“Natural language processing” (NLP) is the new kid on the block for quite some time now, after Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Automation and allied things. The technology may sound complicated, details of which we will not get into. Its application are simple, easy and very relevant. If you use Alexa, Siri, a Google Assistant, predictive texting, or even a simple voice or text based search – welcome to the NLP club!
So, What exactly is natural language processing? And why should we pay attention to this new thing in digital marketing? Let’s find out.
The buzz around Natural Language Processing (NLP)
A large part around the enigma behind computers, coding and machine interaction in general has always been communication. We all have learnt and understand that machines can be spoken to, and will answer – but in a language they understand. Enter coding, Java, Python, C and the whole swarm of languages the machine understands. For a long time, the language as we understood it was “translated” to a language the machine understood, so that we could get whatever we wanted by the machine done – from changing traffic lights, to unmanned airplanes and getting the answer to 2+2.
What got tricky though, was machines could not understand the context, emotion or tone. NLP or natural language processing is all about bring those into the machine’s language.
Natural Language Processing is an area of artificial intelligence or AI that allow machines and devices to analyze, understand and manipulate language. NLP applications are reaching homes and people faster than we know with Google Search, Facebook and Apple implementing them in more ways than one, say experts from Digital Marketing Agency in Hyderabad.
Personalized feeds, and smarter search engines are all realities thanks to NLP. That said, please remember that keywords are still very vital.
How NLP Effects Digital Marketing:
Yes, NLP is very interesting. But what makes it even better, is the range of possibilities it offers. We all agree that good marketing and digital marketing is all about adding context to our content, reaching out to the customer in a way they respond. Application of NLP can be broadly categorized into three segments in the context of digital marketing.
Prediction – trend analysis, forecasting, personalized feeds, recommendations
Language – Text analysis, text to speech & speech to text, voice recognition
Recognition – Image analytics, movement & video detection, facial & bio-metric recognition, mood analysis.
While we keep away from the complex algorithms behind it, just a few of the above applications can work wonders in improvising, building and executing a successful digital marketing strategy.
NLP and digital marketing – use cases:
Understanding Customer Sentiment:
Size doesn’t matter when it comes to consumer sentiment. You have to pay attention, listen to what people are saying – social media has democratized the playing field for all brands and small businesses alike.
NLP analyses social media, reviews, feedback and public conversations to generate sentiment and mood analytics wrt your brand. A good example of this is approval ratings of a politician.
Chatbots & 24 x 7 IVRS respondents:
NLP powers chatbots. And chatbots are way faster than waiting at the end of a line trying to connect to a human. 24 X 7 IVRS respondents are a relatively new experiment, pretty much like a chat bot, only using speech and voice instead of text.
Speech Recognition:
This needs no introduction. If you have or are using Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, Alexa, Echo or any other voice assistant a normal question, and it responds like a normal human does – there. That’s NLP for you! Converting speech into data, and data back to speech as an answer to you.
Machine Translation & content creation:
We have all heard of the genius of AI creating Leonardo masterpieces and Blake’s poetry. This article may well be written by AI down the line. NLP will power and empower content marketing strategies, create and schedule plausible content.
Imagine the reach. One piece of copy writing translated into a thousand languages and tones by AI – the possibilities are endless!
Competitor Analysis
SWOT, VULCA or any analysis – be it economic, financial or a marketing perspective. Competitor analysis is crucial. This allows informed, strategic decision making and not just keeping one up on your rival. Competition in the digital world is not just around the corner, but could be half way across the world. How would you even possibly know? Leave alone understand, analyse and strategize. NLP comes to the rescue here as well, with tools that map the competitor landscape, identifying where your lead, and giving metrics on how to address parameters where you fall behind your competitors.
Trend analysis:
RSS feed, Google News or any other aggregator can help find information on anything you want. NLP takes this a notch up. It constantly listens, compiles everything and summaries it for you – showing detailed trends, and predicting the direction it’d go in.
In summary…
NLP is at its core knowing your customer. With the world moving towards, and centered around the customer, be it a B2C or a B2B space, traditional methods like feedback’s and surveys won’t suffice. The next step is understanding the customer, anticipating their needs before anyone else in the market does, and giving it to them, say firms offering established Digital Marketing Services in Hyderabad. If marketing is getting your product to the right audience, digital marketing with NLP tools is getting the right message to the right audience!
