Technology drives a lot of what we do in the industrial manufacturing sector. Print providers have watched things change rapidly over the last few years, and the rate of change has been accelerating. Until now, those changes have been mostly oriented towards the hardware used to produce paper-based products. In the last couple of years that entire trend has been bucked by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Clever applications of these technologies will be what brings success to users.
In the Detroit region, there has been a massive wave of investment in inkjet systems that can print variable data. Up to this point, the clients who could take advantage of variable data printing were limited to those who had large sets of precious data that they had collected over a long period of time. In this article, you’ll read about how new technologies and processes can help leverage these investments as we explore a new world of capabilities from AI.
Recently, we attended an AI summit as part of the Detroit Craftsmen’s Club. The event was held at Allied Printing in Ferndale, and was intended to help print providers understand the unique changes coming along with artificial intelligence. The meeting was an excellent opportunity to learn more about these drastic changes that are inevitably going to affect the way print providers handle and manage their businesses.
Marketing is one the most highly impacted industries during this early phase as artificial intelligence continues to develop. Tools are becoming available that will allow marketing to become extremely focused and highly personalized. Approaching advertising in an individual-focused manner improves the effectiveness of marketing by a massive amount. Messaging that resonates with individuals has much ROAS than other generalized types of marketing.
For decades, print providers have watched as their average run length has decreased. Marketers, who are some of the most prolific print-buyers, have been generally adapting their strategies to increase target marketing. Before artificial intelligence, this type of targeted marketing was usually managed by using smart filters on lists. This was a great start, but now we’re entering a new paradigm.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms open up entirely new possibilities for target marketing. The characteristics that are known about an individual can be used to increase reader interest. Showing messages that are catered to the specific reader are more likely to increase engagement and lead to more successful outcomes for campaigns.
Analytics can be costly and time consuming under normal circumstances. Machine learning can help to lessen the burden by boiling a list down to several profiles. Instead of doing personalization for a large number of individuals on a list, it can be much easier to analyze the list and create a small number of categories that describe users from that data. Users interacting with this relatable content will be much more likely to be engaged. With more segmentation, the data can be more customized but at the added cost of higher calculation time and more variations.
A segmented list is a perfect starting point for creating highly tailored messages. Image sets can be created for each segment and brought into the document. Every recipient will end up receiving a document that is profiled to their interests without for less work.
Part of the new wave of AI models is the capability of creating generative images. Groups such as Midjourney and Dall-E have highly advanced models that can create life-like images in just a few seconds. These images are prompt driven, meaning they can be opportunistically adapted to any kind property within the user’s profile. For example, with including a dog in the photo we can specify the exact breed and color. AI image generation will create a unique image that is a perfect match for each list segment.
Print providers who have digital presses (inkjet or toner based) already have what they need to take advantage of AI. The ability to print variable data has been around for quite some time. But with advanced list processing, it’s now easier than ever to generate the rich data for targeted marketing. It’s no longer necessary to rely on customers to deliver high quality user data. AI tools can interpolate and generate information based on limited sets of input data.
A great example from the presentation was an ad insert for insurance billing. This insurer was already sending hundreds of thousands of transactional mail to their current customers. Using AI tools, they were able to generate highly effective upsell ads within their existing transactional mails. Ads with personalized photos that match a given recipient’s lifestyle, demographic, and psychographic interests were shown to be highly effective.
As business owners, we are always keeping a pulse on changes that might impact our futures. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large language models impact marketing activities as whole. Being in the right position to take advantage of these new processes is an ideal strategy compared to playing catchup.
