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Some say marketing is all about buzz. Well, maybe. But, selling is about results. Can artificial intelligence still make a difference in sales? These two sides of business are more closely linked than you might think.

Marketing and artificial intelligence.

The fusion of marketing and AI is the next step in the evolution of sales. By eliminating the bumpy transitions between the two sides of this specialized coin — sellers can capitalize fully on what marketing starts.

Let’s integrate the whole.

Every step of the sales and marketing life-cycle is now an integrated whole. Sales is part of a complex system. Sales and marketing have become a labyrinth of sophistication — holding enough power in its subset — that it can benefit from an AI boost.

The big mama — big data.

Using big data to pinpoint likely markets is the beginning stage of selling. Automation tools to lead prospects through the sales funnel efficiently — and smart CRM systems to optimize customer retention.

This revolution is your evolution.

When you evolve into something more powerful — it is a revolution. You have learned how to use the new developments  in your business space. Now your marketing and sales team have become a duo-powered team — ready for the AI business.

Here’s a closer look at how sales reps and their managers are harnessing the power of AI to gain an edge over competitors and delight their customers.

AI-Assisted Selling for Speed

When you aren’t selling, you’re likely losing productive hours. Everything that contributes to developing and closing a sale is a step in the right direction. All other steps that you are currently using in your sales funnel — everything — puts you farther from your ultimate goal.

The information flows right to you.

An AI system that automatically coordinates incoming and outgoing data with your CRM saves you valuable time. By putting information at your fingertips instead — of forcing you to enter it by hand.

Automation.

Automation will log activity, monitors traffic, prioritizes emails for you and track new contacts. This frees you from administrative tasks that currently soak up too much time.

Your new AI assistant.

With an AI assistant pulling prospect and customer data from marketing files — you’re also able to spend less time looking for information.

You don’t want that team sequestered in an entirely different part of your organization. AI integrated databases will give you access to the information you want while filtering out the details you don’t need to know.

Different departments to sift through.

No more elegantly thin client-facing dashboards — customized to different departments. No — with your new AI — you have this covered so much more quickly.

The Ultimate Prospecting Tool

Where are the most fertile fields for marketers to till if they want to harvest a bumper crop of highly qualified sales leads? AI systems in the form of marketing automation technology can tell them.

Where do I go? Now you know.

Once marketers know where to find leads — they’re able to do the work of guiding them along the buying journey to sales readiness. They can even explore new possibilities for you by looking at huge volumes of aggregate data and spotting trends that point toward emerging markets.

Marketing and sales AI can also take you where your markets haven’t reached yet.  This reach is saving you time that might otherwise have been spent trying to develop leads. Many of these hand-gathered and primed leads — discouragingly — may   go anywhere.

Nurturing your high-yield prospects.

Without wasting time nurturing non-leads, you’re able to focus more on the high-yield prospects your AI locates for you.

Sales resources are limited — so being able to allocate your spend where it will make the most impact has a dramatic effect on your bottom line.

AI Pinpoints Sales Readiness

One of the pivotal moments in a buying journey is when marketing makes the hand-off to sales.

The blind toss.

Traditionally, this has felt more like lobbing blind leads over a fence and hoping someone’s there to catch them. With a sales AI system coordinating the switch — a seamless course can be taken — and the handoff can happen with practiced ease. You’ll become more like a pair of Olympic relay runners handing off a baton at speed.

You can watch this pay-off — easily in your analytics.

Big data and extensive analytics allow you to see the signs of sales readiness in prospects — and make the transfer at the optimal time. Automated helpers make will make this transfer easy to connect with newly qualified leads.

Predictive Power

Artificial intelligence isn’t so smart that it can precisely outline every potential customer’s buying habits. But, make no mistake, it will be able to. To be fair — AI can make educated guesses  well enough to have real predictive power.

Which demographic is your best performer?

Big data and AI applications tell you which demographics are your likeliest customers. AI can spot signs of interest as soon as prospects show them. Your marketing team can then customize messages to would-be buyers.

How to integrate your database.

An integrated database then puts that information in the hands of sales reps who can build on the work marketers have done, motivating prospects with the approach that’s most likely to pay off in conversions.

What is happening to your AI capabilities?

Your AI’s predictive capabilities don’t end with closing a single sale either. Systems can now gauge a customer’s likely lifetime value so you can continue to invest in your most promising clients, prioritizing them with incentives geared to their needs.

