Perhaps you already have. On a most basic level, if you run your copy through Grammarly, there’s a slice of work you are trusting the bots to help you with. Social media targeting, optimisation – wherever there are decisions to be made and lots of data available to help you make the ‘best’ choice. There’s a good chance an algorithm is at work.
‘Algorithms’ were handy problem-solving frameworks developed by Babylonian mathematicians in 2500 BC. As a methodical approach, with inputs and an outcome and decisions to be made along the way, algorithms are computer scientists’ stock-in-trade. Running the show behind the scenes, they are a finite sequence of well-defined instructions. Typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing calculations and data processing. (Wikipedia)
Algorithms support
If you use Spotify, an Amazon Kindle, Facebook, Instagram, or Tik Tok, you will notice how the algorithms associated with each of those is learning your likes and dislikes. They try to increase your satisfaction by suggesting you consume more of the same.
Google search is the most powerful algorithm, delivering tailor-made suggestions on demand. And the algorithm is constantly being refined to increase user satisfaction. It’s so successful that it owns the category.
Meeting your need
And what is marketing if it isn’t a framework for identifying an unmet need and creating a product or service to satisfy it? Good marketers provide superior satisfaction and get rewarded with more demand and growth. Whether great marketers are born and run on instinct or made and run on science, really depends on how you define ‘instinct’.
In his 2015 best-seller, the philosopher Yuval Noah Harari argues that ‘organisms are algorithms’ and what we regard as instinct is nothing more than complex instantaneous biochemical reactions to what our senses are processing.
Artificial Intelligence
Heading towards infinite computational power and the capacity for ‘deep-learning,’ artificial intelligence (AI)can provide a wider range of solutions. It’s only a matter of time before more marketing advantage will go to those with better algorithms and computing capacity. It’s reported that globally, over 92% of marketing agencies are investing more time, resources, and budget into marketing automation integration.
Data, data everywhere but you still have to think!
Marketing success relies on better need satisfaction. So that’s the end goal of all this data. And knowing people and their behaviour more intimately can give us insight into customising product and service solutions for them; as well as where and how they’re targeted. If you’re in an undifferentiated market where everyone is similar, there’s very little benefit to be gained by pouring resources into understanding the finer details of their needs and lives.
But most markets present an opportunity to define a few sub-segments and pitch your offering differently and through a different channel.
We like that. The cosier the relationship, the more meaningful the conversation. This way we can isolate things that really matter, without having to include all those ‘nice-to-haves’ that we’re too scared to ditch.
It means we can land a well-placed upper-cut; a knock-out punch.
So, yes, it’s time and we would like to help you to harness the potential benefits that algorithms can deliver.
