How artificial intelligence will impact B2B sales in 2019?

Marc Coll
AppFutura
Published in
6 min readJan 18, 2019

Technological developments are helping businesses by producing new opportunities to reach to their customers. One of the most popular technologies which are widely used in the business industry is Artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence has immense potential to revolutionize the B2B marketing and sales. It can possibly transform the way people interact with the information, brands, and services. The B2B space is all braced to be touched by the Artificial intelligence.

Though many business experts are having reservations about the idea of full automation in marketing, it seems to be a reality in a few years. The pace with which AI development is happening, we can say that even the customer service industry will not be managed by humans alone. Studies have predicted that in the coming years, AI will be in almost every software products. We have experienced the AI in the form of personal assistants like Alexa and Siri. Chatbots are getting highly popular with online customer service providers.

A lot of significant work has been currently done in the AI development, yet a lot needs to be covered when it comes to personalization, analytics, lead generations, and statistical analysis. Considering the rapid development in AI, we can say that the future of sales and marketing is certainly going to include AI. Let’s take a much deeper look to find out how AI is going to impact the B2B sales in 2019.

1. Digital marketing — The traditional means of marketing which includes print media, radio and TV ads, vivid billboards and door to door physical pamphlets are now obsolete. Digital marketing is flourishing, and online sales are increasing day by day. Studies are showing that a significant number of people are shopping online which has made digital marketing all more important. Revenue generation from online ads has surpassed that of TV, radio and newspaper ads.

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All these facts show how customers (B2B, B2C) are more inclined towards their online exposure. This is also a vital sign of how marketers are required to shift their focus on developing powerful pre-sales strategies to grip the potential opportunities provided by modern B2B marketing methods. The future of digital marketing will revolve around Artificial intelligence. AI will generate the content and will work to curate the content for B2B businesses.

2. Personalization and Sales channel Growth — We know that AI can handle the data with more accuracy. Therefore, it makes sense that AI will offer a more personalized experience to the customers by using the gathered data. Both the customer and the sales representative will get intelligent guidance in any kind of function- be it making any purchase or helping the customers with their needs.

With modern artificial intelligence programming, AI can provide realistic customer specific personalization to enhance the effectiveness of sales and marketing channels. AI is implemented in all types of sales channels. It is making use of relevant data to bring effectiveness in sales outsourcing and direct marketing strategies. AI in the form of chatbots is informing customers regarding B2B services and products.

AI is fulfilling the customer’s desires by providing self-service and by guiding them at the time of need. AI is helping the customers by prioritizing the items by tracking their past purchase history, thus allowing them to have a much more personalized experience. As reordering is crucial in the B2B industry, AI makes the reordering more seamless and convenient for the customers. AI offers some great results to increase the sales growth.

3. Data handling — There are so many B2B businesses who are active for many years which has made their data complex and massive. Still, they are hesitant to upgrade the technology, gripping the traditional methods tightly. The rationale behind this is the fear associated with the transferring of data from previous generations to modern ones. Data is of significant importance for a business, and there is a fear of losing it during transferring. Additionally, there may be some compatibility issues with the newer technologies.

Usually, a chief data scientist transfers data from generations of technology, but AI is going to be a more practical driver for data transference. A data scientist may not have the expertise in a business context, and there is a possibility of human error too.

Although the Artificial intelligence today is not so advanced to provide data transference on its own, in future artificial intelligence programming will be highly evolved to process integration, integrate data assets, change management, incentive alignment, executive support, and accountability. These components will help in utilizing and transferring data from previous generations to the present generation. The demand for an experienced Custom Software Development Company will also rise.

4. Improved customer Interaction — To satisfy the clients, it’s important to understand their preferences and desires. This understanding will tempt the customer to return for more purchases. A salesperson is responsible to nurture the connection with the customer. However, the growing diversity in the customer base is challenging the salespersons in the present time. Even a great salesperson cannot connect with every single customer.

AI can help to improve customer relations by using the relevant past data and browsing history within the B2B website. This is a futuristic way to engage with the customers. It also opens up a lot of selling opportunities. The customers can interact directly with the AI via chatbots to answer any query that they have.

Though AI will play a crucial role in sales and marketing in the future, the role of salesperson will also remain vital. Both will work side by side in timely delivering the relevant information to the customer along with guiding them about the market prices. All inclusive, we can say that AI will play a vital role in customer interactions within the B2B industry — Both as a helping hand to the salesperson and as a lone communicator.

5. AI, Versatile in Search and tracking — Simple search function is completely textual. There are lots of advancements in the manner of searches, and as a result, there are multimedia searches and text-to-speech tools to make the searches easy for the customers. With AI, the customers will not have to leave a site until they don’t find what they want. Personal assistants like Siri and Alexa have already become the norm for Text-to-speech searches. The similarity of the voice of these personal assistants with a human is why more and more people are embracing them.

In the coming years, the voice-driven AI will increase the sophistication — the thing that the B2B industry will easily embrace. Application of AI to improve the search process by making it more quick and accurate will be helpful for B2B companies. The companies are going to integrate the text-driven search methods, text to speech and image recognition with AI. This will allow AI to store the search preferences of the customers for the future.

Moreover, the AI will help to execute some complex functions in the B2B industry like tracking physical inventory and stock monitoring. The automated stock monitoring will inform you when the products in the inventory are too low which can influence the future decisions.

Conclusion

AI is going to affect the B2B industry in its entirety especially now when it is not reserved only for big companies who are capable of investing highly. The widespread popularity of AI has resulted in many types of research and studies in this field which has made it affordable and accessible for everyone. In future, Custom software Development Company will work for the B2B businesses to integrate the automated functionality in business through AI software. The intelligent applications will make the task and processes of the businesses easier and simpler.

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Originally published at www.appfutura.com by Cyber Infrastructure.

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Marc Coll
AppFutura

I am Marc from the AppFutura Team. I work with app development companies worldwide and with people looking to hire the best developers for their project.