How often do we only think of important events like birthdays or wedding anniversaries a few days before? Then there is only little time left for the search for gifts. In the future, shopping or getting presents will no longer be a chore and a stressful task with the help of Next Best Action Marketing. The best known in this respect are the so-called "Recommender systems". This article offers an insight into the basics of next-best-action marketing.

One on KI based Next-Best-Action-Marketing knows the individual needs of the customers - even before the customers themselves know. Personalised gift suggestions can be made in good time before important events such as Christmas, birthdays or wedding anniversaries are just around the corner. These can be offered to suit the occasion, the personal taste of the recipient and previous shopping behaviour.

Next-Best-Action and Predictive Analytics

If you know your customers' needs, you can tailor your own actions exactly to them. This is precisely the goal of next-best-action marketing and the related concept of campaign management: "Next-Best-Action-Marketing".Next Best Activity". Predictive analytics makes it possible to indicate the probability of future events and to plan and implement measures and actions based on this.

A simple comparison: a good service employee knows what the regular customers like to eat and drink. Based on this knowledge, they decide whether to offer another drink or a piece of cake as dessert. These are simple measures to Optimisation of sales. Similarly, next-best-action marketing can determine whether the lead should next receive a white paper, an invitation to a webinar or a personal call.

The basis: the "AIDA principle

Analytically speaking, every customer or buying behaviour can be broken down according to the so-called AIDA principle. The acronym AIDA stands for Awereess, Interest, Desire and Action.

Awareness in this context means becoming aware of or attracting attention to a particular product or service. Awareness is followed by an information phase, in which the interest (Interest) arises in a product and is satisfied. But only when a desire (Desire), it finally comes to the purchase (Action).

Sometimes the AIDA principle is extended by adding more "A "s at the end. Depending on whether also After-sales-Services and Advocacy ("endorsement" or "advocacy" that the customer carries to the outside world after the purchase) are added to this, the AIDA principle becomes the AIDAA or AIDAAA principle.

The AIDA principle in the digital age

The AIDA principle is already more than 100 years old. However, technological developments in recent years have given the AIDA principle new relevance. Purchase decisions and individual needs of customers can now be understood and predicted better than ever before. Even more, within the framework of digital campaign planners based on the Next Best Activity principle, actions can be automatically planned and executed.

This opens up completely new possibilities for marketing - both in the New customer acquisition as well as in the care of Existing customers. With next-best-action marketing and the next-best-activity principle, the individual steps can be better planned - starting from the first contact between customer and product to the purchase.

Predictive analytics and next-best-action marketing

From a data science perspective, the AIDA principle must be translated into measurable quantities. In order to answer the question "What is the customer's next need in all probability?", suitable data sources must be sought. These provide the basis for the Data evaluation.

The data basis for the analyses can be customer and invoice data, transaction data, communication data or even trend analyses. But not only information from existing databases is relevant for Next Best Action Marketing. Information generated in real time can also be used in the Data analyses be included. In particular, when adaptive Algorithms and Deep Learning real-time analyses play an important role.

The right time is decisive

Also the right time for a customer approach plays an important role in planning marketing actions properly. For a premium car manufacturer, we should Repurchase rate in the leasing sector. Many of the existing customers became wrong time so that marketing campaigns often remained unsuccessful. By using the diagnostic and vehicle data to create a Forecast model we were able to determine much more precisely when clients were thinking about a repurchase.

Customer Segmentation & Next Best Activity

In the context of next-best-action marketing, it is not only the time of repurchase that can be determined more precisely. Also special Additional offers or Service requests can be offered specifically to a pre-classified group of customers. Such groupings are also the result of data analyses within the scope of Customer segmentation and classification.

This is where the Next Best Activity principle comes into its own. Because once it has been determined in advance which customer group a particular offer suits, this can be displayed automatically in the corresponding case. Next Best Activity is therefore particularly useful in the context of Real-time–Scenarios for use.

The advantages of Next Best Action Marketing

The distinctive customer orientation is not only a means, but the goal of next-best-action marketing. A study published in 2017 points to the benefits for customers that result from a marketing strategy built on data science. However, the study also shows that there is still a need to catch up, especially when it comes to addressing customers in an individualised way. Next Best Activity systems in particular can jump into this gap. Next best action marketing is characterised by better predictability, Cost efficiency and Personalisation off.

Further advantages of Next Best Activity / Next Best Action Marketing at a glance:

• Concrete instructions for action or courses of action that enable agency and marketing department staff to
• Generation of qualified leads
• Increase in turnover, for example through cross- and up-selling
• Customer centricity and increase the Customer satisfaction
• In the case of existing customer care: increasing the Loyalty and prevention of Customer churn

Next-Best-Action-Marketing

The central concern of next best action marketing is to clarify what is the best possible next action for the individual customer (next best activity). Marketing must always be one step ahead of the customer. Only those who know what their customers' needs will be in the future can survive in the market.

Next Best Action Marketing and Next Best Activity mean exact advance planning and partly automated execution of specific, individualised actions. Data analyses, Artificial intelligence and Predictive analytics make out Next-Best-Action-Marketing a structured approach where success is not left to chance.