Answering Questions, Providing Solutions
This week’s conference on AI highlighted the importance of answering customer questions as a marketing strategy, showing how personalized solutions enhance brand engagement and drive growth.
My Interesting Conversations
Five Things To Share
Insights Video: Using Personalization to Generate Growth
Join The Personalize Academy For Free!
1. My Interesting Conversations
With my book launch coming up next week, life has been full of conference and podcast appearances. But all of those are also an opportunity to learn. I spoke this week at GenerativeAI World in Boston, a terrific two-day event with a great mix of companies adopting new AI tools to reshape their businesses, as well as pioneers in developing new AI capabilities.
Sometimes you hear things that alter your point of view. Substantially. I had the pleasure of meeting Pete Blackshaw, founder of Brandrank.ai, who said "great marketing answers questions."
Building on my post last week about Brandlight.ai, I realized how true this was. In an era where chatbot tools now exist to answer one's questions, being in those engines, with answers to people's personal questions, is of course, becoming one of the most powerful ways of marketing. But the implications of this are broader. Think about this as a marketer.
Beyond being in LLM's, are you answering people's questions about what to use for a specific need? where to go to get something? why one thing is better than another? which companies share my interests and values? And the more questions your brand answers, the larger impression you make, whether that comes from social media, sports endorsements, search presence, etc.
In her recent eye-opening book, "The Power of Instinct," Leslie Zane cites the criticality of building up a presence in the brain's "connectome," that accumulates with exposure. But those exposures have to provide some kind of meaning to stick.
As marketers, especially in a time when customers are empowered more than ever before to ask questions and get answers, we need to open our marketing strategies with "what are the questions we need to answer from different key audiences?" Not just what message we want to send. What questions to answer.
And I would argue that a corollary is that Customer Experience design has to "provide solutions." Solutions that are easy, fast, and empowering. And increasingly doing so will require knowing even more about the customer to help them get what they need, or what will truly delight them. At the GenAI conference, there was a lot of talk about expanded "context windows" now available in more of the foundational AI services.
That means that, along with whatever you are asking, you can provide large amounts of contextual information about yourself and what you are looking for. A document to evaluate is a classic example. But it also means that, in the moment, the AI tool can seek and pull as much information about you as it has permission to get access to.
So, if you use a chatbot to figure out how to do something that could be complex (such as liberating the locked-up assets of a deceased relative, which I recently had to do), the system can go and find all the relevant information, in that moment, about your specific situation. Again, this only increases the potential for ever-more personalized solutions.
So, even faster than the trends we cite in the book, personalization capabilities, and likely expectations of them, are expanding. But it takes way more than the tools. It takes a company perspective that prioritizes a customer's point of view over the company's transactional drive. It means figuring out the right questions to answer, how to address them in an engaging, ideally pro-active way, when someone wants to ask (or realizes they should have already asked). It means prioritizing solutions, not just cost deflection, in handling customers.
In our upcoming HBR article that accompanies our book launch, Mark Abraham and I describe the Personalization Index we developed to measure the quality of one's capabilities and the experiences one delivers, correlated with financial impact. Leaders who focus on personalization, and prioritize answering questions and providing solutions grow at least double the rate of laggards.
How is your executive team talking about Personalization as a competitive, growth strategy? Is anyone banging on the table, making sure the team is taking the customer's view? There is more and more opportunity if you do.
2. Five Things To Share
Releasing on October 15: “PERSONALIZED: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI,” co-authored by myself and Mark Abraham from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is your new guide to enhancing customer experience through personalization.
Personalization is essential during every step of the customer journey. In my new book, Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, co-authored with Boston Consulting Group’s Mark Abraham, we explain why this is the personalization playbook that every company needs: Read Here.
AI-driven personalization offers numerous benefits, such as more precise customer demand forecasting and optimized supply and staffing management. From personalized shopping experiences and product recommendations to virtual try-ons, AI is revolutionizing retail in countless ways. It’s also enhancing customer service, demand forecasting, and supply management. More Here.
Mark Abraham and I recently published a WIRED article highlighting how Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is flipping the script on digital marketing, helping brands personalize their approach, and empowering consumers. Check it out by clicking HERE.
Mark Abraham’s new TED Conferences talk explores the powerful part personalization can play in the age of AI. Watch the video below for a key mindset that can help companies boost their growth (and delight their customers) in this exciting era of technology. More Here.
3. Insights Video: Using Personalization to Generate Growth
4. Join The Personalize Academy For Free!
Come join ‘The Personalize Academy’ here:
Unlock a world of personalization for free! Here's what you’ll get:
Daily Content Posts on Personalization: Dive into daily insights and stay ahead of the curve with the latest trends and developments in personalization.
Weekly Quizzes and Polls: Test your knowledge and engage with interactive quizzes and polls, gaining real-time feedback and insights into tech adoption and application.
Community Access: Connect with a dynamic community forum where you can share ideas, ask questions, and collaborate with peers passionate about personalized marketing.
Monthly Newsletters: Get exclusive updates packed with actionable tips, emerging trends, and essential news to keep you at the forefront of personalized marketing.
Monthly Live Webinars and Q&A Sessions: Join free live webinars and Q&A sessions with industry experts to enhance your knowledge and get answers to your burning questions.
Join for free today and elevate your expertise in personalized marketing!
You can reach out to me directly on the detail below, and I look forward to how we can learn together!
Thanks,
Dave
Contact Me:
I work with a range of companies, from large $5+bn enterprises who are trying to grasp the opportunities that AI offers, to marketing businesses who are bringing exciting innovative solutions to market.
You can reach me here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveedelman
Website: https://www.edelmanadvisoryservices.com/
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