The Role of AI-ASSISTED SOLUTIONS. in Shaping Modern Sales and Marketing

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1 The Role of AI-ASSISTED SOLUTIONS in Shaping Modern Sales and Marketing

2 Sales is the lifeblood of business. Yet despite its importance, reps may only spend one-third of their days selling 1. They often sink time into manual activities related to prospecting. Precious resources are wasted on lengthy internet searches. Instead of engaging buyers, reps are chasing since-departed contacts. The status quo ends up dragging on the entire organization. Sales professionals are most efficient and effective when selling. Companies are most successful when their sales staff can sell. The question then posed to leadership is how to identify and solve problems with the process, and how to enable reps with the tools to achieve. Both of these needs can be addressed by sales intelligence and AI-assisted sales and marketing. Machine learning solutions have flourished in the new corporate environment and will power companies to new heights in the future. IDC predicted adoption of AI across all industries will drive worldwide profits from $8 bilion in 2016 to $47 billion in The resource-intensive job of prospecting creates opportunities for businesses to apply AI software to their own means in sales. Predictive scoring and data science applications can revolutionize how companies approach pipeline acceleration and sales strategies, from territory creation to account prioritization and follow-up outreach. Why the Time is Now for AI Solutions in Sales Leaders know they need to invest in software to realize the gains possible through AI. What s less clear is which tools will actually elevate performance and reduce waste. Platforms that leverage AI to mine through ever-changing prospect data tackle the burden of sales inefficiency, eliminating manual research and enhancing predictive analysis of high-fit prospects. In effect, a perfect storm of conditions exists for investment in AI sales solutions, considering the relative lack of adequate sales intelligence systems present in most companies. $47 BILLION IDC predicted adoption of AI across all industries will drive worldwide profits from $8 billion in 2016 to $47 billion in

3 However, some organizations remain hesitant, or simply unaware of its benefits. Historically, technology integration was an enterprise concern and scale was a major obstacle. Additionally, AI-assisted sales and marketing wasn t even a part of the conversation five years ago. Now is the time for the C-suite to reexamine how advanced data solutions can improve sales activity and acceleration. IBM found that of early adopters in cognitive computing: 65% 58% 53% see AI as important to their organization s strategy and success 3. view AI as a competitive must have in five years 3. think machine learning can unlock the value of their dark data 3. In addition to these benefits, flexibility is a key draw to AI-assisted sales. Tools can be trialed by an individual with no prior experience, erasing the need to be implemented on a departmental level and ramped up. These conditions ease friction to a point where there is high potential for immediate verifiable results. And, they also prove there s no real reason to not investigate how predictive sales solutions suit the stack. It s also worth noting AI isn t a far-off concept. Investing in account-based solutions powered by optimized sales data isn t so much seen as getting ahead as much as it is keeping pace. During the coming decade [AI] technologies will have an effect on almost every conceivable industry sector, said Tractica research director, Aditya Kaul, in a report forecasting the AI market to reach $36.8 billion by How AI and Lead Scoring Elevates Sales Performance The concept of account-based sales isn t necessarily anything new. Rather, what s new is how it s thought of in the world of 21st century business. Finding and selling to the most relevant accounts has always been a best practice, but augment those actions with AI and predictive lead scoring, and companies have a winning combination. Sales can do a quick internet search of all the names and numbers of all the most relevant buyers. Yet that manpower can t reasonably be expected to accurately sort, rank and prioritize the right prospect, a needle in an exponentially growing haystack. Current processes are too fragmented and time-intensive for efficient use of time and money. Such account-based solutions generate efficiency and effectiveness across the entire pipeline continuum, from creation to prioritization to maintenance, and provide value in many seen and unseen ways across sales and the business at-large. 2

