How AI And Predictive Analytics Can Help Optimize Your Marketing & Sales Efforts

Eight months in, 2018 has proven to be a hallmark year for artificial intelligence. Companies across the globe are investing enormous amounts of time, energy, and money into advancing AI technologies and some of the biggest names in business have championed the effort.

Google CEO Sudar Pichai, stated that “AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on” and is revolutionizing the role that AI contributes to the search industry.

By producing human-level insight and outcomes without the cost of actual human labor, AI is revolutionizing how businesses conduct sales and interact with customers, and the list of applications continues to grow.

Tech industry vet Mark Hurd believes “90% of all enterprise applications will feature AI capabilities by 2020” and has been leading the charge in integrating AI with cloud computing in his more recent role as CEO of Oracle. With world-renowned business executives vying for control over this emerging technology, there’s got to be a good reason behind it.

Curious if it’s worth getting your business in on the action? Read on for three ways AI will impact marketing and sales moving forward.

Improved Customer Intelligence

The difference between making and losing a sale comes down to data. Knowing your ideal customers inside and out drastically improves your success rate. One of the many benefits of AI is exemplified here as the ability to create highly personalized customer profiles continues to improve.

AI platforms can search through a company’s customer relationship management (CRM) to qualify and identify high-value customers. Tracking down your best customer’s sales journey provides insight into what exactly a customer is thinking, feeling, and saying about your brand in real-time.

In turn, this allows marketers to determine which attributes combine and correlate to turn a prospect into a customer. This level of personalization not only improves marketing efforts, it redefines your customers’ experience.

Chatbots are a great example of AI’s ability to improve customer relations. Delivering basic information and services, chatbots can be used to perform marketing strategies, schedule appointments, provide users with quotes and manage customer assistance issues.

According to Public Tableau, twenty-nine percent of customer service jobs in the US could potentially be automated through chatbots and other tech, resulting in $23 billion in savings from annual salaries.

More Impactful Marketing Campaigns

With better customer data comes more focused marketing. Once you’ve developed an understanding of prospects’ opinions on your brand, you can leverage predictive analytics to estimate what they want and need.

With minimal manual work, big data and machine learning tools enable marketers to go beyond the typical demographic segmentation and identify responses, reactions, and anticipated actions of individuals on a much more personal level.

Because AI interprets emotions and communication, this also applies to keyword searches, social media, and email responses. All this information combines to create a tailored marketing experience where highly qualified prospects receive relevant content at exactly the right time.

What’s also come to light in recent years is a consumer’s tendency to buy into experiences over products. They want to feel connected to a brand, and optimizing specifically-targeted marketing campaigns gives your customers the connection they’re looking for.

In fact, according to Pega, thirty-eight percent of consumers believe AI is going to improve customer service. So utilize that confidence, It’s amazing what a simple retweet or Facebook response can do to a customer’s loyalty–and once that relationship is built, the likelihood of them maintaining that loyalty skyrockets.

Higher Quality Prospects For Sales

As you’ve surely gathered by now, predictive analytics on an AI platform is the key to finding your ideal customer base. Rather than employees spending hours poring over data trying to determine the best path, AI takes away the guesswork and delivers only the highest quality prospects. This allows your salespeople to spend more time on the actual process of selling.

AI handles it all, managing leads, updating forecasting, and taking over data that typically would need manual entry, ultimately leading to a potential 30% boost in productivity. You’re ensuring both better accuracy in your data retention and long-term higher profitability by allowing your sales team to spend more time converting leads.

Conclusion

Technology will continue to advance whether you keep up with it or not. It can be frightening to take new risks when it comes to your business, especially with something as important as sales and marketing. But it’s important to remember the purpose behind these advancements is always the same: we all want to make a profit and offer the best possible product or service to our customers.

So if this means taking a chance on AI or whatever tech trend suits you, take that chance. You never know where it might lead you!