It’s sometimes hard to calculate the relative lifetime values of a frequent but budget-sensitive bulk buyer and an infrequent and service-sensitive big-ticket client.

With your AI doing the math for you and then extrapolating expected LTV, you’re able to maximize revenue while keeping your best customers happy.

A Deeper Understanding of Sales History

There’s no better way to understand future sales than analyzing past ones. Tracking this data by hand can’t give you the nuanced and varied views that AI technology can. It’s easy enough to pull sales records — but your AI can also cross-reference that with demographic data.

Site-behavior, content downloads, customer service records and a host of other influencing factors to show you who might buy and when.

How can you find the patterns?

Using third-party data you can also gain access to information about a prospect’s past buying history outside your firm. Revealing patterns that may be hard to see with the naked eye but become clear when viewed through the lens of aggregate data.

You might see that your buyer bought a printer six weeks ago. If you sell printer ink and know the size of the cartridge that model takes — you’re able to send an offer precisely when it’s likely to be foremost in your prospect’s mind.

Retention for Life

Depending on your industry and the length of your sales cycle — you could spend seven times as money to develop a new lead as you do to retain an existing customer.

An equation that remains lopsided — but not for long.

Despite the lopsided equation above — most companies invest heavily in lead generation and tend to give customer retention short shrift. That’s a mistake in any business climate.

All industries are facing stiff competition for an increasingly fractured market. You can see this how this fissure can become lethal to profit margins. Data-driven insights show you that  your customer service doesn’t stop with the sale — but continues to pay dividends.

How to keep those loyal to you — well — loyal.

Keep your buyers loyal with incentive programs and offers customized to meet their needs. An AI-assisted customer care program helps keep sales reps in tune with their customers in ways the buyers themselves may not even know.

You’ve seen a great example of this anytime you’ve visited a website that tracks when you might need replenishment of a favorite product. How about the offer or suggestion about what other buyers chose to go with the item you have just looked at?

You want to help your customers in they way they need and want.

It’s a boon to buyers too as AI systems learn more about their tastes and needs; instead of having to seek out information or place a new order, the offers come to them.

Early adopter of the AI systems may not realize their contribution.

Even early adopters of AI-enhanced systems tend to undervalue these systems as customer retention tools for sales teams.

Those adopters had it easy and didn’t even see it.

They fail to establish clear, firm links to the CRM. Many don’t fully integrate and sync the system with the marketing side of the software.

Get the best from your AI system.

Make sure your investment in artificial intelligence is a smart one by giving sales equal billing on your marketing automation platform. From finding sales-ready leads to facilitating the sale to following up with customer care, AI gives sellers an edge.

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If you are in the Information Technology space, you are likely knowledgeable on what artificial intelligence holds. In fact, considering AI, the future of Information Technology appears bleak to some experts but promising to others.

If a tech worker is worried about their job — they really don’t understand the magic of AI.

Some workers are concerned with the future of their jobs. Yes, research reveals that automation and artificial intelligence could be coming for these jobs. In fact, there is a possibility of a replacement of over 22 million jobs within the next decade – in the United States alone.

If not eliminating these jobs, there will be reassigning. These are alarming threats if you are in a couple of these white-collar jobs.

Your gatekeeper roles could be at stake — BUT is there something to smile about these changes?

The recent trends in information technology (and secrets of high-performing teams) reveal mastering technology as one of the industry’s trending features. In extension — the role of artificial intelligence in this subset cannot be underestimated. Let’s look at the future of the tech space. But first, a brief past…

A Brief History of data processing and related jobs.

IT deals with the utilization of electronic platforms. IT performs the storage, retrieval, transmission, and manipulation of information. Certainly, it’s necessary to look at how these aspects of data processing have evolved.

Processing data.

Processing of data dates back a century when analog mechanisms were used. With the introduction of electronic computers in the 1940s, programming became necessary.

People interested in the industry started training. These people had to be specialized in computer programming, data encryption, and decryption and inventing new tools. The new creation of data tools would increase the operational capabilities of the computers.

People were terribly afraid for their jobs at that time, too.

The innovation trends continued. Everyone in those field were afraid that the new data and technology would take every job. Much like today — many in those field were looked on with a mixture of admiration and interest — but, yes, fear too.

We are still diversifying in the current tech climate.

