How Sales and Marketing is Changing with AI and Machine Learning

Sudipto Ghosh

February 28, 2019

Between 2011 and 2018, We Saw Tremendous Growth in the Number of AI and ML Technologies and Their Integration into Marketing, Sales and Customer Service

As we inch closer to the end of a phenomenal decade of digital transformation, global businesses are bracing themselves for the next wave of AI and Machine Learning. For most, it’s time to go back to the drawing board to evaluate, strategize and fortify the future by leveraging new technologies.

B2B companies that have leveraged AI in sales realized call-time reductions of up to 70 percent; and a 50 percent increase in leads and appointments. – McKinsey & Company
A recent study found that by leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in combination with a human touch, a large toy retailer was able to reduce shopping cart abandonment by 30%.
Recent research found that 90% of global senior executives surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2018 agree that AI would positively impact growth; 86% of respondents said they had seen AI’s positive impact on productivity across the communication, sales, and marketing functions.
According to Tractica, there is ample scope for marketers to leverage voice assistants, AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to drive growth.
At their annual conference for CIOs and IT Executives, Gartner revealed key technologies that would open up new avenues for businesses and drive major disruptions in the data management, analytics, augmented intelligence, automation, and AI ethics (Digital Ethics) realm.

Businesses that have managed to deploy AI, Automation and Machine Learning at some level of their daily operations already have a head-start in this race.

Why Marketing and Sales Need Automation and Machine Learning?

Modern businesses see the delivery of contextual customer experience as an answer to all marketing and sales challenges. Automated customer engagement solutions powered by Machine Learning algorithms help to meet unique business needs with unprecedented operational efficiencies achieved in a shorter span of time.

From equipping marketers to create powerful, contextual content and enabling sales to identify their ideal customer profiles with account-based orchestrations, to fully automating customer service interactions, analysts identify Machine Learning and AI as the top technology enablers in the years to come.

Genesys, a leading provider of omnichannel customer experience and call center solutions also provides a solution for marketing and sales professionals. Their marketing and sales engagement platform leverages AI and ML to get real-time insights to proactively engage customers at the right moment through the best channel. By leveraging the power of scale and analytics in marketing and sales operations, companies can free up 90% of the time that professionals would otherwise spend in performing routine tasks such as curating data, email marketing, and analytics.

Technology provided by Genesys and other players in the website conversions space has ushered in a new era in how brands connect and communicate with audiences.

Visible benefits of leveraging a sales engagement platform include:

Reducing the technology stack for sales, marketing, and customer service
Synchronized orchestration of omnichannel engagement across all touchpoints in a buyer’s journey
Seamless integration of Voice and Conversational AI into other digital channels including email, video, social, SMS, mobile and desktop
Accurate analytics of sales performance, matching every interaction between resources
Automated dialogs with self-service assistants and predictive routing in assisted services
Improved agent performance and increase sales conversions
Automated management of contact volume with differentiated end-to-end customer experiences
Prescriptive CRM reporting and recommendations to achieve true omnichannel customer experience based on predictive intelligence

Solutions like Prospect Conversion Chat for call center analytics and Customer Acquisition Center enable marketing teams to unlock millions of hidden points during the entire customer interaction, enabling teams to craft, analyze, streamline and optimize the entire buyer’s journey from a single reporting dashboard.

Top Marketing Automation Technology Providers

According to our in-house research, these are some of the top marketing automation providers:

HubSpot
Salesforce Pardot
Oracle Eloqua
Act-On
Genesys
ActiveCampaign
Infusionsoft
Drip
IBM Marketing Cloud
SharpSpring

The sales-side of AI is as fascinating as that of marketing. By combining various sales automation and Machine Learning capabilities into existing technologies, sales teams can quickly move their prospects through the pipeline, improving on historical data, conversational AI and predictive intelligence.

Top Sales Automation Technology Providers

Salesforce Sales Cloud
Genesys
Autoklose
HubSpot Sale
LeadSquared
SalesLoft
Leadpipe
Outreach
bpm’online
InsideSales.com

There are numerous ways that sales teams benefit from leveraging automation and machine learning. Some of the top deployments in sales are seen in these operations:

Sales hiring
Sales call analytics
Conversational AI, sales assistants and contact center chatbots
Automated meetings and scheduling tools
Sales performance analytics
Sales CRM automation
Account-based orchestration
Sales enablement and coaching

Backed by Machine Learning, sales teams can dedicate the most amount of time and mindshare to solve volatile sales challenges, while leaving routine activities like setting key meetings and refining Machine Learning predictive engagement.

The impact of AI and Machine Learning on a sales team’s productivity and behavior is continuously monitored by tracking actions, words, and text linked to the highest closure rates of sales deals and customer satisfaction. New technologies like text processing, natural language processing, and computer vision networking are making their importance felt across all sales functions, including in pipeline management, pricing, channel sales and inside sales.

Automation + Machine Learning: Your Swiss Army Knife

The best marketing and sales automation platforms can be compared to a Swiss army knife — you can practically do anything with it. Technology providers like Genesys, Salesforce, HubSpot, Oracle, and others have cracked the code on how to harness the power of customer experience using automation and Machine Learning. On any average day, these tools can help marketing, sales and customer support teams to balance talent, data, and technology for excellence in customer experience.