Predictive marketing allows recommendation solutions to leverage machine-learning algorithms to deliver consumers highly researched, specifically targeted product recommendations, wherever they engage with a brand.

In today’s ever-changing, fast-paced marketing environment, consumer trends and behaviors can change at a moment’s notice. It’s only fitting, therefore, that the next wave of marketing technology solutions focus not on what consumers are doing, but what they will do.

How Does Predictive Marketing Work?

Every brand interaction a consumer has, whether via an e-commerce website, social media, or in-store, is tracked and stored by a marketing platform. Predictive solutions then dig deep into these insights to determine logical next steps and predict actions that specific consumer profiles will take. These analytics inform and catalyze execution across various channels, including email, mobile, and web.

Predictive engines are instrumental in creating and executing personalized marketing strategies. To create truly personalized buying experiences for consumers, they need up-to-the-moment insights into individual audience members, and must then be able to generate and deliver the unique content accordingly. When consumers receive this custom content in near real time, it vastly increases the efficiency of marketing teams’ efforts.

Key Types of Predictive Marketing Solutions

There are multiple types of predictive solutions and use cases, including:

Predictive Email Recommendations: Predictive solutions can deliver targeted email recommendations to consumers by analyzing their past shopping history, email engagement rates, and the historical affinities of similar consumers. Other types of recommendation emails include abandoned cart campaigns, post-purchase campaigns, and abandoned browse campaigns.

Predictive Web Recommendations: When a consumer visits an online website, predictive analytics can customize views, CTAs, and messaging to create a more personalized shopping or browsing experience. This can include placing certain recommended products above the fold, adding a sidebar with “frequently bought together” items, or even including a recommendation panel similar to what might be seen in an email.

Predictive Mobile Recommendations: The best part about advanced predictive marketing solutions is that they are all fully developed and rendered for mobile use. Since a growing amount of online shopping is done via mobile devices, it’s important to evaluate predictive technologies that can accurately deliver predictive insights and consumer recommendations via mobile apps or browsers.

Why Marketers Need Predictive Marketing Technology

As consumers become more tech-savvy and brand aware, they are also becoming more cognizant of their options. Whole new avenues, brands, and channels are now available, and traditional retail brands must be able to keep up with these changes. Predictive technology provides the tools necessary to make the leap into personalization, and fully join the next generation of marketing and consumer engagement.

Marketers can leverage predictive technology to:

Increase revenue and marketing ROI. Consumers are more likely to respond to personalized messages and content specifically tailored to their buying preferences. With predictive technology in place, marketers turn past shopping trends into future buying experiences.

Create return customers by building a culture of brand loyalty. Customers know when they’re being treated as an individual. When marketing teams invest the time and resources into creating 1-to-1, personalized marketing experiences, the return is brand-loyal, repeat customers who are satisfied with their customer experience.

Positively affect the customer experience across the entire buying journey. Predictive solutions rely on a huge amount of customer data, which in turn influences a myriad of other marketing strategies, from automation solutions to detailed reporting and insights. Customers are happy to provide personal data in return for the personalized shopping experiences that predictive solutions can readily provide.

Build true omnichannel customer journeys. Today’s consumers are no longer just engaging with an online brand via a website. Predictive analytics combine the various facets of web, email, and mobile to create holistic shopping experiences that are consistent no matter the channel or platform.

How to Use Predictive Marketing Successfully

Now that you better understand what predictive technology is, and how it can impact a brand’s personalized marketing strategy, it’s time to look at how marketers can actually leverage a Predictive Recommendation Engine in day-to-day marketing strategy. Luckily, predictive solutions are for the most part designed to impact every aspect of marketing strategy, making it easy to find a way to incorporate predictive, personalized content into any strategy. Here are just a few ways to incorporate predictive technology in daily marketing operations:

• Personalized recommendations based on a consumer’s shopping preferences.
• Enhanced online shopping experiences that are constantly changing and updating.
Real-time email campaigns optimized for maximum conversions.
• Customized incentives and promotions designed to increase revenue.

Final Thoughts

As your team works towards implementing a truly personalized marketing strategy, predictive solutions can make it easy to get there. See how your organization can take predictive analytics and recommendations to the next level with Emarsys Predict.

Want to learn more about the power of predictive marketing? Emarsys offers a wide selection of tools and resources to help answer any questions you might have.

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