AI in sales & marketing

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What are the Key Examples of AI Applications in Sales and Marketing?

AI is changing digital sales and marketing. Marketing and advertising are among the top sectors that have invested in artificial intelligence. Examples of AI applications include:

a)     Personalised sales

Using customer profiles and preferences, AI can personalise and target sales campaign. For example, AI can suggest a light bulb and a timer to a customer who just bought a table lamp. An example of personalised sales campaign is Starbucks that uses data from its 17 million reward program members to offer discounts and to suggest to the barista the customer preferred orders.

b)     Price optimisation

Artificial intelligence with big data is being used to optimise pricing strategy. Data such as customer profile, spending habits, supply and demand, product specifications, time of the purchase and competition are all analyse to optimise pricing. Amazon uses AI to optimise their pricing based on market demand. Changes can happen every 10 minutes, which equivalent to millions of times per day.

c)     Improving customer interaction

Conversational AI has significantly improved customer interaction. The technology can reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. Conversational AI platforms are being used in many sectors such as financial services, healthcare and recruitment. Both big tech companies and start-ups are competing to increase their market share, examples include platforms such as: Amelia and Creative Virtual.

d)     Social listening and sentiment analysis

Social listening and sentiment analysis helps companies to analyse their brand and detect if there are any issues with customers. Analysing social media data such twitter feeds enable companies to find out if there are any customers unhappy with their products. Companies use several AI platforms to conduct social listening and sentiment analysis, examples include Samsung that uses Crimson Hexagon platform to conduct sentiment analysis and improves their products launch.

What are the AI Limitations in Sales and Marketing?

There area several limitations when applying AI in Sales and Marketing. These include:

• Data access: Having access to data and to the right type data such as customer’s behaviour and purchasing power is crucial. Without AI cannot be used to generate successful leads.
• Metrics: The AI projects need to be measured and linked to business metrics such as sales growth rate and leads conversion rate.
• Data privacy and regulations: Companies are required to reveal how they use and protect data under EU GDPR. Safeguarding data and documenting how it is used is crucial. If requested by customers, explaining the AI algorithms and how derived the outcomes is another consideration.
• Understanding bias: Not understanding data bias could lead to promoting products to the wrong target audience or worse it could lead to discriminating against certain groups. A study on Facebook ads campaigns discriminate against gender and race even when it is not intended by the advertiser. For example, Jobs ads for janitors and taxi drivers are shown to a higher fraction of minorities

What is the future of AI in Sales and Marketing?

The potential contribution of AI in sales and marketing is significant. Designing a robust AI marketing and sales strategy need to take into account the following:

• Integrating applications from predictive sales to lead scoring and generation to get added value across the chain of marketing and sales.
• Constantly look for new sources of data both internal and external.
• Upskilling and building AI capabilities.

About Dr Djamila Amimer

Dr Djamila Amimer is the CEO of Mind Senses Global. Djamila helps businesses and organisations apply artificial intelligence to improve performance and unlock its full potential. She is passionate about AI and would like to make AI accessible to everyone.

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In the next editions, we will continue with the deep dives and look how AI is being used in several sectors. Please subscribe to the newsletter: AI for Business Leaders.