Cakes in Stockholm and curry in Toronto spice up the brag lists, and New York steak and pizza both made the cut. Perhaps more surprisingly, enchiladas proved twice as popular as modern art in Mexico City, ice cream scooped 10% of all San Francisco brags and Jumbo Kingdom floating restaurant in Hong Kong took second place in the Hong Kong chart with more than 20,000 brags.

Shop ’til you drop
Shopping is a must-do for most travellers. Those visiting Paris brag more about the Rue Vieille du Temple, famous for its boutiques, than Le Louvre! Other top shop-spots included Bal Harbour in Miami, the Harbour City mall in Hong Kong, vintage shops in Melbourne and the stylish Cecile Copenhagen fashion brand made the Danish capital’s top 10.

Five-star luxury
When travellers check into a posh, luxury hotel they naturally want the world to know. The stunning 5-star Ritz Carlton in San Francisco topped the city’s brag list, the Four Seasons in Singapore proved brag-worthy and the Park Hyatt came in at number one in Seoul – most likely for its awe-inspiring rooftop pool.

Scott Ludwig at Hotels.com said, “Bragging about your travel experiences on social media has become the norm – if you didn’t get social kudos out of it, it didn’t happen!”

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Targeting Teenagers with Your ads? Here are the Four Personas to Appeal to

February 12, 2018 No Comments

Academics have identified four distinct personas of social media user that teenagers describe as shaping how they behave on social media.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Young social media users are categorised as either acting like the Geek, the Internet Celebrity, the Victim or the Lurker depending on their levels of online activity and visibility, University of Sussex academics say.

The categorisations are based on interviews the researchers conducted with children aged between 10 and 15-years-old for a new book, Researching Everyday Childhoods, published by Bloomsbury last month.

The interviews revealed many youngsters were increasingly savvy about maintaining their privacy online, often being motivated to protect themselves by unpleasant past personal experiences or negative incidents that affected classmates.

Dr Liam Berriman, lecturer in digital humanities at the University of Sussex, said: “Our research found that concerns about staying safe online created an atmosphere of intense anxiety for young people, even if they had not directly experienced any problems themselves. The young people we spoke to felt a great weight of responsibility for their safety online and were often motivated by the concern of being labelled a victim.”

“While there has been a lot of negative media coverage around teenagers’ interaction with social media, our findings are more hopeful that teenagers are responsible users of social media, are very conscious of the dangers and make considerable efforts to protect themselves against those risks.”

Teenagers navigate between the desire to be praised and recognised online and anxieties over the risk of opening themselves up to criticism and trolling. Among the four personas is the Internet Celebrity who is able to best use the latest trends and increasingly values “visibility of the self” through Instagram, Snapchat, the selfie and YouTube vlogging.

The internet celebrity

But academics also identified how young people are experimenting with and enjoying invisibility online. They describe the Lurker as someone able to avoid peer dramas arising through platforms such as Facebook, whilst still engaging in fun peer activities such as stalking their favourite music bands online.

The lurker

The Geek, meanwhile, uses invisibility to anonymously share and promote their amateur media creations online, such as music videos or fan fiction writing. The academics described how the Geeks’ long hours of labour on projects risked parental concern that their behaviour was obsessive or addictive.

The geek

Professor Rachel Thomson, professor of childhood and youth studies at the University of Sussex, said, “What is distinctive about these active social media users was the entrepreneurial character of their practice, with ‘play’ re-envisaged as a form of economically rewarding work. By gaining an audience, young people are aware that they could capture advertising and corporate sponsorship. The dream is to ‘go viral’, establishing a career as a cultural creator.”

The research also highlights the risks contained in a world dominated by personal visibility with the Victim left to suffer personal exposure and shame following the creation and display of intimate material such as sexting and the loss of control of this material.

The victim

The Victim’s high visibility is often out of their control with their presence and heightened without their consent as private material is extracted from them and exchanged under false premises.

This can vary from the frustration of being tagged in photographs and the creation of an unflattering digital footprint through the activities of others to the more invasive techniques of fraping, where a person’s online identity is hijacked without their permission, or sharing of intimate photographs.

Dr Berriman said, “These examples reveal the impossibility of non- participation in the world of social media. A teenager does not necessarily have to create an online persona, it is something that can be created by others.”

This is great food for thought for anyone trying to catch the attention of teenagers online. You may even need to consider four different approaches when targeting the teen market. Thanks, science!

