Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us. It’s how Google answers our searches, Amazon recommends products, and Pandora plays another song. For marketers, AI enables scalable growth, drives revenue, and personalizes customer experiences. Savvy marketers are discovering that AI is an exceptionally powerful strategy. It empowers them to excel in their roles by engaging with their audiences through personalized, targeted messaging—all at scale. AI technologies are also creating key internal opportunities that drive better alignment between marketing and sales resulting in an increase in revenue and a healthy pipeline.

Companies are using AI in all kinds of innovative ways to advance their businesses. If you’ve ever searched Netflix to watch a movie, AI (a recommendation algorithm) was no doubt used in your decision about what to watch.  If you’ve shopped on Amazon, your decision about what to buy was also influenced by AI (via an association algorithm). If you’ve ever ordered an Uber, AI (a location algorithm) was used to have a car in your vicinity quickly.  If you ever had a thought about a product or a vacation, and it seemed to suddenly pop up on your search page or in your email inbox, I can assure you it was based on AI (a classification algorithm) monitoring your online activity.

These same types of AI algorithms can be used to power any company’s decision-making process, helping you make better business predictions. Here are five ways AI can be leveraged to help your business grow by helping your sales team sell:

1. Create Efficiencies

A recent study found that approximately 40 percent of time spent on mundane sales activities could instead be efficiently automated by existing AI technologies. These tasks include eliminating manual CRM data entry, which is time consuming, error prone, and tedious. Instead of wasting time with manual CRM data entry, AI can be embedded directly into automation software and CRM databases. This simple strategy, combined with using additional AI technologies, can help sales teams increase their leads by up to 50 percent. Not only can AI increase the efficiency with which leads are gathered, but it can also lead to higher quality leads through smarter sales intelligence.

2. Gain More Sales Intelligence

It isn’t a secret that finalizing a sale often hinges on connecting with a customer on a personal level. However, the lesser known fact is that AI can deliver the smarter sales intelligence needed to make those initial conversation-starting personal connections. AI technologies generate predictions based on how big data analysis for similar leads. Through these insights, unstructured data is translated into actionable intelligence. For example, reactions to social media updates and feedback on reviews can be standardized to provide the insights that sales teams need to begin the conversation with a new prospect. AI can also be used to determine which sales representative is most likely to close a sale by analyzing a wide range of factors, such as technical expertise and the associate’s previous closing rate with similar leads. In short, AI delivers the sales intelligence needed to do away with cold calls or emails. Instead, through streamlined processes and an optimized understanding of big data, sales teams will be able to effectively leverage the power of enhanced sales intelligence.

3. Create Better Sales & Marketing Alignment

No longer is it acceptable or productive for sales and marketing to operate as separate entities. Instead, through tools such as HubSpot Sales marketing and sales can become properly aligned. Proven AI technologies can help to align sales and marketing by:

• Supporting the sales department with relevant customer experiences.
• Creating agreed-upon customer profiles and qualified leads.
• Designing enhanced customer engagement strategies that are based in analyzed data.
• Personalizing and scaling messages to best meet lead preferences.
• Establishing more meaningful human interactions.

In short, AI-powered platforms are able to empower both marketers and sales teams by drawing meaningful conclusions from copious amounts of data to create more personal connections with leads and existing customers.

4. Nurture Your Existing Leads

Simply put AI can and should be used to nurture your existing leads. AI technologies are able to effectively analyze human language, responses, and demographics, as well as countless other data points to create a clear buyer persona. Armed with this knowledge, sales teams can more effectively nurture their existing leads with the type of content, delivery method, and information needed to close the sale. Additionally, the sales teams can enjoy the benefits of machine learning that delivers a predictive lead score. This score is generated for every lead and succinctly tells a sales associate who is most likely to buy. In short, this score can help sales associates more effectively prioritize leads, while simultaneously understanding which leads will need additional time, marketing materials, and product or service information before they are ready to make a purchase.

5. More Effectively Prospect For New Leads

Instead of relying on trial and error, or cold calls and emails, AI technologies can be used to identify the “who, what, where, when, and why” of prospects. When you not only know what lead to call, but when and how you should approach the conversation, you will inevitably be more successful. Fortunately, AI takes the guesswork out of this sales approach by identifying patterns to determine which prospects are likely to convert into a closed deal. From looking at geography, to analyzing company size and lead job title, AI is the dynamic tool needed to help sales teams effectively prospect for new leads without wasting time on individuals who aren’t ready (or will never be ready) to make a purchase.

Source:
https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ai-is-changing-sales
https://www.salesforce.com/products/einstein/ai-deep-dive/
https://www.leadfuze.com/sales-marketing-ai/