How Artificial Intelligence is making the Process of Lead Generation Simpler?

AI is here to make our lives better. Whether it be asking Siri about a local restaurant or business, probing Alexa about the outside weather,Netflix suggesting what to watch next, or Amazon laying out all the products you could potentially be interested in; AI is reaching into our homes, our pockets and listening to our commands.

AI has a plethora of uses; both business related and personal. Facebook messenger bots are just one example of how companies are fast leveraging AI to streamline mundane tasks and customer service. Most modern-day consumers prefer to connect with a brand through messaging apps and are not afraid to make purchasesvia this channel.

Many AI-driven software programs are eliminating a great deal of manual work, helping brands make better decisions about how to approach potential customers, personalize conversations and above all, recommend existing leads that deserve follow-up.

Chatbots make up the largest portion of artificial intelligence and they could save businesses a lot of money. Chatbots have the potential to save $174 billion across financial services, sales, customer service and insurance.

So, are you ready to incorporate AI into your marketing strategy?

If not, here are some easy ways todiscover how AI can help you improve your marketing efforts and allow businesses to generate more leads in 2018.

Generate More Leads

I know it’s hard to believe for many marketers that AI can actually help themgenerate more leads than theircurrent, age old, run-of-the-mill marketing techniques.

Did you know that businesses that incorporate AI into their marketing efforts receive 52% higher conversion rates, 54% increase duser engagement and traffic, 58% more profits, and 59% better close rates for sales?

In nearly every aspect, AI rules over human marketing. AI is less expensive, more efficient and can perform many time-consuming tasksquickly. However, humans can still deliver more value and high-level of personalization that robots can’t. There will always be a special place for human marketers, writers, and customer support representatives.

But regardless of the extremely high levels ofhuman intelligence, robots are not far behind and are in fact learning fast enough. AI is going to rule lead generation in 2018 as it has the ability to give you a higher ROI for your hard-earned dollars than the average human.And that is pretty interesting.

Nurture Leads

Most people don’t simply visit your website and make a purchase. Marketers are well aware of the factthat apotential buyer will visit your website multiple times before making a final purchase decision.

This is why lead nurturing has become ever more indispensable, and you need to follow up on prospective leads with more offers to turn them from visitors to paying customers. Before the advent of AI technology, lead nurturing was done through manual prospect massaging, email segmentation, and email messages.

Some stick-in-the-mud marketers still adhere to the notionthat lead nurturing can only be performed by humans. But according to a recent study, 59% of Americans are willing to receive special offers and coupons via chatbots.

As people are getting ever more comfortable with conversing withchatbots,incorporating them into your business strategy will help you grow.

When it comes to customer retention, chatbots also come out successful. The average customer retention rate after one month of chatbot usage is 40-60%, while for apps, it has plummeted down to 20-40%.

Reason?

Because chatbots, being tireless, super -natural beings that they are, have the ability to deliver timely responses regardless of the time of the day, and never forget to send a reply.Infact, they are simplyperfect for nurturing leads and retaining customers.

Potential Customer’s Data

In today’s fierce business world, data is everything. Without valuable data, digital marketing agencies are dead. They need to know their prospects and customers throughA/B testing which hasnow become possible with the dawnof artificial intelligence and chatbots.

Since chatbots are new to the marketing world, they are highly experimental, with a plethora of untapped opportunities surrounding them. Since we are yet to find out the potential of these chatbots, continuous testing is vital.Botanalytics offers valuable chatbot data for digital marketers to improve their marketing efforts.

Chatbots also boast a tremendous amount of conversations in a very short period of time, and each conversation is a valuable piece of data.

Let’s take an example of a shopping bot, Celebstyle, whichallows you to copy the style of your favorite celebrity.

When you choose a celebrity, it offers recommendations so you can buy products according to your celebrity’s outfit style. Every single customer that chooses a celebrity and buys a product represents a valuable piece of data.

Chatbots can provide businesseswith more and more meaningful data than they ever thought possible by funneling significant insights and figures into analytical tools.

Increased Brand Engagement

Would you rather respond to an email or a chatbot?

Emails have been used for years, and almost every marketer has an email list which they use to send special offers to their subscribers.

But chatbots are mainlyuntapped because they are new marketing arena. This is why customers are more interested in messages sent from chatbots rather than old email marketing tactics.

Let’s consider this case study, where a company developed a bot that received a massive amount of engagement.

The customers spent an average of4.27 minutes talking to a bot, and the company received more than 780 replies.

Let’s take another example of Madi, a shopping bot.

When users send the bot a snap-shot of their hair and color, it offers personalized hair color suggestions drawing upon their face structure, natural hair tone, skin tone, and myriad other factors.

When users take a picture of their face and hair, a bot gives personalizedhair color suggestions based upon their hair color, face structure and a variety of other features. By letting customers venture a foot forward into the awe-inspiring realm of artificial intelligence, chatbots can boost brand engagement quickly.

Outstanding Customer Support

For nearly every business, providing exceptional customer support is a big challenge. Customers have their concerns that need to be solved by a call center or a chat center representative. Businesses need to invest more to offer the best possible support to their customers.

But with the rise of chatbots, businesses are able to provide faster and better customer support.

In the healthcare and banking sectors, chatbots are answering customers’ queries instead of a human, and they are saving 4 minutes per inquiry.

How? When a robot is replying to customers’ questions, it simply saves money and time both while allowing humans toperform operations that only theyscan do.

More than 50% of consumers expect businesses and their support staff to be active round the clock to entertain their queries. Chatbots can stay up and work tirelessly.

More than 71% of customers want to be able to solve service issues on their own. So, customers prefer sending a message over talking on the phone.

Chatbots can save money and time and will likely be an important part of customer support in the future.

Closing thoughts

With the increasing abilities of AI, services such as prospect data, customer support, lead generation and nurturing are cheaper and faster. And that is a good news for businesses. More and more entrepreneurs, small business owners and startups can utilize the benefits of AI and build a successful and profitable business.

In 2018, the process of lead generation will be completely transformed by AI because chatbots have officially become smarter, better and faster than humans.