Marketing trends 2020: Has AI arrived in business?
As part of this year’s «AI for Business» conference, which was held virtually, software manufacturer BSI and Ai-Zürich conducted a survey on marketing trends in 2020 and examined whether and how AI is used in everyday work.
Everyone is talking about automation and (hyper)personalization thanks to artificial intelligence, but have these trends really arrived in DACH companies? The results indicate that although AI, automation and personalization are very important, most companies are not yet technically equipped for them.
1. personalization and automation are winning the race
48% of respondents see automation and personalization as the most important marketing trend in 2020, followed by customer centricity and omnichannel (24%), and purpose in the sense of authentic and meaningful customer communication (16%). Only 4% of respondents see the active involvement of customers in marketing (participation & co-creation) as the most important trend.
A comparison between SMEs with up to 250 employees and large companies reveals interesting differences: a majority of 61% in large companies see automation as the dominant trend, compared to only 35% in SMEs. The latter consider meaningful, authentic communication to be more important than large companies (22% compared to 11%). One possible explanation: SMEs may have the impression that automation projects are too expensive for them or that the effort is not worth it.
62% of the professionals surveyed see hyper-personalization as an "exciting trend that needs to be responded to", but content, services and products are only actually tailored to the customer in around a third of cases (28%). 23% of companies have not even addressed this trend yet. So there is still some catching up to do here.
2. AI enthusiasts hope for support at work
Three out of four experts from marketing and IT are convinced that artificial intelligence offers them added value in their business (73%). However, just under a third have respect for the possibilities of AI (27%) and 13% believe it should be more strictly regulated.
AI is already present in everyday life: 72% of respondents confirmed that they use AI tools such as DeepL, Alexa and people recognition on their smartphone, while 23% of professionals even use AI as an integral part of their work. Only 7% stated that they do not use AI applications at all. When asked whether AI will change their work in the next 10 years, 9% answered in the negative. They are convinced that AI will not be able to do their job. Only 3% fear that their job will no longer exist. The vast majority of respondents (88%), on the other hand, are optimistic and expect AI to support them in their work.
"Only a quarter of respondents are already benefiting from AI in their jobs. This confirms me in my mission to make an important contribution to the use of artificial intelligence in DACH companies with Ai-zurich. My team and I want to show professionals from all areas of the company how they can use AI profitably. It is and remains exciting and challenging," says Sophie Hundertmark, founder of Ai-zurich, commenting on the results.
3. reality check: marketing automation is still a long way from being established
Only just under a third of respondents (29%) already use marketing automation in combination with a CRM. 38% stated that the combination of CRM and marketing automation makes sense, but is not (yet) in place in their company. 14% stated that they do not use marketing automation and roughly the same number have neither a CRM nor marketing automation in use (15%).
If the size of the company is also taken into account here, it becomes apparent: Around a third of corporate groups use a combination of CRM and marketing automation (37%), while the figure for SMEs is significantly lower (22%). 24% of SMEs use neither CRM nor marketing automation, while only 7% of large companies have to make do without both in lead and customer management.
"The prerequisite for automated, personalized and data-driven customer communication is professional data management and a 360-degree customer view. This is not possible without a CRM system. But only in combination with marketing automation and an omnichannel approach can customer and lead management be brought up to a contemporary level," comments Claude Schuler, Marketing Automation Specialist at BSI, on the BSI trend analysis.
The survey sample is made up as follows: 92 participants were surveyed, 28% are from the marketing/communications sector, 25% from the IT sector, 23% are in the management of a company, 7% work in sales, 4% in service and 12% in other areas.
