How can brands elevate marketing by leveraging AI to effectively attract new customers while retaining the loyalty of existing ones? The answer lies in strategically applying “Human-Centric” AI, in very different ways, across the two halves of marketing: customer attraction and customer retention. By understanding these distinct phases, brands can harness AI to not only draw in new customers but also build lasting relationships that drive long-term success.
Customer Attraction: Building Brand Promise (And Past Programmatic)
In today’s noisy, attention-starved market, how do you attract new customers? The trend is shifting away from efficient-but-ineffective digital programmatic advertising, and returning to a more holistic approach. One centred on omnichannel brand building and balancing the long and the short. At the core of this strategy is establishing the Brand Promise; the specific value or job that a brand commits to delivering to customers.
This shift is crucial, as research shows that potential customers are “in-market” only about 2% of the time (if that). The other 98%, they aren’t actively seeking to make a purchase, therefore persuasive messaging (programmatic) is mostly irrelevant and largely wasted. This makes it essential for brands to communicate their brand promise in a way that creates a lasting impression and resonates with future customers even when these customers are not yet ready to buy (and may not be for some time).
AI plays a pivotal role in this phase by enhancing creativity and the understanding of the jobs the market will hire the brand to do. Machine learning and generative AI can help brands craft compelling narratives that capture attention and foster future brand recall among new audiences when they enter the market to purchase. Contrary to a decade of industry practice, the use of second and third-party personal data at this phase has now been shown to be worse than useless. By analysing situational intent signals and contextual data, AI tools can identify the right moments and channels to engage potential customers, ensuring that the Brand Promise is communicated effectively as potential new customers enter the market.
Customer Retention: Delivering on the Brand Promise
Once a brand successfully attracts a customer, how does it keep them engaged? The focus then shifts to retention—making sure the brand consistently delivers on its promise. What has the new customer hired the brand to do, what are their expectations, what is the customer’s definition of success, a job well delivered?
This is where AI’s role becomes more prescriptive and personal. AI tools can deeply understand individual customer needs and preferences, analysing real-life contexts to ensure the brand delivers personalised experiences that meet or exceed expectations.
Zero-party data, voluntarily shared by customers, becomes invaluable in this stage. However, we have to expand our definition of Zero-Party Data to include participation by customers with the contribution of broad behavioural life data. From this perspective, customers hire the brand to get the job done for them and assist the brand in doing so by sharing additional relevant information about their lives, transparently, securely and confidentialy, with privacy guaranteed. At DataSapien we call this simultaneously deeply personal, and 100% private, marketing: “OmniPersonal Marketing”.
By processing this data directly on the customer’s device, DataSapien’s edge AI technology enables brands to gain deep insights into what customers truly want and intent signals about when they want them. This approach not only respects customer privacy but also ensures that the brand can consistently meet their promised outcomes and anticipates future needs to serve. Fostering loyalty and long-term engagement to earn trust and enhanced profits in doing so.
The Positive Feedback Loop: Leveraging Retail Media
The synergy between customer retention and attraction is most evident with the emergence of retail media. When executed correctly, retail media can use insights gained from the retention marketing process to inform the next cycle of customer attraction. What types of jobs do different types of people need to be done, and in what context? By leveraging Zero-Party Data from retention efforts, brands can create a positive feedback loop, where each successful retention cycle enhances the effectiveness of future attraction strategies.
In conclusion, we believe that marketing is ready to be elevated, by strategically applying AI across both customer attraction and retention. Brands can then build strong, lasting relationships with their customers. This not only drives immediate sales but also ensures long-term success in a ever more competitive marketplace.
For more technical information on how we achieve this with the DataSapien Edge Architecture an overview is available here. Or checkout the DataSapien Developer Portal.
If you have any comments or questions, please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
