Make the most out of every interaction and drive higher engagement with predictive analytics
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As customers continue to expect personalized experiences from the brands that communicate with them, predictive technology will help businesses continue to evolve these strategies at scale.
That’s why in the coming years, more and more companies are going to start tapping into the world of predictive analytics to serve their customers better, and your marketing strategy needs to reflect this.
It’s a powerful tool that takes the manual work out of creating personalized content and ensures that each message sent to your customers is timely and relevant based on their real-time interactions.
If you haven’t already started to dabble into predictive analytics, now’s a perfect time. It will help you refresh your marketing strategy and make the most out of every interaction with your customers.
In this article, we’ll discuss what predictive analytics is, provide you with a few ways it can help you refresh your marketing strategy, and leave you with seven platforms to consider to make the most out of your efforts.
Just looking for a few marketing platforms with predictive analytics technology? Here’s a peek at the ones we’ll cover:
- Listrak
- Maropost
- Act-on
- Emarsys
- Keap
- Optimove
- Upland
Predictive Analytics 101
Before diving into how predictive analytics can refresh your marketing strategy, you first need to understand what it is.
Predictive analytics uses real-time customer data and statistical techniques such as machine learning and predictive modeling to determine your customers’ future needs and actions.
That means that you can use current customer insights to anticipate and react to the actions your customers are likely to take in the near future. This can be an invaluable tool when it comes to customer retention, forecasting future spending, and much more.
Having the right data analytics insights will allow you to improve your customer experience, make data-driven decisions, and will enable you to continue to innovate your marketing campaigns. Predictive analytics is a valuable tool to help you do this and create more personalized experiences for your customers. Image courtesy of Segment.
Predictive analytics is still a relatively new idea in the marketing world, but it’s quickly becoming more attractive to businesses looking to gain a competitive edge.
While it may not be widely used yet, the predictive analytics market is growing at a rate of 23.2% year over year. If you’ve been considering adding predictive technology into your marketing strategy, now’s the time to do it.
Steps To Making the Most Out of the Predictive Analytic Process
For predictive analytics to be successful and improve your marketing strategies, you need to ensure you have clean and relevant customer data. Since the models are built from real-time insights, old and messy data can result in irrelevant predictions.
If you find that your data isn’t quite up to par, then you may need to take some time upfront to clean up your data and collect more relevant information from your audiences.
Once you’ve compiled a solid list of customer insights, then you’re ready to put the predictive analytics process into action.
The process of predictive analytics can be simplified into four main steps: collect data, clean data, identify patterns, make predictions. With these insights, you can then determine how to react to real-time customer behaviors and drive relevant experiences with each interaction. Image courtesy of Big Data Made Simple.
These are the steps that make the predictive analytics process work:
- Determine what your goals are: before diving into using predictive analytics, you first need to understand what your goals are and why you’re using the technology. Your goals can improve customer segmentation, reduce churn rates, and increase cross-selling opportunities. Whatever your end goal is, defining it early will help you keep your strategy in line with what you’re trying to accomplish.
- Collect the correct data: predictive analytics is all about the data, and without the right information, you may not be able to gain the insights you’re looking for. You’ll want to pull from customer data such as purchase and browse history, demographics, firmographics, and more.
- Analyze the data and form a hypothesis: by analyzing your customer data, you can start to form conclusions and develop a hypothesis. This will allow you to have a solid starting point and set you up to create your predictive models.
- Develop and deploy a predictive model: with the right customer data collected and analyzed. You can now develop and deploy your predictive model. Once you’ve reached this stage, you’ll be turning actionable insights into real-time interactions with your customers.
This process may seem a bit overwhelming when you first look at it, but it doesn’t have to be with the right technology.
Luckily, there are plenty of different marketing and analytics platforms available today that can help make this process simple and allow even the most novice employees to create predictive models.
Ways to Use Predictive Analytics to Elevate Your Marketing Strategy
Predictive analytics is a perfect tool for companies that are looking to elevate their marketing strategy and do more with the data they already have. It allows you to tap into customer insights and develop campaigns that react to customer behaviors and serve highly relevant content.
The possibilities are endless when you integrate predictive technology into your marketing strategy. You can do everything from improving customer segmentation and personalization to increasing sales and profit margins.
Let’s take a look at a few of the key areas in which you can use predictive analytics to elevate your marketing strategy this spring.
- Improve and Automate Audience Segmentation
One of the most common ways companies start integrating predictive technology into their marketing strategy is through audience segmentation. It’s a great way to gain deeper insights into who your audiences are and automate segmentation at scale.
Segmentation is one of the most common ways to use artificial intelligence and predictive analytics technology. It’s a great way to easily improve who your marketing campaigns are going to and ensure that the content is relevant for the individual receiving it. Image courtesy of Blueconic.
