If you’re already using data analysis or predictive analytics tools as part of your B2B marketing strategy, the next logical iteration of this strategy is using artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to make the process of finding, attracting and nurturing B2B leads as efficient as possible.
Think about it – we live in an era where tax services like H&R Block are using IBM Watson to help find potential tax savings in your income tax filings – so why not use similar solutions (Salesforce.com’s Einstein comes immediately to mind) to help find new B2B leads?
Find the most valuable leads
For example, an AI solution would be able to help you pick out the best accounts to target for a potential sale. This has immediate cost-savings implications. It means that, instead of trying to whittle down hundreds of leads to find the ones that offer the greatest potential value, you can let a sophisticated AI solution do all the heavy lifting. It would score all the leads, and identify which ones might be particularly good for inbound or outbound marketing initiatives.
Understand what makes the “best” prospects
It’s one thing to come up with a “predictive score” to come up with a list of the best prospects. It’s another thing entirely to drill down on all the best attributes that make one candidate better than another? Often, AI solutions can find the kind of relationships that elude typical marketers. That’s because marketers are trained to think in terms of specific job titles, specific functional areas, or specific industries. From this perspective, if an executive from one company in an industry has been a customer in the past, then it only makes sense that other executives from other companies in that industry might be potential customers in the future. But an AI solution can find all the unique attributes and traits and pre-conditions that set the stage for the sale.
Engage with customers one-on-one
Chatbots have been around for a long time, but what’s new now is that the newest chatbots are now powered by AI. In short, they are capable of having conversations with customers and learning over time. The more conversations these AI-powered chatbots have, the smarter they are about the types of questions they can answer in the future.
Find the right time, the right channel and the right platform to engage
AI solutions can help to determine how to reach out to prospects, as well as what types of marketing message will likely be the most effective when it comes to making a new sales conversion. The key to marketing is sending out an offer at the right time, via the right channel and the right platform.
As you can see, AI is a lot more flexible than you might think in terms of helping to adapt the B2B customer journey. It can be used to find the best possible leads, nurture them along the way to a final sale, and structure the optimal customer journey to make that final sale happen.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.