4 The overarching benefit is the elimination of legwork: Sales can be sales, not searches or spreadsheets. This is done in many advanced and specific ways, all made possible through AI and predictive analytics: Sales Acceleration and Prospecting: AI capabilities allow users to instantly generate pipeline by mining thousands of online signals related to industry, size, interest and history, among others, to find buyers. Salespeople can plug in keywords specific to their past wins and turn up prospective results they d never have found otherwise. Pipeline creation takes a matter of minutes, instead of taking hours and days of research by hand with no surety that the best accounts are found. AI grants control over pipeline and directly improves the accuracy and quality of prospecting. Improved Prioritization and Scoring: Once accounts are organized, these tools are able to score them based on fit and engagement, granular enough to differentiate between a company with real buying purpose and an overactive college student downloading white papers for research. Machine learning allows the solutions to rank accounts based on a range of indicators including frequency of searches, the aim of those searches and how closely the buyer fits the target persona established by the user. Intent Monitoring: Online consumers send out scores of signals indicating their behaviors and patterns, but those are difficult to capture and translate. That s why it s important to use intent data as it allows users to queue accounts surging in their specific topics and products, unlocking an unseen audience. Not only can users track what products are being searched, but what complementary products or competitors are being searched, clueing them into potentially ripe accounts. Intelligence Gathering and Monitoring: Building out a database is an exhaustive mountain to climb on its own; maintaining databases with regular updates becomes unscalable considering how companies measure and identify their accounts. Actionable data is another value derived from AI-assisted sales and marketing. Automated crawling of searches, web pages and company information means users can access constantly updated and archived records within the system, knowing no time or money is wasted on pursuing dead ends or outdated contact information. Quality data intelligence is needed beyond account identification, being the basis for how companies formulate outreach and relationship-building. Continuous Improvement: Once users gain a feel for the solution, it becomes easier to see how AI capabilities can be put toward other areas of sales beyond the pipeline. Users can test historical workflow methods within the framework of automation and machine learning to uncover redundancy or arbitrariness. For instance, it may become clear using state lines to judge the borders of territories doesn t translate to good business sense given actual client distribution. 3

5 AI supports not only these high-level initiatives, but also basic business objectives, like new market expansion. If a business never considered a segment maybe only selling to enterprises and not SMBs, or only to professional services and sparingly to health care it can quickly build out a strategy with AI by finding the relevant companies and not just relying on historical data to illuminate a hidden path. Automated account-based solutions empower companies to do things they ve not entertained before, and with a speedy easiness unprecedented in sales. How AI Benefits the Entire Organization The benefits of AI-assisted sales and marketing tech are far from being limited to those two spheres. A basic advantage of such tools having a centralized, constantly up-to-date, organized and accessible database makes them an asset to all corners of an organization. This singular source of truth can be relied upon in interdepartmental handovers, communication between stakeholders and collaborative efforts involving teams from different competencies. The costs of siloed operations can be avoided or mitigated by ensuring that same page everyone is supposed to be on is actually accurate. Not only can managers align strategy from presale through postsale, but so too can leadership dictate synchronization between core business divisions with the help of AI-assisted solutions that build consensus records. AI-assisted solutions are also designed with both the C-suite and entry-level SDR in mind, meaning anyone can use this technology. Additionally, while most account-based solutions are developed with sales and marketing specifically in mind, that does not bar any other interested user from finding a use in their application. The tools are already nimble enough for users to test and verify on an individual level, making them a no-hassle trial for others in the business that hear about the potential of AI. For instance, the mechanics of AI can be utilized for fraud detection, underwriting and contracting, and for EverString specifically, users can leverage the API for other internal uses, like churn reduction. Everstring: A Leading AI-Assisted Solution While the technology behind AIassisted software, machine learning and predictive lead scoring is complex, direct users need an intuitive and easily navigable solution that still provides all the function and features: EverString leads in precisely this area. Easily navigable and able to scale to the unique needs of users, the EverString Audience Platform can be used in sales and the business at-large to produce beneficial outcomes and reduce resource waste. 4

6 The advantages for sales are clear: pipeline can be filled in minutes, accounts most likely to act are brought to the forefront, overlooked buyers are brought back into the spotlight and personalized outreach is made simple. Taken from the expanded perspective of leadership, it s still easy to see how AI-assisted automation can benefit operations. Speed and productivity are well within reach when using these solutions, which themselves are increasingly seen as the new status quo. See for yourself how EverString s sales intelligence can help you boost prospecting and pipeline with a free 7-day trial. SOURCES contact@everstring.com (650)