If you’re a customer of Bigtincan, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “AI-powered sales enablement," but what does this mean for sales and marketing leaders responsible for the performance and productivity of their teams?
Let’s get right into it. First off, when we discuss AI and AI-driven features, we often include the term automation, as our strategy for infusing AI into our platform has always been to improve and support sales and marketing professionals throughout every phase of the sales and marketing lifecycle. The power of AI is at work today, helping improve alignment between sales and marketing teams (e.g. trackable content use and programs for marketing, more relevant sales collateral, higher win rates and better customer experience for sales), to drive more efficiency and ultimately, superior business results.
So, how exactly is AI and automation helping sales and marketing to better achieve their goals? First, if you’re reading this and you are an executive or manager, no one knows better about the sheer volumeof activities that are required to perform these jobs successfully. At a high-level, there are numerous strategic initiatives that require consistent attention (quarterly quotas, investor expectations, key account growth, company-wide campaigns and announcements, major product launches, etc.), all linked to the daily tactics and activities required to support these goals (program execution, qualification, follow-up, sales support, communications, training, cold-calling, appointment setting, meetings, and more meetings, etc.). You know (and get) the picture. Sales and marketing professionals are extremely busy, and the more efficient and productive you can help them become, the more likely sales and marketing teams will succeed.
So, getting back to the sales enablement conversation, let’s take a quick look at what AI brings to the sales enablement table today, and exactly how it is empowering sales and marketing teams at each step of the sales and marketing lifecycle:
- Sales content – We all know the critical role that content plays in generating leads, educating prospects and closing deals, yet when surveyed, 65 percent of sales reps state they can’t find the content they need to send to prospects. That’s a lot of wasted time and money. Now, imagine if sales content was “recommended” to your reps based on the specific industry vertical of the deal, or even how it performed for other reps in similar deals? This is light lifting for today’s AI and it’s happening today.
- What if recommended content pieces actually appeared in your reps’ CRM dashboard for a particular prospect or customer, or could be bundled together by the rep and saved in preparation for an upcoming meeting? AI-powered sales enablement platforms offer seamless integration with CRM and other systems, helping reps get and prepare smarter to optimize every meeting opportunity they schedule. AI enables smarter, more productive client interactions.
- AI helps marketing too. What if you knew what marketing content customers and prospects found the most interesting, or which content was clearly the most effective for closing deals or generating customer engagement? Yes, AI is making this happen for sales and marketing teams on a daily basis as you read this.
- Learning, training and onboarding – AI is making training and onboarding faster and more efficient too. It adapts learning content based on specific user personas, roles, skill levels, locations and other criteria. It is the brains behind delivering learning content wherever and however a sales person works and delivers the right learning content based on what they know or don’t know.
- Collaboration and communication – Helping sales reps gain better skills and achieve higher quotas is not a product of formal training alone. Working with and learning from associates and peers can impart critical knowledge across your team, quickly and efficiently. AI and machine is driving this process as well. More than just digital discussion groups and peer forms, AI-infused sales enablement platforms are even recommending peers to follow or collaborate with for better results.
- AI-powered alignment – Can AI help sales and marketing teams work in unison on shared goals? Most B2B companies share the notion of a target account list that requires special care and feeding to grow and sustain over time. How is AI driving these initiatives today? Account Based Marketing (ABM) rules are infused into specific content and systems (Marketing Automation, CRM) so that any/all campaigns, content, and ensuing leads are clearly associated with target account objectives. Very smart.
Improving sales and marketing performance through AI technology is happening, today. Combining machine learning-based algorithms with pattern matching, usage analytics to track and measure users and prospects, and other factors can greatly enhance success. Recommended contact and actions can help successful reps use moresuccessful content, or guide a junior sales person based on the success of more senior reps in the company. As mentioned in an earlier blog, there may come a time when adding hires to your AI-powered sales team could result in more predictable revenue and 2-3X ROI very quickly. Artificial intelligence is making the future, today.