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The Internet Crosses 4 Billion-User Mark

January 30, 2018 No Comments

80 percent of the world’s Internet users are active on social media

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Social media management platform Hootsuite, and We Are Social, the global socially-led creative agency, have released Digital in 2018, a report of social media and digital trends around the world.

Representing 239 countries and territories, the seventh annual report finds the number of Internet users in the world has now surpassed the 4 billion mark, putting more than half the global population online. Of that, social media brings nearly 3.2 billion active users online to connect with each other, consume media, interact with brands, and more.

The 2018 key findings include:

Internet user numbers increased 7 percent in the last 12 months to hit 4.021 billion, or 53 percent of the world’s population
Global social media usage has increased by 13 percent in the last 12 months, reaching 3.196 billion users
Mobile social media usage has increased by 14 percent year over year to 2.958 billion users, with 93 percent of social media users accessing social from mobile
Internet users are projected to spend a combined total of 1 billion years online in 2018, of which 325 million years will be spent on social media

The report also found that global growth of the Internet is propelling ecommerce forward, with 1.77 billion Internet users purchasing consumer goods online in 2017, an increase of 8 percent compared to a year ago. Collectively, consumers spent a total of USD $1.474 trillion on ecommerce platforms in the past 12 months, 16 percent more than in 2016.

Said Simon Kemp, Global Consultant, We Are Social, “With four billion people now online, connectivity is already a way of life for most of us. However, as Internet companies strive to serve the next billion users, we’ll see important changes in digital over the coming months. Audio-visual content will take priority over text – especially in social media and messaging apps – while voice commands and cameras will replace keyboards as our primary means of input. Social relationships and online communities will evolve to accommodate these new ways for people to interact with each other. This will result in rich new experiences for all of us, but businesses need to start preparing for these changes today.”

“The Digital in 2018 report highlights the continuing growth of the Internet and social media to individuals and businesses around the world. This dynamic has forever altered the customer journey as consumers and B2B professionals increasingly conduct research, make buying decisions, seek support, and recommend brands online. To achieve competitive advantage, all executives must dive deep into digital now, meeting their customers where they are to best market, sell, and serve them,” said Penny Wilson, CMO, Hootsuite.

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6 ways ad agencies can thrive in an AI-first world

January 17, 2018 No Comments

By Frederick Vallaeys

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will change the way search marketers do business. In the latest article in his multipart series on PPC and AI, columnist Frederick Vallaeys shares his strategies for keeping your agency successful in a world of AI-first PPC.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have long been part of PPC — so why are AI and machine learning all of a sudden such hot topics? It is, in part, because exponential advances have now brought technology to the point where it can legitimately compete with the performance and precision of human account managers.

I recently covered the new roles humans should play in PPC as automation takes over. In this post, I’ll offer some ideas for what online marketing agencies should consider doing to remain successful in a world of AI-driven PPC management.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]

By Frederick Vallaeys

Sourced from Marketing Land

In News

What the Advertising Industry Could Learn from Bots

October 27, 2017 No Comments

The application to the advertising industry is so obvious it is like a slap in the face with a wet fish.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Lately, social media has been all about heated exchanges and distribution of fake news. And right in the thick of these skirmishes are Twitter bots. They have certainly earned themselves a bad reputation, tweeting on behalf of politicians and driving troll trains through the media landscape with abandon.

But, not all bots are bad, according to a boffins at USC’s Information Sciences Institute. Computer scientist Emilio Ferrara undertook a large-scale experiment designed to analyse the spread of information on social networks. Ferrara teamed up with some Danish boffins from the Technical University of Denmark to deploy a network of “social bots,” programmed to spread positive messages on Twitter.

“We found that bots can be used to run interventions on social media that trigger or foster good behaviours,” says Ferrara, whose previous research focused on the proliferation of bots in the U.S. election campaign.

But it also revealed another intriguing pattern: information is much more likely to become viral when people are exposed to the same piece of information multiple times through multiple DIFERENT sources. Says Ferrara, “This milestone shatters a long-held belief that ideas spread like an infectious disease, or contagion, with each exposure resulting in the same probability of infection. Now we have seen empirically that when you are exposed to a given piece of information multiple times, your chances of adopting this information increase every time.”

