Today marketers need to take steps to close the gap between raw data, meaningful insights and real-time action, including:

To begin with... put your audiences first.

Why? Because the digital world thinks audience first, not media first. Grouping online audiences by demographic produces very narrow targets that do not necessarily represent a brand's most productive audience. We call potential consumers who do not fit a rigid demographic profile "valuable wastage."

Yes, there are many pure AI platforms.

But like big data platforms or cloud computing, most of them are general purpose technologies simply being harnessed in the service of marketing — often under the cover of a more marketing-specific application.

Hint: Linking relevant data points is the key.

Today's modern marketer has to seek out every opportunity to learn new ways to engage consumers. In this case, Agile isn’t meant to be a synonym for nimble, but it may include project management elements that let modern marketing organizations act in a way that is more consistent with how businesses have changed in the 21^st Century.

Customer experience (CX) has risen to a new level of importance in the insurance industry. Sure, customers still value price — but it’s not the only consideration. They also want a brand that builds trust and shows they care about their customers.

In fact, a recent study by Accenture found that 46% of insurance respondents are "Quality Seekers.” These customers value superior service, automated transactions and personalization. That means you should invest in service-based communications — think about sending location-based alerts about severe weather or crime in the customer’s area. It also means you need to give your customers the technology they expect, like digital claim filing, user-friendly mobile apps and other useful resources.

Take a look at this infographic to see why customer experience matters to the insurance industry — now more than ever.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been in use since the late 1990s. Although always a fascinating topic, it never amounted to much more than discussion. Today, we are in the midst of the AI boom. So why now? The short answer is the exponential growth of cheap, fast, scalable and interconnected computing and storage in the cloud. The horsepower and data to efficiently run AI algorithms is now with reach of everyone.

AI has been embedded across almost every product category in marketing technology. Most big data platforms, such as IBM Watson, are simple general-purpose technologies being harnessed in the service of marketing. It’s much more interesting to look at products like Equals 3 which leverages Watson behind the scenes to deliver marketing research, customer segmentation and media planning services. Products like these can help marketers create multichannel campaigns specifically tailored to their target audience by using data collection. Knowing what exactly artificial intelligence can offer is important. Here is a list of ten tools that AI can offer digital marketers to help automate and improve their marketing strategies.

Marketing has changed immensely over the last decade. Primarily, customers now expect to interact with brands the same way across different channels. This poses a problem for the traditional marketer targeting a single channel. Marketers need to adapt and refocus their aim on a specific audience but across ALL channels. From websites to in-store visits to mobile apps, customers want to have the same experience of that company across the board. So how do you change? Going from one channel to multiple has to be hard, right? Actually, it’s an easier adjustment than you think. Here are 10 skills that can help make your transition simple.

When it comes to the insurance industry, modern customers have fresh expectations. The main area of competition between insurance companies has moved from policy-oriented to customer-focused. So how can an insurance company refocus its marketing strategy to address this change? 

The answer lies in customer experience (CX) — that is, how your customers understand and interact with your brand. But what does that entail for insurance companies?

Marketing and communications are in a rapid pace of ongoing transformation. Not only is that transformation from offline to digital, it is also growing beyond its traditional role. What was once made up of direct marketing, sales promotion and PR has now grown to include augmented and virtual reality, messaging bots and artificial intelligence. Marketing is shifting from “demand generation” to focusing on user experiences. One of the more recent aspects of the user experience is the focus on personalization. The task becomes: how do we leverage data to deliver individualized experiences that create value for that specific person — without crossing the line and abusing data at the expense of that person’s privacy?