Predictive analytics uses cluster models to help businesses create more accurate and detailed segments. It can automatically filter through user data such as recent behaviors, demographics, purchases, and more to better understand the customer on an individual level.
Putting this information into a predictive analytics tool will help you identify patterns and trends among your audiences that may surprise you. These things can then start to provide you with opportunities to improve your marketing campaigns and create even more relevant content to drive higher engagement metrics.
Some of the insights you can learn by using predictive analytics as part of your audience segmentation include:
- Coupon and discount affinity
- Likelihood to purchase
- Changing life cycle stages
- Probability of unsubscribing
- Recent interest changes
By having more visibility into the changing needs of your audiences, you can keep your segments up-to-date and ensure you’re sending the most relevant content to each person. Predictive analytics simplify this process by identifying these opportunities and automatically reacting to these changes.
- Retain Customers and Reduce Churn Rates by Identifying Customers at Risk
Customer retention is another valuable way to use predictive analytics to improve your marketing strategy.
Knowing what customers are at risk of churning or becoming inactive with your marketing communication allows you the opportunity to re-engage these audiences before it’s too late.
With the help of predictive analytics, you can easily identify who these customers are and develop retention campaigns to win them back. Those audiences who are at risk of churning can be automatically enrolled in these campaigns when they hit certain criteria, allowing you to encourage them to become active users again.
Retention campaigns are vital to your success because they are more cost-efficient than targeting new audiences and allow you to connect with people who are interested in your content at one point in time.
It’s much easier to retain an existing customer than it is to attract a new customer, and it’s also much more cost-efficient in the long run. This is the main reason why businesses strive to identify and win-back subscribers that are at risk of churning. Predictive analytics can make identifying these audiences and enrolling them into retention campaigns simpler. Image courtesy of ReferralRock.
Successful retention campaigns will allow you to lower churn rates and drive higher engagement and conversion metrics without having to spend time finding and attracting new audiences.
Having a growth rate that is higher than your churn rate is important for the success of your marketing strategy. If you lose too many subscribers, your campaigns will start to suffer over time, and you’ll have to put more money into attracting new audiences rather than capitalizing on the ones you already have.
- Make the Most Out of Each Sale by Understanding Coupon and Discount Affinity
Predictive analytics can help you better understand and leverage coupon and discount affinity to make the most out of every transaction.
This means that you can identify what customers are full-price shoppers and which ones require a little extra incentive to complete their purchases. Understanding this will help you make the most out of every sale you make and allow you only to offer up a discount or coupon when necessary.
By analyzing historical purchasing behaviors, predictive analytics can tell you whether a specific customer is willing to make a purchase at full price or if they always wait for a coupon code before checking out.
With this information, you can be more strategic about what users you’re providing coupons and discounts. Take the following two customers as an example.
If you know customer A is willing to pay full price, then you may not need to lose the extra margin by sharing coupons with them every time they shop with you. Knowing this will allow you to make more off of their sale, and it won’t deter them from coming back and completing a purchase in the future.
While on the other hand, if customer B never completes a purchase without a discount code, then offering them a little extra incentive will entice them to purchase. You may lose a bit of margin on this one, but if the customer would have gone to a competitor’s site and received a discount, you would have lost the sale to them.
Understanding coupon and discount affinity is a valuable predictive analytics tool that can help you make the most out of every sale you make.
- Share Relevant Content to Drive Higher Engagement and Conversion Metrics
Integrating personalization into your marketing strategy is essential and predictive analytics can help make it simpler.
Predictive analytics will help you pinpoint what types of content your audiences are most interested in. This can be done by analyzing what they engage most with, but also by identifying their interests through other data insights.
Once you know what resonates most with them, you can begin to distribute targeted content they’re much more likely to engage with. This will allow you to drive more relevant experiences that encourage audiences to engage and convert.
Personalized experiences drive higher engagement and will result in a higher return on investment for your campaigns. This means that your customers will be happier with the interactions and are much more likely to complete a purchase from the campaign. Image courtesy of Startupbonsai.
Considering that 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when a brand offers a personalized experience, the more customized your content creation strategy is, the more successful your marketing efforts will be.
Use predictive analytics to make the most out of every communication you share with your customers by creating highly targeted campaigns with content that resonates with their individual needs.
- Share Predictive Product Recommendations to Increase Sales
Knowing what types of products your customers are purchasing and are most interested in gives you the opportunity to serve up additional product recommendations.
You can integrate predictive product recommendations into your emails, SMS, and social media marketing strategies by tapping into previous purchasing and browsing behaviors.