To reach these conclusions, the researchers first developed a dozen positive hashtags, ranging from health tips to fun activities, such as encouraging users to get the flu shot, high-five a stranger and even Photoshop a celebrity’s face onto a turkey at Thanksgiving. Then, they designed a network of 39 bots to deploy these hashtags in a synchronised manner to 25,000 real followers during a four-month period from October to December 2016.

Each bot automatically recorded when a target user retweeted intervention-related content and also each exposure that had taken place prior to retweeting. Several hashtags received more than one hundred retweets and likes. “We also saw that every exposure increased the probability of adoption – there is a cumulative reinforcement effect,” says Ferrara. “It seems there are some cognitive mechanisms that reinforce your likelihood to believe in or adopt a piece of information when it is validated by multiple sources in your social network.”

This mechanism could explain, for example, why you might take one friend’s movie recommendation with a grain of salt. But the probability that you will also see that movie increases cumulatively as each additional friend makes the same recommendation.

This discovery could improve how positive intervention strategies are deployed in social networks in many scenarios, including public health announcements for disease control or emergency management in the wake of a crisis. The common approach is to have one broadcasting entity with many followers. But this study implies that it would be more effective to have multiple, decentralised bots share synchronised content.

Advertisers, mull this over. Bots can be your very best friend.

In News

8 Rules Of Positioning

October 2, 2017 No Comments

By Harsh Pamnani.

In a market crowded with a lot of brands offering similar products, a good positioning makes a brand and its products stand out from the competition

Getting in front of customers and prospects is an important thing, but more important thing is what you will communicate about your brand and product when you are in front of your audience. Positioning helps marketers to connect their brand and products best with their target audience. In a market crowded with a lot of brands offering similar products, a good positioning makes a brand and its products stand out from the competition.

Positioning is one of the most important components of marketing strategy and vital to success of any brand. Al Ries and Jack Trout, in their book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, introduce the subject by saying: Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.

Let’s have a look at a few important rules of positioning:

1. Positioning drives marketing strategy: The process of creating positioning statement requires identifying target audience; product category; product’s specific benefit, strengths and weaknesses and differentiation from the nearest competitor. Positioning drives all components of marketing strategy such as advertising, packaging, pricing, distribution, public relations, merchandising and brand communication. Additionally, strong positioning attracts partners, employees, investors, customers to associate with a company owning top positioned brands. Moreover, good positioning attracts influencers such as journalists, analysts, thought leaders etc. to cover a brand in their articles and reports. For example, in extremely competitive, coffee selling business, Starbucks has positioned itself as an upscale brand. Its stores’ locations, service, products display, packaging, socializing environment, pricing etc. are designed according to its positioning of an upscale brand.

2. Positioning is relative: In any category, customers think about brands relative to other brands in the same category. To gain strong position for its brands, a company must differentiate its brands and products from others in the market. The most important point is that differentiation has to be sustainable. Differentiations such as price and features can be surpassed by competition in some time but it is difficult for competition to surpass the differentiation of quality, service, availability and leadership. For example, there are many digital wallets such as PayTm, MobiKwik, Freecharge, BHIM, State Bank of India’s SBI Buddy etc. All of these wallets have almost similar features and pricing and solve the similar purpose, but in customers’ mind PayTm has taken up the top position and has strong perception of quality and leadership.

3. Positioning changes as market changes: In today’s fast changing world, products change, markets change, customers’ demands change, competition change, technologies change, regulations change and so on. These changes can create an opportunity for a new player to shake the positioning of an established player. For example, non-polluting electric vehicles are seen as norm of the future and Tesla is a prominent player in elegant electric vehicles. As per an article in recode, the 14-year-old company Tesla is now worth more than 113 year old company Ford. In a way, Tesla’s positioning seems to be surpassing Ford’s position.

4. Positioning is multidimensional: Positioning has multiple dimensions such as product positioning, market positioning, industry positioning and leaders’ positioning. Product positioning is defined by a company based on its strategy, focus on market segment, price point, distribution channel etc. Market positioning of a brand or product is defined by word of mouth of influencers such as customers, analysts, retailers, journalists, partners etc. Industry positioning is defined by revenue and profit of a company. And most importantly, success of company elevates the positioning of its leader. For example, iPhone is a product brand, Apple is a company brand and Steve Jobs is a leader brand. iPhone is positioned as a premium smart phone with higher price point targeted towards upper middle class and rich customers and available through selective channels. Positive word of mouth by influencers including customers has helped iPhone in gaining market recognition as the top positioned smart phone. Revenue through sales of iPhone helps Apple in achieving better positions in rankings such as Fortune 500. Success of Apple’s products such as iPhone has contributed to Steve Jobs’ position as one of the best business leaders. Again, Steve Jobs’ positioning as one of the best leaders drives positioning of his company, company’s products and so on.

