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Machine Learning in Marketing: 3 key trends

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Marketing professionals face increasing complexity due to the explosion of digital and data touchpoints, as well as unprecedented consumers’ expectations in terms of interaction, content, and offer personalization. They came to realize that Machine Learning (ML) is the only possible way to cope with this level of complexity. Machine learning is developing under the great promise that marketing can now be both more efficient and human . The diffusion of intelligent models can be noticed in three key areas : 1. Inside Marketing Technologies ML is powering many of the marketing software (enterprise solutions, individual tools or apps) that marketers require to turn the vast array of historical data into actionable insights. “AI algorithms and technologies are going to be deeply embedded at every layer of what the marketing software is.” - Scott Brinker, VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot  Figure 1. Marketing and AI Technologies dependencies Companies receive bo...
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Brand Ambassador Community: 5 reasons why you need one

1. Every brand lover regularly uses a  set of brands  from several product categories to express his or her personality. Brand lovers have a simultaneous emotional connection with multiple brands in their daily life. Brand communities will no longer form around a single brand (e.g. Nutella) but around a network of brands (e.g. Nutella + Apple + Mini + Gucci).  2. Brands see themselves at the very  center of a relationship  with thousands - if not millions - of consumers. A Brand Manager needs to realize the limited importance that people attribute to a single brand.  Brands will no longer be the focal point of brand community, single consumers with their sophisticated consumption habits will. 3. People out there have  brand preferences  that are similar to yours and current technology allows us to bring these invisible links to life enabling the creation of communities...
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Does Apple need Social Media?

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The world’s most valuable company and the second-most valuable brand doesn’t have an official social presence. A decade after the rise of social media, a significant number of ‘digital experts’ still find Apple’s indifference to social platforms puzzling, to say the least. The notoriously social-shy giant hired some of the best talents in digital last year and begun spreading corporate messages through their executives on Twitter. Apart from owning the social network Ping, the monitoring company Topsy and using the platforms LinkedIn for recruitment and YouTube  (were comments are turned off) , Apple seems to refuse joining the rush to social. Its CEO, Tim Cook, publicly stated ‘ We have no plans to be in the social networking area ’, also referring to a hypothetical competitive attack against Facebook. A few questions might have popped up in your mind. 1) Why Apple is so adverse to social media?  There are at least four good reasons why an organization like Apple d...
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Brand Ambassadors, Brand Advocates or Brand Influencers? 10 key differences

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A recurring discussion in marketing departments is how to  identify, engage and collaborate  with strategic individuals given the numerous possibilities offered by digital technology. Although the involvement of influential people has become a common practice in several industries, their role and contribution are often misinterpreted by managers, creating a sense of  general confusion in the field . Recent technological and sociological changes heavily contributed to the rise of empowered consumers  that communicate on behalf of brands, also enlarging the meaning of the term  ‘influencer’ . A regular consumer can today evolve into recognized brand influencer, advocate or ambassador, without necessarily being a celebrity or professional endorser with millions of fans. Although, I have noticed a convergence of these three strategic profiles, I believe there are still  significant peculiarities among them . Brand Influencer : is usually a celebri...
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The Social Media Plan [Framework]

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As a  Social Media Manager ,   you are responsible to ideate and implement a social media plan. Similarly to any other plan, this should be composed by three main parts:  analytic   (WHO) ,  strategic   (WHAT),  and  executive   (HOW) . The definition of your social media strategy starts with the  understanding of your brand and the communities  you wants to reach. The  WHO  phase tries to capture all the information related to heritage of your brand, its equity, shared values, beliefs and most importantly of the  brand ideals  on which your content strategy will be centered  (see my previous article ‘Brand Ideals definition’) . A sophisticated understanding of your brand naturally leads you to the analysis of your communities. Previously generated marketing documents that aim at facilitating managers’ understanding of your stakeholders and brand positioning should be properly reviewed ah...
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Mobile Apps Categories

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Assessing the different typologies of mobile apps made available to users, it is rather intuitive to notice  4 main categories of software applications . If we go beyond the single features contained inside an app, we can observe that almost the totality of mobile applications can be conceptually included in the following categories:  education, information, entertainment, and utility . There are applications purely ‘ EDUCATIONAL ’ serving the purpose of educating people on a large variety of topics. Successful examples of educational apps are Udemy , an online learning platform that allows instructors to host courses, and TED , a global set of conferences held under the slogan ‘ideas worth spreading’. Also popular e-learning platforms for kids, such as  Dragonbox Algebra , use interactive teaching methods for educational purposes. Opposite to the educational apps, we find in the figure those focusing on ‘ INFORMATIONAL’  content. Popular information-based apps...
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