9 New Insights Into How AI Will Shape Sales and Marketing: E-Commerce Link Digest

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¡Hola, Big Thinkers! The boss is enjoying some sun, sand, and surf in sunny Mexico, so we hope you won’t object while we skip the setup this week and jump straight into this week’s round-up of 9 new insights into how AI will shape sales and marketing. Enjoy:

1. Steve Zakur at SoloSegment wrote a really cool piece that explores the myth of automation and why it’s important to have humans in the loop. You’ll definitely want to check that one out. Steve’s post makes a fantastic companion to our look at why AI won’t steal your job but smart people who put AI to work will.
2. MarTech Today has published the CMO’s guide to AI’s marketing impact for 2018 that’s well worth your time.
3. One of the first things you’ve got to get right in AI is clean data, as Harvard Business Review says. They point out that if your data is bad, your machine learning tools are useless. And that’s the truth.
4. Mike Moran made a similar suggestion in our discussion on the future of content marketing, search, and digital.
5. Emarketer released new research that shows, despite its promise, marketers struggle to integrate AI into their workflow. That’s undoubtedly something marketers will need to address since “…[survey respondents] indicated… one of the main benefits of AI is more productivity and time savings, the top advantage cited was… it provides a better understanding of the customer.” And those benefits are too important for sophisticated marketers to pass up.
6. Given these changes, the Sloan Review from MIT’s Sloan School of Management states that the time for retraining is now. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, we’ve put together this look at “How to Keep Up With Technology as a Marketer: The Quick and Dirty Guide” and noted that “in digital marketing, practice does not make perfect. perfect practice makes perfect” more than once.
7. Persado offered up another way to improve with its tips on what to look for in an artificial intelligence and machine learning company as a marketer that you’ll want to check out.
8. If you’re still not convinced of the important role AI will play in marketing in the coming years, be sure to check out this look at where AI will affect sales and marketing first—and most and these 7 ways you can use AI in B2B sales and marketing right away.
9. And, finally, you’ve got to check out this set of 11 extraordinary insights into AI and e-commerce from the past week to wrap up these 9 new insights into how AI will shape sales and marketing.

Have a fantastic weekend, Big Thinkers. Catch you back here next week!

If you’re looking to learn even more about how changing customer behavior will shape your marketing going forward, be sure an register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” While it’s targeted specifically at hotel and resort marketers, the lessons apply to just about any business. You can get your free copy of the report here.

You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

Finally, you might enjoy some of these past posts from Thinks to help you build your e-commerce strategy and your digital success:

• 6 Mobile Commerce and Strategy Insights: E-commerce Link Digest
• Content is Still the King
• The Digital Strategy Myth
• Why Mobile Payments Will Rule
• Driving Seamless Experiences in 2016 (Thinks Out Loud Episode 149)
• Mobile is So Much Bigger Than You Think (Thinks Out Loud Episode 140)
• It’s Not “Mobile First.” It’s “Customer First.”
• 8 Killer Entries About Improving E-commerce Experience: E-commerce Link Digest