5. Positioning evolves over time: As company grows over time, its market segments evolve, its products evolve and it’s positioning in market evolves. If a company is focussed on niche market segment then it has to position itself for niche customers. But over the time, when market segment evolves or when company tries to enter into adjacent market segments then its positioning evolves. For example, when Uber was new in India, smart phones were available with limited number of people and taxi riding was not a preferred option as compared to auto rickshaws. Initially, Uber targeted customers who were looking to enjoy a luxury experience, had smart phones and credit cards. It was positioned as a taxi ride service for classes. Later on, Uber expanded its offerings such as low cost small cars, medium cost sedans and higher cost big cars. It also expanded its services from point to point transfer to outstation travel, taxi hire for personal usage, economical ride sharing etc. Moreover, along with credit card, it started accepting money through PayTm and cash. This evolution not only expanded Uber’s market segment, but also their positions from a transportation option for classes to a transportation option for masses.

6. Positioning is strongest in the new category: In a mature category, there are already established players and to create its position, a brand has to compete with existing brands. But if a brand is able to create a new category then it can achieve leadership status in that category. For example, fast food is an overcrowded category with many popular brands such as McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell, Dominos, Dunkin Donuts, and Starbucks etc. But all of these brands have created their leadership positions in separate subcategories within fast food category. For example, McDonald’s is known for burgers, KFC is known for chicken, Subway for sandwiches, Taco Bell for Mexican food, Dominos for pizza delivery, Dunkin Donuts for donuts, Starbucks for coffee and so on. Though all these players try to enter into each other’s’ offerings but their positioning is strongest around their key fast food offerings.

7. Positioning is internal: The purpose of positioning statement is to align internal stakeholders such as marketing team, sales team, delivery team etc. on a common view of market. This alignment helps in having common interpretation of target audience, product category, differentiation from competitors, benefits for customers and so on. When everybody internally is on the same page, external communication becomes homogenous, relevant, targeted and clear. For example Harley-Davidson’s internal positioning statement is: The only motorcycle manufacturer that makes big, loud motorcycles for macho guys (and “macho wannabes”) mostly in the United States who wants to join a gang of cowboys in an era of decreasing personal freedom. Taglines are external facing catch phrases that summarize positioning statement extremely concisely. For Harley-Davidson, tagline is “Define your world in a whole new way.”

8. Positioning gets spoiled by brand extension: Brand extension is a common method used by companies to launch a new product by using an existing brand name on a new product in a different category. A company using brand extension hopes to leverage its existing customer base and brand loyalty to increase its profits with a new product offering. If a company expands its business too fast by launching multiple products using its powerful brand name, then it is necessary for it to maintain quality. If quality of a few of the products of a respected brand is bad, then customers no matter how loyal they are will start rethinking about the brand. Lowered image of a few products in customers’ mind would eventually impact the brand position and the business’ revenue. For example, Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali brand has a strong positioning in Ayurvedic products. But since last few years, Patanjali has been launching many new products in different categories and that’s too fast. There have been incidences when government’s food safety departments have raised questions on a few of the Patanjali’s products. Though strong brand name of Baba Ramdev and Patanjali have helped the company to launch and distribute many new products, quality concerns on a few products, effect overall positioning of the brand Patanjali.

(Views expressed are author’s personal and don’t necessarily represent any company’s opinions.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house. Unless otherwise noted, the author is writing in his/her personal capacity. They are not intended and should not be thought to represent official ideas, attitudes, or policies of any agency or institution.

By Harsh Pamnani

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Artificial intelligence and the coming health revolution

June 28, 2017 No Comments

By Rob Lever.

Your next doctor could very well be a bot. And bots, or automated programs, are likely to play a key role in finding cures for some of the most difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving into health care, led by some of the biggest technology companies and emerging startups using it to diagnose and respond to a raft of conditions.

Consider these examples:

— California researchers detected cardiac arrhythmia with 97 percent accuracy on wearers of an Apple Watch with the AI-based Cariogram application, opening up early treatment options to avert strokes.

— Scientists from Harvard and the University of Vermont developed a machine learning tool — a type of AI that enables computers to learn without being explicitly programmed — to better identify depression by studying Instagram posts, suggesting “new avenues for early screening and detection of mental illness.”

