Your marketing and public relations (PR) campaigns are vital methods of connecting and communicating with consumers. As a professional, you understand that your success depends on various nuances. Just as a turn of phrase can shift consumer trust in a brand’s favor, a misjudged tone in the brand voice can also derail your efforts.
This is why it’s crucial to adopt tools that give you the power to efficiently and accurately make the most positive decisions. Machine learning and psychology are both increasingly recognized as useful components of marketing and PR campaigns. By bridging the two, you can improve how effectively your campaigns land and the quality of the relationships you’re able to keep building with your audience.
Let’s explore this concept a little further.
How can you use machine learning?
Before we look at the intersection of machine learning and psychology, it’s important to consider how the technology can make a difference in PR and marketing campaigns.
So, what is machine learning and how can you use it? It’s a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that can independently use algorithms to make predictions and decisions. Rather than being programmed to perform specific tasks, these platforms can learn from the data they are fed.
This is useful for marketing and PR because machine learning is able to process, analyze, and make predictions about more information with greater efficiency than human workers are likely to alone. As a result, it can be a powerful tool in your campaigns.
Some of the common uses include:
- Processing demographic data: Machine learning platforms can streamline your ability to process and interpret your consumer data. This is because, when trained well, the technology is adept at quickly spotting patterns in data, which is useful for interpreting current market research and how consumer needs and preferences change over time. Understanding this enables you to respond more efficiently with relevant communications.
- Driving chatbots: One of the key uses of machine learning is supporting automated practices. This can be particularly useful for conversational marketing chatbots in your campaigns. When combined with AI, machine learning processes can learn from conversations with specific customers as well as your wider demographic, enabling chatbots to hold more engaging and relevant conversations with your audience.
There are specialized PR and marketing machine learning tools emerging all the time. However, teaming up with machine learning engineers to tailor tools to your specific PR goals can be a wise move.
Where does psychology fit in?
Now that you have some idea of what machine learning can do, where does psychology fit into the equation?
Well, frankly, technology can only go so far when it comes to understanding human behavior. It is, after all, only working on mathematical models and data. To make truly impactful and engaging campaigns, you need human perspectives on how people think, feel, and act.
For instance, color plays a key role in enabling you to create compelling and engaging narratives in your PR and marketing materials. Researchers in color psychology have found that different colors affect how people think, feel, and behave. For instance, greens often provoke thoughts of growth, while oranges can help audiences feel energized. Having a good understanding of humans’ emotional responses to hues empowers you to decide how your visual materials could support meaningful connections.
It is also vital to have psychological perspectives on nuanced shared human values in marketing and PR. To build meaningful relationships, consumers often prioritize brands that are aligned with their ethical standards, cultural perspectives, and other components. Expressing these aspects in ways that feel genuine to customers often relies on subtle signals. Language, visual cues, and even attitude can impact consumer psychology to elicit trust or empathy. This is especially important when you’re dealing with a PR crisis relating to a breach of core brand values.
Color and shared values are just a couple of the psychological components that are important in campaigns. They also tend to be things that machine learning is unlikely to convincingly predict or mimic on its own. It is, therefore, essential not to overlook applying human skills and perspectives in gaining and using psychology in your campaigns.
How can you bridge the human and the technological?
Both psychology and machine learning clearly have a lot to offer your PR and marketing campaigns. However, you should avoid treating them as individual tools. You may find you can maximize your campaign outcomes by finding ways to meaningfully bridge the two.
Some of the approaches worth considering include:
- Using psychological profiles as data: The quality of machine learning analytics processes always depends on the quality of the data you train it with. One way you can boost your success is to provide these platforms with psychological profiles for your audience personas. This enables them to learn from nuanced human emotions and behaviors to provide advice about what materials each demographic is most likely to respond positively to.
- Adopting eye-tracking tools: The field of neuromarketing frequently uses eye-tracking Steady State Topography (SST) tools. These assess what components of websites, digital content, and online press releases consumers are and are not psychologically engaging with. Your team could provide data on this to machine learning-driven generative web design and content development platforms. Your human creative teams can then use the outcomes of this to influence how they create more relevant and impactful materials.
Remember, though, that while there’s a bridging point to be found, all your efforts should be led by human experts.
PR and marketing professionals have experience and insights that machine learning hasn’t gained. Data analytics experts and engineers also know how to most effectively train and use this emerging technology.
Make machine learning a collaborator rather than a crutch in your campaigns.
Guest Contributor: Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie.
To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.
The copy and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Burrelles, our employees, partners or affiliates.
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This insightful article highlights the intersection of psychology and machine learning in optimizing campaign success. By leveraging data-driven approaches rooted in psychological principles, marketers can better understand consumer behavior and tailor campaigns for maximum impact. Integrating ChatGPT could further enhance this synergy, offering nuanced insights and predictive analytics to refine targeting strategies and drive engagement. Exciting times lie ahead at the nexus of psychology and AI-driven marketing!