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to identify its competitors’ latest products, services, offers, and pricing, but also to guide how the company could best react to win a greater share of the market. Upserve used the tool to help determine which changes it should make to its product offerings as well as how and when to update its sales and marketing materials to show its offerings in the best light compared with its competitors. As a result, its client win rate against its top five competitors rose 54 percent. The solution also saved Upserve’s senior product marketing manager eight hours of work a week.


Not Just for the Big Guys As these examples show, you needn’t be a billion-dollar business to have access to AI. Yet according to IT industry analyst firm Techaisle, only 22 percent of small businesses in the United States (those with fewer than 100 employees) plan to adopt some form of AI, and just 5 percent are already doing so. Among midsize businesses (those with 100–999 employees), 28 percent plan to implement AI, while 26 percent already use it to some degree. One factor preventing SMBs from adopting AI tools is cost—or the perceived cost. However, the rapid increase of providers and solutions has resulted in a plethora of options available at a vast array of price points. A more significant reason might be fear of the unknown and misconceptions of how accessible and practical AI really is. “For many, the term AI is a black box that they don’t understand,” says Tink Taylor, Founder and President of marketing solutions provider dotDigital. “People like what they know, and they don’t know the new marketing platform products like recommendations or predictive analytics.” Yet, Taylor says, “AI is becoming—and


will become—more and more central to marketing platforms.” So, ignorance is not bliss when it comes to artificial intelligence. Organizations that fail to integrate AI into their marketing efforts, especially as more of their competitors do, might find ignorance more costly than implementation. 


Tink Taylor’s


Tips on Getting Started It’s one thing to understand the value of integrating artificial intelligence into your marketing operations. Knowing the best way to do so is another. Below are some tips to help get you started.


Identify your options. You don’t need to know the intricacies of the Turing test or what hidden Markov models are before you can benefit from AI applications. But you should understand the basic concepts of AI, which tools are available to you through any third parties you are currently working with, and what problems these tools can help solve. Even if you aren’t a programmer, looking into articles and introductory tutorials on, say, TensorFlow (a free open-source machine-learning platform) can show you ways AI could benefit your organization.


“Understand what you want AI to do for you,” says Tink Taylor. “Do you want to increase your engagement through click-through rates? Or do you need to increase order rates? Or something else completely?”


Integrate and clean up your data. An AI solution is only as good as the data it draws upon. For example: if you’ll be using data from the sales and customer service departments as well as from marketing, but each group formats their records differently, the data set needs to be made consistent before you can successfully implement an AI solution.


Start small and simple. “Use product recommendations in an email campaign or on your landing page to see how it works for you,” Taylor recommends. “Then, when you have seen value, you can scale up with AI to things like predictive engines for a single customer view. When you have seen the value that these bring, start to bring a more holistic AI view into your marketing with AI personalization and optimization, such as through campaign content.”


Consider out-of-the-box solutions and free trials. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel—or the AI program. Especially for SMBs, ready-made solutions can help with everything from suggesting blog content most likely to drive conversions to identifying which customer segments you should target via which channels. What’s more, many providers offer free trials. Making use of those will help you avoid falling prey to the illusion of what Taylor calls “the silver bullet, or a piece of technology that apparently solves all your business issues magically.” He says, “Technology vendors are wonderful at spinning stories, so if it’s possible, request a test-drive first.”


Establish KPIs and other metrics before you test, then continue to review them throughout the rollout. “Don’t forget your traditional marketing skills,” Taylor says, “and delve into the results you see to understand what’s making a difference.”


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