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It’s been a hectic 15 months for marketers. The sudden, almost complete switch to digital channels, changed consumer behavior and falling budgets have shaken many marketing departments. The return to normal will be slow, if at all. The pandemic has accelerated the disruption to marketing so much that areas like immersive technology and advanced AI – areas where marketers likely thought they had more time to research before providing them – are now necessary to meet consumer needs. who demand a customer experience with hybrid channels. Let’s look at a few topics that marketers ignore at their own risk.

Digital guardianship

A look at the headlines shows that data breaches against organizations occur almost daily. These violations include illegally accessing millions of accounts and terabytes of data. Understandably, customers are unsettled. McKinsey found that 87% of consumers would not do business with a company if they had concerns about their data security practices. And 73% of consumers believe the use of their data is “out of control”, according to Futurum Research. That’s a pretty amazing number.

Why Should Marketers Be Concerned? Because the foundation of every relationship is trust. Digital guardianship or protecting customer data is not just a necessity, it’s a competitive advantage.

How can marketers help maintain the trust placed in them by consumers?

• Use thoughtful data management efforts like governance, compliance, security, and protection.
• Provide proactive and transparent communication with consumers about how their data is being used. This includes information about which settings you have selected, which opt-out options are available and which data is recorded.

Related article: Customer Confidence: Are We Experiencing an Existential Crisis?

From customer engagement to customer participation

The pandemic has changed consumer behavior significantly. We consume services differently. We switch loyalty from one brand to the next. Expect a new marketing term to gain momentum as brands respond to these changes.

Have you heard of “relevance as a service”? Or create a participatory customer experience? Here products, services and experiences are constantly adapting to the changing needs of the customer. A good example of relevance as a service is many of the subscription services available today. Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime are great examples – they roll in tenure, are highly personalized, and are constantly changing and changing for continued relevance on an individual level.

How do marketers deliver relevance as a service?

• Brands need to rely on agility and automation more than ever.
• Rely on immersive technology to connect with customers in real time; B. by using mixed reality for customer support, prototyping and learning.
• Use conversational AI to achieve personalized and participatory customer loyalty.

Related article: Moving from customer loyalty to customer involvement

Understand and prevent bias in AI

The AI ​​in marketing is developing rapidly and helps with the selection of content, offers and delivery rates for better personalization. As the analytical algorithms used for marketing continue to advance, it is imperative that AI results are not misinterpreted and used inadvertently biased through customer loyalty channels. How can marketers prevent this from happening?

• If possible, test algorithms and models using samples and entire data sets. Code check the algorithms.
• Run control groups through personalization initiatives to see how personalization results are being delivered and how much bias there is.
• Remove data variables that contribute to bias from models, retrain the models, and then measure the difference in predictions (which affect personalization) to understand which variables are contributing to the bias.
• Finally, explain the algorithm to downstream marketers in order to identify and fix deficiencies in the algorithms.

Related article: Ethical AI is our responsibility

Pioneers in areas such as immersive tech

Futurum Research published its “The Experience 2030” survey in 2019, which found that 60% of consumers expect immersive technology to be deployed by 2025. Fast forward to 2021. After experiencing (and adjusting) the pandemic, consumers cut their schedule significantly. Look at these statistics:

• In 2019, 23% of consumers expected delivery by drone or autonomous vehicle in the coming year. Now 60% expect it by 2022.
• Before the pandemic, 65% of consumers expected smart assistants by 2025, but now 70% plan to deploy them by 2022.
• In 2019, 69% of consumers surveyed expected to use AR and VR to test products in 2021. Now 63% of consumers are ready to use AR and VR to visit remote locations, up from 56% in the previous survey.

How does this affect marketers? With immersive technologies, brands can engage with customers in real time (see previous section on relevance as a service). According to the survey, a third of brands will accelerate their investments in technology in the next two years, prioritizing the most important immersive technology areas, including voice-based AI assistants for sales and marketing, holograms for customer support or instruction, voice-based embedded in products or services AI assistants as well as AR and VR for customer instructions and support.

So what is the takeaway? Marketers have some big new frontiers to consider. Let us lead the way – adapting to new operating and engagement models and modernizing our technology infrastructures as we move forward. Addressing these emerging issues now ensures that our brands remain relevant to the consumers of the future.

Jonathan Moran covers the global product marketing activities at SAS, with an emphasis on customer experience and marketing technologies. Prior to SAS, Jon gained over 20 years of marketing and analytics industry experience at Earnix and Teradata Corporation in pre-sales, consulting and marketing.