Artificial intelligence is here – and while it doesn’t look like the humanoid machines of I, Robot or the glowing red eye of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it has been subtly permeating the business landscape for years, to the point that it’s now odd if a large organisation doesn’t use AI-powered tools.
And there’s one area in which AI has already proven particularly effective: the top of the sales funnel. AI can make sales prospecting, lead generation and lead qualification tasks far more efficient and effective.
In this guide, we’ll put the microscope on how best to use AI to drive sales, look at how this technology might elevate your prospecting efforts, fill and streamline your sales pipelines and drive business growth in what is – thanks partly to AI – an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Join us as we look at how to find new customers with AI.
What is AI in sales and marketing?
Sales and marketing-focused artificial intelligence is machine learning designed to grow an organisation’s revenue through smarter marketing and more effective sales tactics.
It may not be immediately obvious where AI is currently impacting sales and marketing. That’s because the technology is generally hidden within sales tools, many of which businesses were using long before AI was incorporated into the mix.
Modern businesses are not lacking in information—rather the opposite. The challenge is in managing the information overload and making use of all the zeros and ones, with the primary role of AI in sales and marketing to convert the endless raw data into actionable insights.
In doing so, AI ingests all the data, and then works to find patterns and trends that can inform a business’s sales and marketing strategies. It can also highlight important information and provide greater clarity and focus by culling any unnecessary details and words.
How to identify prospective customers with AI
While there are countless different ways in which AI can be used for sales prospecting and lead generation, here are a few of the most common examples of how to get more clients for your business using AI.
1. Identifying ideal customers
The question of how to identify prospective customers is one that many businesses struggle with. Sure, you might have an idea of what your target customer looks like, but does it reflect reality? Might there be a larger or more relevant target audience out there?
Gong is a powerful revenue intelligence tool with an AI-powered feature that analyses sales calls to help you better understand your ideal customer. Gong is able to identify patterns within sales transcripts to help reveal target market opportunities you may never have considered before.
2. Data-driven prospecting
A sales prospecting AI can transform hours of work into a few quick clicks – and, when used correctly, the results can be even better than an experienced salesperson can generate.
AI prospecting tools like ZoomInfo and Kaspr take the endless effort out of prospecting by scraping, sorting, segmenting and presenting leads based on your instructions.
3. Qualifying leads with chatbots
Historically, the answer to “how to get customers for my business” was a simple one: manpower. When it comes to leads, a sales team will often waste a lot of time sorting the wheat from the chaff – often pursuing prospects who turn out to be less than ideal. It was often a simple matter of putting in the hours. Until now.
Modern AI-powered chatbots have become incredible at not just generating leads by asking for contact details at the end of a chat, but ensuring those leads are high quality too, by subtly asking qualifying questions during the engagement. Tools like MobileMonkey, Drift and Engati are incredible at delivering a steady stream of qualified, high quality leads to your business.
4. AI-powered CRMs
While pre-qualification is important, you’ll also need to qualify and segment your leads once they are loaded into your CRM – a job that is made far easier when that CRM is powered by AI.
AI-powered CRMs like Salesforce Einstein and Zoho CRM help you to organise all your prospects and lead information and make it actionable. These tools extend far beyond lead generation – they also offer a wealth of ways to push prospects down the sales funnel.
5. Predictive analytics
AI-powered predictive analytics is the use of data to forecast future trends. It is a powerful tool to understand how prospects will respond to different strategies. These machine learning algorithms can help you to build lead scoring models that tell you exactly who you should target and how you should target them.
Integrating AI into the sales process
Integrating AI into your sales process might feel like a complex and perhaps overwhelming task, but modern, user-friendly tools can make it surprisingly simple.
The main aim of implementing AI for sales prospecting is to automate otherwise manual tasks. A great place to start is to identify the tasks that take up large amounts of your salespeople’s time and resources while delivering modest returns, such as lead qualification.
From there it’s a matter of identifying the AI-powered tools that can take over this lower value work – in the case of lead qualification, a chatbot or an AI-powered CRM – so that your salespeople can focus exclusively on higher value tasks that lead to more sales, more revenue and business growth.
Growth Partners: The digital sales and marketing specialists
At Growth Partners we have built a reputation for helping businesses grow by solving real-world business problems with targeted data analysis, strategic marketing thinking and best-in-class digital implementation – and in today’s digital environment, that includes AI.
To achieve the results we are known for and provide a blueprint for success, we’ve developed DigitalArchitect – a proprietary system that uses deep data to highlight online expansion opportunities and determine the strength of your business case for digital marketing investment, laying the foundation for continuous, sustainable growth.
If you’re ready to transform your sales efforts with AI, we’re ready to help. Contact us today to kickstart your growth journey.