Hyperbole, as a literary instrument, can excite or provoke a reader. When used in sales, it’s most effectively wielded by someone flogging used cars.
Which, logically, brings me to the subject of artificial intelligence and non-profit marketing. I started a company almost three years ago called Accessible Intelligence. In describing the potential of our products to transform non-profit marketing, I find myself on the verge of hyperbole (let me clear, at no time do I want our products associated with used cars, unless it’s a 1954 Mercedes SL 300 Gullwing.)
But the truth can’t be ignored, and we have done some ground-breaking work. We have launched products that will fundamentally change the way non-profits approach marketing using Machine Learning, a discipline of artificial intelligence. Accessible Intelligence allows non-profits to focus on telling their story, leaving our technology to more precisely decide which audiences are primed to engage with their message, in order to reach specific marketing objectives. We also specify which content is needed, when to send it, and how often.
A lot of people talk a great story about their use of Machine Learning, but very few people truly understand it. At an event in 2019, someone heard my pitch about our product and responded with ‘we’re already doing that’. When I asked a few questions, it was clear that the program he described was plain old analytics. Analytics is incredibly useful and leads to understanding. Great. Machine Learning is in a whole different universe.
Our product demos and presentations have confirmed for me, time and time again, that the work we are doing is transformational. Why? Because most of the questions I get at the end are attempts to understand how an organisation can impose current ways of working on something that is unfamiliar. This is a new paradigm. The way non-profits are used to approaching marketing challenges is changing and we are leading the way.