Getting these relevant products in front of your audiences after they’ve recently shopped on your site is a great opportunity to cross-sell and upsell products to existing audiences – and people are more likely to engage with them due to their relevance.
Product recommendations are a great opportunity to get relevant products in front of your customers and increase engagement. Sharing products that are similar or complementary to the things your audiences are already interested in will encourage them to click to learn more. Image courtesy of eMareter.
Here are a few examples of how you can integrate predictive product recommendations into your marketing strategy:
- Share products that are similar to those that customers were recently browsing on your site via display ads
- Send emails with complementary products after someone has completed a purchase, such as a charger or accessory item that may interest them
- Integrate additional product recommendations into abandoned cart messages to encourage customers to add more items to their cart
Predictive product recommendations are a great way to get more relevant products in front of your customers and drive more sales. It’s a very powerful tool and one you won’t regret making the investment in.
7 Marketing Platforms With Predictive Analytics
Without the right tools, predictive technology can be challenging to manage, and you’ll never be able to keep up with the ever-changing needs of your customers.
If you’re looking to integrate predictive analytics into your marketing strategy, you’ll want to find a platform that helps you make the most out of your efforts. Many marketing platforms available today will provide you with the tools to use predictive analytics in your campaigns.
This section will take a closer look at seven platforms that are great options to blend your marketing and predictive analytics strategies together. Each one has its own unique capabilities, but they can all help you move towards a more predictive customer experience.
The Listrak platform is a cross-channel marketing platform that comes with powerful predictive analytics technology. It has everything you need to drive highly engaging marketing campaigns that integrate real-time customer data and insights through predictive technology.
Predictive analytics will allow you to understand your customers better and create more personalized experiences based on their real-time interactions. The Listrak platform provides you with the tools you need to make this process simple and allow you to make the most out of every interaction. Image courtesy of Listrak.
Predictive Models Available:
- Predictive future spend: know what customers will spend the most over the coming 12 months
- Likelihood to purchase: predict the probability of someone placing an order
- Discount and coupon affinity: determine what customers are willing to pay full price and those who need an extra incentive to purchase
- Predicted lifecycle stage: identify what customers are at-risk of churning or who may become inactive based on recent behaviors
Why choose this platform? If you’re looking for a platform that will allow you to take advantage of a wide range of predictive analytics tools and manage your marketing efforts in one centralized location – this is the tool for you.
Pricing: This platform has customized pricing based on your specific business needs. You’ll want to contact a Listrak representative to learn more based on the tools and services you’re looking for.
Maropost is a marketing automation platform that has the tools you need to put predictive analytics technology to work. It’s a great tool to get you started, from improving segmentation capabilities and sending dynamic and highly relevant content to building automated journeys that react to changing customer needs.
Predictive technology can help you respond to customer interactions with the right message at the right time. Triggered messages can be sent based on real-time engagement and incorporate predictive product recommendations or relevant content based on the user’s previous shopping behaviors. Image courtesy of Maropost.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Integrate dynamic content into your marketing communications to create unique experiences for each customer by tapping into real-time data
- Create responsive journeys that share relevant marketing campaigns based on the customer’s interactions and behaviors
- Segment audiences based on existing data, website interactions, and mobile application engagements to send more relevant content
- Automate messages based on user interactions with triggered notifications to reach changing customer needs
Why choose this platform? Maropost has everything you need to drive effective marketing campaigns with predictive technology and offers an eCommerce platform to help you drive more sales.
Pricing: This platform offers multiple different plans and services options. The Marketing Cloud plans include the Essential plan starting at $279 per month, the Professional plan starting at $849 per month, and the Enterprise plan starting at $1,699 per month. Pricing varies based on the number of emails you plan to send monthly.
Act-on is a marketing automation platform that has the tools you need to connect with your customers across various marketing channels and create dynamic, personalized experiences through predictive marketing technology.
With the help of Act-on, you can create audience segments that change based on timely customer behaviors and engagements. This will allow you to send more engaging content to your customers based on their current needs. Image courtesy of Act-on.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Dynamically segment your audiences by traits and behaviors to send the most relevant content and increase engagement
- Automate your marketing campaigns to move customers through their journey to attract, nurture, and convert customers
- Develop targeted, dynamic messages that are sent to your audiences based on their specific wants and needs
- Score leads based on their interactions and behaviors with your brand to identify highly qualified leads who are likely to complete a purchase
Why choose this platform? Act-on is an effective automation platform that can help you grow your business through growth marketing tools in addition to traditional marketing tactics.
Pricing: This platform offers multiple different plan options, including the Professional plan starting at $900 per month and the Enterprise plan that is customized based on business needs. Pricing does vary based on the number of active customers you have.
