Navigating AI in your B2B Sales Strategy

Want to experience double-digit revenue growth for your brand?

According to a recent study from McKinsey, B2B brands who are latching onto new technologies to transform their sales processes can expect to experience this level of revenue increase. 

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) quickly becoming a hot conversation, we are taking a deeper dive into how this technology can contribute to revenue growth and provide a positive change for B2B professionals. 

If you are unfamiliar with AI, Built In describes it as a “wide-ranging branch of computer science…capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.” When looking at it through the lens of B2B, this technology will support sales teams with tasks like: 

• Swiftly sifting through gigabytes of data to provide insights that can be put to use.
• Automating business procedures that often take hundreds of hours of research and labor to accomplish 
• Analyze data to efficiently manage sales cycles
• And a lot more!

There is no doubt that AI has a lot of promise, but how can B2B companies integrate it into their routine? If this is a question your team is asking, you've landed at the right place. While the potential options are endless, here are 4 basic solutions for AI-guided selling and how it may help salespeople to streamline their sales cycles and forecast more predictable business growth.

Improve Lead Nurturing Process

Lead nurturing is the practice of regularly interacting with target customers to encourage them to enter the sales funnel. Several information and communication channels are used, such as live events, webinars, product displays, and free consultations. AI enables B2B marketers and salespeople to develop the best lead engagement strategy possible with machine learning and predictive analytics. This allows teams to provide personalized solutions that address the customer's problems, inspiring them to go on to the next step of the purchasing process.

Streamline Sales Procedures

According to McKinsey, 72% of the fastest-growing B2B companies say using analytics helps them with their B2B sales goals. AI-guided selling saves sales teams time by preventing them from doing repeated tasks, allowing them to concentrate on high-value prospects. ​​And speaking of time, B2B teams get a ton of it back thanks to automation. AI may be used to handle time-consuming activities like data entry and scheduling, freeing up agents to spend more time cultivating connections with top prospects. For audiences who are mostly online, the usage of chatbots, email automation, and self-service consultation reservations are excellent examples of how automation technology improves the buyer experience and streamlines the sales process. 

Enhanced Personalization for both Marketing and Sales

B2B companies can gain greater insights into each buyer's journey using AI-powered solutions. Sales representatives can use AI to quickly evaluate consumer data, such as location, demographics, engagement patterns, and previous buy histories. These tools also go a step further by gathering information from numerous sources to find potential customers who have demonstrated interest in your particular content. B2B sales teams can precisely identify and rank leads with the greatest likelihood to purchase using these purpose signals. 

AI can also be used by marketers to create customized communications for each stage of the consumer lifecycle. Email ads can be optimized and personalized based on user actions with AI components that modify encounters.

Improve the accuracy of demand forecasting

By 2025, 75% of B2B sales organizations are expected to supplement traditional sales playbooks with AI-guided selling solutions, according to Gartner. AI is used to collect information, evaluate it, and improve interactions with clients and prospects. Based on previous purchases, predictive analytics will assist in forecasting purchasing decisions. This is significant and very helpful because a B2B model makes it more difficult to identify purchase trends than a B2C approach. 

AI can come in and evaluate large amounts of previous sales data, producing accurate projections at a rate that manual computations could never match. This practically eliminates the impact of demand fluctuation on B2B forecasting, making it particularly useful during periods of economic uncertainty.

Final Thoughts 

The uniqueness of human thought should be considered and prized, which is why it is important for companies and individuals to not be afraid of the unknown but rather, think of how AI can be boosting efficiency and supercharge their teams.

For example, otter.ai is a meeting assistant that records audio, writes notes, and generates summaries while in meetings or on calls. This is great; however, there are still human processes that are required to go in and pull out the most critical points and then add any other thoughts. Is it better to just jot down the quick couple of notes needed? 

The jury is out. If we look back on the past and all of the technological advances, the evidence is there to show AI will elevate. It will eliminate more tedious and repetitive tasks, facilitate more streamlined and sometimes smarter work, and create new opportunities that are currently beyond comprehension. 

Bill Gates defined the distinctions between the familiar artificial intelligence of today, which can learn to do things better but not take on completely new tasks, and artificial general intelligence, or "strong" A.I., which is "capable of learning any task or subject” is important to understand if there are feelings of apprehension towards the superintelligent technology.  Strong A.I. doesn't exist yet, stating. "There is a robust debate going on in the computing industry about how to create it, and whether it can even be created at all."

Compared to traditional tools and even sophisticated spreadsheets from five years ago, B2B AI can provide significantly more precise forecasts. These tools can identify basic patterns and let executives assess their chances of achieving targets.

While the use of artificial intelligence in B2B is expanding quickly, B2B sales and marketing teams should first gain a thorough understanding of the various technologies available to determine which ones best support the needs of their business before diving into AI and all its functionalities. With these data points in hand, teams can fully leverage AI's advantages and develop an AI-driven plan to increase conversion with improved effectiveness.

AI is transforming the way we sell today, and there are numerous methods B2B businesses can benefit from integrating artificial intelligence into their strategies without feeling overwhelmed by the innovative technology. Schedule a demo with our team to learn more about navigating AI in your B2B sales strategy and leverage AI for your B2B growth.

Cited