What Will Happen to Marketing in the Age of AI?
While generative AI is poised to transform the workplace, we still need human brains for new ideas. BCG CMO Jessica Apotheker offers a pragmatic and hopeful look at the future of business.
Delivering personalized customer experiences is no longer optional. But doing it right requires more than data and algorithms. BCG helps companies develop the strategies and capabilities to create value quickly—and deliver long-term impact.
Companies that master personalization can increase their growth rates by 6% to 10%. And delivering the right experience through the right channel at the right time allows businesses to improve marketing efficiency, boost digital sales, and build stronger relationships with their customers. Yet few companies are tapping the full potential of one-to-one marketing.
We view marketing personalization as a journey: one that ultimately touches upon every way in which a business interacts with its customers. We help companies develop a bold vision for where they want to go. But just as important, we help them take a path that generates value quickly while building the capabilities that let them set their own course ahead.
Our approach to personalized marketing is centered on value and enablement. We identify how one-to-one marketing improves experiences in the ways that matter most, and we implement use cases so that companies generate value as they build self-sustaining capabilities for long-term impact.
The idea is to think big, start small, and grow fast—with quick wins to fund the journey. To help companies do this, we bring a full spectrum of expertise in data and personalization strategy and implementation; analytics and technology; and ways of working and change management.
With this approach, we can help our clients develop the four key elements of digital personalization.
We’ve worked with leaders in personalization—and empowered others to join their ranks. Some examples of our impact include the following.
Personalized Marketing for the Retail Industry. We helped our client realize an increase in annual revenue of $300 million by implementing one-to-one marketing—experiences based on preferences, usage, location, and context relevant to individual customers.
Cross-Selling for Retail Banking. Through customer-specific offers and recommendations based on life events, we helped our client increase its offer conversion rates by 30%.
Capability Build and Agile Teaming for the Airline Industry. We helped our client realize $50 million to $100 million in incremental revenue through a six-month pilot while scaling up an internal marketing team of 90 to work in agile, cross-functional squads.
Recommendation Engine Build for US Biopharmaceuticals. We built a “next best action” engine driven by machine learning to recommend the right offer in the right channel, leading to a 3% increase in volume and a 10% increase in acceptance.
Our personalization consulting draws upon a unique combination of industry, technology, and functional expertise. We leverage agency-like capabilities, cutting-edge analytics, and an array of proprietary tools. Some of our key personalization resources include:
Developed in partnership with Google, this online survey measures six key dimensions of data-driven marketing and generates a report that benchmarks your organization against others in your industry. Recommendations on the basis of these results can help you step up your game.
BCG X, BCG’s tech build and design unit, brings together advanced tech knowledge and ambitious entrepreneurship to help organizations launch their next big bets and enable innovation at scale. Its global team of world-class technologists, scientists, programmers, engineers, and designers includes experts using AI, machine learning, and data to drive business transformation.
With experts in martech architecture, design, and implementation, BCG Platinion has helped companies across industries implement end-to-end digital transformation. Our martech experts have deep experience in selecting, integrating, and scaling both leading large platforms and specialized software-as-a-service solutions to help companies realize the full potential of data and personalization.
Heightened personalization maturity empowers brands to build a competitive moat in their sector, unlock sustained growth, and establish resilience amid market pressures. Our personalization consulting experts have quantified our learnings into the Personalization Index, an assessment of personalization maturity at both the individual company and industry levels.
Contact our team to request the assessmentWhile generative AI is poised to transform the workplace, we still need human brains for new ideas. BCG CMO Jessica Apotheker offers a pragmatic and hopeful look at the future of business.
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Our experts have run large-scale personalization programs across industries and geographies, honing one-to-one marketing strategies and building the enablers for sustainable success.