Emarsys is a customer engagement platform that helps you to connect data and knowledge and turn it into an actionable plan to connect with your audiences. With this tool, you’ll be able to integrate predictive technology into your marketing strategy easily.
The Emarsys platform gives you all the tools you need to turn customer data into actionable insights. From there, you can create marketing campaigns that drive engagement and keep your audiences interested and coming back for more. Image courtesy of Emarsys.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Deliver personalized content to your audiences across various marketing channels through data insights and technology
- Create customer segments with the help of artificial intelligence to ensure each message you send is relevant to the individual
- Build automated workflows that react to changing customer lifecycle stages and keep up with their purchasing needs
- Improve customer lifetime value through marketing campaigns such as win-back campaigns, upselling and cross-selling triggers, and more
Why choose this platform? Emarsys has all the tools you need to create sophisticated cross-channel marketing experiences powered by advanced technology and allow you to connect with audiences on a more personalized level.
Pricing: This platform has customized pricing based on your specific business needs. You’ll want to contact an Emarsys representative to learn more based on the tools and services you’re looking for.
Keap is an automation platform that brings together sales and marketing to drive more successful marketing campaigns. It allows you to use data to create highly personalized campaigns that can use predictive elements to capture your customers’ attention.
Know when customers interact with your content and give them a reason to come back. By providing relevant products and offers based on their previous interactions, you can increase the chances of converting them a second time around. Image courtesy of Keap.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Automate customer follow-ups and provide them with the content they need based on their interactions
- Nurture leads and change the message as their lifecycle and needs change over time
- Create customer segments that are automatically tagged and use that data to send personalized communications
- Integrate personalization into each message to drive higher engagement and catch the reader’s attention
Why choose this platform? Keap is a versatile platform that allows you to connect with your audiences via email, texting, build custom landing pages, take payments, and manage your CRM all from one central location.
Pricing: This platform offers multiple different plan options, including the Lite plan starting at $50 per month, the Pro plan starting at $129 per month, and the Max plan starting at $199 per month. Pricing is based on the number of contacts you have.
Optimove is a marketing platform that will help you scale your CMR marketing with the help of advanced technology and a dedicated team. This tool will give you everything you need to create highly effective predictive marketing campaigns.
Optimove connects all your brand’s data and interactions with its customers and turns that into actionable insight. With this information, you can easily create effective marketing campaigns that are relevant and encourage your audiences to convert. Image courtesy of Pixabay.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Collect all of your data into one centralized location that allows you to understand your customers better and use that insight to create relevant content
- Use their AI bot to identify untapped revenue opportunities and put marketing campaigns into play to engage customers
- Tap into their team of experts who can create a customized predictive model for your business to ensure you’re making the most out of the technology
- Launch multi-channel campaigns at scale and integrate customer-led journeys into the process
Why choose this platform? Optimove has a wide range of predictive technologies available, but the ability to have knowledgeable data scientists help you develop a customized predictive model for your business helps this platform stand out from the crowd.
Pricing: This platform has customized pricing based on your specific business needs. You’ll want to contact an Optimove representative to learn more based on the tools and services you’re looking for.
Upland is a marketing software that has everything you need to connect with your audiences across various channels and marketing strategies. It integrates personalization and predictive technology across all plan options.
Get to know your customers better, and then use the data you collect to create audience segments that help you to scale your marketing efforts. From there you can create customized journeys that move people from one step to the next while always ensuring the messages they’re receiving are relevant and timely. Image courtesy of Upland.
Predictive Capabilities:
- Gain a 360-degree view of your customers and use that data to drive highly engaging and relevant marketing messages across marketing channels
- Automate and personalize email marketing campaigns to increase engagement and share content and products based on customer data
- Create customized workflows that interact with customers and change their path based on their shopping and browsing behaviors
- Increase revenue with triggered messages and opportunities to provide customers with content that resonates with their current needs
Why choose this platform? Upland has various types of marketing software that can help you achieve your goals by having a more specialized platform for your business needs.
Pricing: This platform has customized pricing based on your specific business needs. You’ll want to contact an Upland representative to learn more based on the tools and services you’re looking for.
Start Leveraging Predictive Analytics in Your Marketing Strategy Today
When it comes to doing something new, the hardest part is getting started. If you’re considering investing in predictive analytics to elevate your marketing strategy, now’s the perfect time to do it.
As more companies start to see the allure of the technology, it’s going to become more and more important for serving your customers a personalized experience at scale. Making the decision to integrate your strategies this year will set you ahead of the curve and give you the time to perfect your campaigns.
So what are you waiting for? Start finding ways to elevate your marketing strategy with predictive analytics today!
Anurag Choudhari is the co-founder of Geekenized Technologies LLP, a web development & digital marketing agency that helps various SMBs & SMEs in developing & maintaining their online presence.