— Researchers from Britain’s University of Nottingham created an algorithm that predicted heart attacks better than doctors using conventional guidelines.While technology has always played a role in medical care, a wave of investment from Silicon Valley and a flood of data from connected devices appear to be spurring innovation.

“I think a tipping point was when Apple released its Research Kit,” said Forrester Research analyst Kate McCarthy, referring to a program letting Apple users enable data from their daily activities to be used in medical studies.

McCarthy said advances in artificial intelligence has opened up new possibilities for “personalized medicine” adapted to individual genetics.

“We now have an environment where people can weave through clinical research at a speed you could never do before,” she said.

Predictive analytics

AI is better known in the tech field for uses such as autonomous driving, or defeating experts in the board game Go.

But it can also be used to glean new insights from existing data such as electronic health records and lab tests, says Narges Razavian, a professor at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine who led a research project on predictive analytics for more than 100 medical conditions.

“Our work is looking at trends and trying to predict (disease) six months into the future, to be able to act before things get worse,” Razavian said.

— NYU researchers analyzed medical and lab records to accurately predict the onset of dozens of diseases and conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart or kidney failure and stroke. The project developed software now used at NYU which may be deployed at other medical facilities.

— Google’s DeepMind division is using artificial intelligence to help doctors analyze tissue samples to determine the likelihood that b****t and other cancers will spread, and develop the best radiotherapy treatments.

— Microsoft, Intel and other tech giants are also working with researchers to sort through data with AI to better understand and treat lung, b****t and other types of cancer.

— Google parent Alphabet’s life sciences unit Verily has joined Apple in releasing a smartwatch for studies including one to identify patterns in the progression of Parkinson’s disease. Amazon meanwhile offers medical advice through applications on its voice-activated artificial assistant Alexa.

IBM has been focusing on these issues with its Watson Health unit, which uses “cognitive computing” to help understand cancer and other diseases.

When IBM’s Watson computing system won the TV game show Jeopardy in 2011, “there were a lot of folks in health care who said that is the same process doctors use when they try to understand health care,” said Anil Jain, chief medical officer of Watson Health.

Systems like Watson, he said, “are able to connect all the disparate pieces of information” from medical journals and other sources “in a much more accelerated way.”

“Cognitive computing may not find a cure on day one, but it can help understand people’s behavior and habits” and their impact on disease, Jain said.

It’s not just major tech companies moving into health.

Research firm CB Insights this year identified 106 digital health startups applying machine learning and predictive analytics “to reduce drug discovery times, provide virtual assistance to patients, and diagnose ailments by processing medical images.”

Maryland-based startup Insilico Medicine uses so-called “deep learning” to shorten drug testing and approval times, down from the current 10 to 15 years.

“We can take 10,000 compounds and narrow that down to 10 to find the most promising ones,” said Insilico’s Qingsong Zhu.

Insilico is working on drugs for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer and age-related diseases, aiming to develop personalized treatments.

Finding depression

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly seen as a means for detecting depression and other mental illnesses, by spotting patterns that may not be obvious, even to professionals.

A research paper by Florida State University’s Jessica Ribeiro found it can predict with 80 to 90 percent accuracy whether someone will attempt suicide as far off as two years into the future.

Facebook uses AI as part of a test project to prevent suicides by analyzing social network posts.

And San Francisco’s Woebot Labs this month debuted on Facebook Messenger what it dubs the first chatbot offering “cognitive behavioral therapy” online — partly as a way to reach people wary of the social stigma of seeking mental health care.

New technologies are also offering hope for rare diseases.

Boston-based startup FDNA uses facial recognition technology matched against a database associated with over 8,000 rare diseases and genetic disorders, sharing data and insights with medical centers in 129 countries via its Face2Gene application.

Cautious optimism

Lynda Chin, vice chancellor and chief innovation officer at the University of Texas System, said she sees “a lot of excitement around these tools” but that technology alone is unlikely to translate into wide-scale health benefits.

One problem, Chin said, is that data from sources as disparate as medical records and Fitbits is difficult to access due to privacy and other regulations.

More important, she said, is integrating data in health care delivery where doctors may be unaware of what’s available or how to use new tools.

“Just having the analytics and data get you to step one,” said Chin. “It’s not just about putting an app on the app store.”

By Rob Lever.

Sourced from MSN News