The tech industry is characterized by diverse areas and angles. These include machine learning, use of robots, automation, and, of course, artificial intelligence (AI).

Currently — the technology industry employs millions of people.

These industry employees include administrators, analysts, chief information officers, consultants, designers. Then we have the developers, engineers, technicians, programmers, and support personnel.

Additionally, companies like Congruity360 are focusing on increasing the reliability of shared data and reducing the risks associated with the use of electronic platforms in sharing data.

The Instagram brothers.

We’ve seen the Instagram founders step down in the last couple of days saying it is “the misuse of information” by Facebook. I call them “the Instagram brothers,” but the point being that there will always be concerns about our security. We will need real people looking at real tech problems. Real people will need to oversee this protection.

What does the future hold — about information and tech?

Indeed, there is much to expect in the  because technology is an ever-evolving area — and most entities are embracing the use of AI in simplifying mundane tasks. 

Boosting Company Productivity

You have heard of Alexa and Google, how are they utilizing artificial intelligence to boost their productivity? Well, these companies have realized significant transformations after utilizing artificial intelligence.

Well, take for example Google. The company uses bots to give you a more personalized search experience – from supplying you with the content you are looking for and to showing you relevant on-site ads.

Colossal data mining is, indeed, a compelling transformation for companies. For instance, the social media giant Facebook has been on the news recently for how it is collecting and sharing users’ information. Of course, any online company of such a scale as Facebook is well conversant with automation in improving their users’ experience, and consequently, their productivity.

Enormous data mining seems to be picking up — is THAT tech future?

The trends of enormous data mining by companies cannot stop soon. In fact, you can foretell a future where this area will be a leading player in the IT space.

In spite of this promising trend for online entrepreneurs, there is a significant concern of how huge data mining and sharing will impact people’s privacy. But, remember here — how will all of that tech be done? The AI can’t provide all of this information.

IT Infrastructure – More Secure or Insecure?

Yes, security issues pose a big question to the tech space. In as much as many companies are developing and promising more secure systems (with no security breaches) using artificial intelligence, a plethora of people have concerns about how these companies will be sharing their information.

The US Intelligence teams accused Russia of penetrating the US electoral system and tampering with the election process.

Even though Russia denied any involvement in the US electoral process, the topic remains a great subject of discussion. How could the global superpower get its tech platform breached?

Is AI going to search out all of the needed information on subjects that we deem important for tech info — or other info for that matter.

Even if the allegations in the US were hyperbole, just the mention of the claim and how the topic incited mixed reactions revealed how more people are concerned with security in the digital space.

It is possible to predict systems’ security breaches in the future – as hacking techniques will outweigh measures to secure the systems.

However, experts are continuing to create and encourage more secure systems. For instance, Chrome started flagging non-HTTPs sites as insecure (HTTPs systems utilizes advanced security feature – SSL and TSL to secure online platforms).

You can imagine of further modifications to thwart the use of AI to hack information from websites.

Career Opportunities – Old is Gold?

They say “Old is Gold.” Yes, it is. But isn’t flexibility an integral part in growing a businesses?

Well, enterprises must be flexible, to identify new opportunities and shift and pivot swiftly.

Considering information Technology, particularly the usual white-collar jobs, artificial intelligence is massively forcing its way through the systems.

Without any doubt, there will be job elimination – for how will companies employ humans to operate complex tasks which the bots can do smoothly? No need. You will no longer have to take complex computing tasks.

“But won’t new opportunities be tough as well?” you ask.

We say a resounding, “YES.”  There is one area artificial intelligence can’t take away: teamwork and managing the systems.

More people will dip their noses in the technology space — not for gatekeeper roles — but to monitor the systems.

Within the current atmosphere — even with the excitement and increasing need for all things tech — for now — humans ensure smooth operations.

Continuing and reinventing and developing new tech models –won’t alway be done by humans — but is at present — expanded by humans.

Hopefully, these tech and data areas are thrilling for you. Then the future WILL hold gold.

Roundup

Imagine the use of artificial intelligence, robots, and machine learning stopping now — no way. In particular, the IT space seems to be in love with machine intelligence.

Job issues and privacy of information can worry you — but what of the compelling new opportunities? Go out and make these opportunities possible — for yourself and for all of us. 

The post Is Artificial Intelligence Poised to Become the Future of Information Technology? appeared first on ReadWrite.