Dear marketers, AI will reach there on time
Marketers hesitant to integrate AI in business processes will cost their businesses dearly

(Source- pixabay.com)
Every B2B sale starts with identification of prospects after tremendous data gathering and analysis by the marketing team. It then funnels the details towards sales team, whose function is to convert prospect to lead and then lead to sale.
Prospect --> Lead --> Buyer
Here, from before prospect identification till lead generation marketing teams need to engage clients, through various media, including all decision makers in the process which are on an average 6.8, for every B2B sale. https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/customer-stakeholders-new-high-data
But now, B2B sale is dominated by online engagement of prospects, way before the sales team reaches them,
Problem identification by prospect --> online solution search --> suggestion seeking and further research by the buyer --> interaction with sales rep --> sale
Now, as the process has become predominantly digital. Marketers who reach the buyers in their “online solution search" phase increase the chances of closing the deal considerably.
Here, AI can help marketers, in generating and nurturing a lead by
- Predictive Analysis — by analysing and concluding the likely decisions to be taken by the buyer and the likely future requirement
- Prescriptive analysis — by providing suggestions to enhance the offer
- Sentiment Analysis — by analysis prospect responses, behaviour etc. to detect the “sense of dissatisfaction” in the client’s experience
According to Gartner, 30% of B2B companies would be using AI, in their sales process by 2020.
If, companies, rely on traditional selling of cold calls and follow ups by personnel, they are going to be left behind their competitors who would already be in talks with the prospects through online engagement.
This will cause sales team to reach the prospect either too early or too late .
But, AI will always reach there at the right time , that is when prospect looks for a probable purchase.
