The good old "Aunt Emma" is considered the gold standard and reference point for personalized and empathetic one-to-one communication. The disadvantage of this highly personalized approach is poor scalability. In the following, I would like to present possibilities to even surpass this high benchmark with Smart Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The digital giants of the GAFA world show that automation through intelligent algorithms does not have to contradict the customer experience, but on the contrary, can enable a new level of customer experience.
AI as a Game Changer
In recent years, AI has provided immense development in entrepreneurial practices. While Industry 4.0 focuses on optimizing and automating production and logistics processes, AI is increasingly addressing administrative, directive, and planning processes in marketing, sales, and management on the path to becoming a holistic Algorithmic Enterprise. The topic of AI is often one-dimensionally associated with chatbots in dialogue marketing, but the solution space is much larger.
Traditional B-to-B Sales & Marketing is outdated:
Sales & Marketing in the B-to-B sector is still dominated by old-school methods, with digital innovations being scarce. While Sales & Targeting in the B-to-C market has significantly progressed and successfully utilizes innovative Smart Data and AI solutions, the B-to-B sector lags behind. Standard emails and pseudo-personalized mailings are often sent, missing their intended impact. Online advertising is either not utilized or has low conversion rates. Call center teams mechanically engage in cold calling, following the typical "spam principle": Someone will eventually be interested, "fall" and buy. Classic address vendors and information providers often supply outdated and irrelevant company addresses with limited sales and targeting information.
Performance knows no separation between One-to-One and Targeting:
For many years, the holistic customer journey has been preached, yet the majority of companies still maintain a classic separation between offline and online communication. However, these are the same customers who are simply targeted through different channels. This has little to do with a proper customer journey.
Customers are not "online" or "offline".
Customers are people - even in the B-to-B sector. Because ultimately, people are still the ones acting. Established organizational structures and the dogmatic separation between "classic" and "digital", as well as "one-to-one communication" and "paid media targeting", stand in the way. Sales teams approach the same leads and customers through calling and mailing as their performance marketing colleagues - usually uncoordinated and, above all, inefficiently.
Aunt Emma in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Smart Data
"Aunt Emma" is practically the epitome of personalized customer relationships. However, the disadvantage of this highly personalized approach is poor scalability. Consequently, with the increasing industrialization and automation, the efficiency of customer communication was optimized at the expense of customer experience. The segment-specific one-to-many approach aimed to improve the customer experience once again. Big Data combined with AI now has the potential to develop sales, marketing, and service towards a higher level of maturity with better performance in the context of CRM 2.0. ...to be continued...