We are living in the world where technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are revolutionizing B2B businesses. With the constant use of AI technologies, companies are able to bring productive ideas and are able to market to prospective buyers.
It’s all just to gain trust, develop new markets, improve CTR and conversion rates, and create trustworthy relationships with customers. You might find a huge literature on the topic that is already written. But is there any other way to amplify this process or even more engaging?
Yes, there is! Heard about AI – powered chatbots? In fact, especially for B2B businesses, these chatbots have helped to take their marketing strategies to the next level. Our research says that 58% of B2B companies already use chatbot integrations on their website.
Source: Drift + HEINZ
In this blog, we’re going to understand how chatbots can automate your B2B marketing strategy more efficiently and learning how turning towards chatbots integrations could pose a few business opportunities for you. But first, let’s quickly define Chatbots.
What Exactly are Chatbots?
If we talk about generating B2B sales, you might think cold calling and emails. But, here you’re missing one important element: conversation AI Chatbots. With the recent shift of advanced technologies revolutionizing many businesses, we failed to realize that the idea of implementing AI chatbots is getting more popular among businesses.
In a nutshell, AI Chatbots are conversational artificial intelligence agents, helpful to support consumers to find information, engage with service teams, and assist purchases. Chatbots are pre-programmed AI powered units that process your request and try to display the output to leave satisfied results.
According to Gartner, 30% of all B2B companies will employ some kind of AI to augment at least one of their primary sales processes.
How implementing AI Chatbots are Important for B2B Businesses?
The implementation of artificial intelligence technologies is quite common these days; users interact with chatbots and businesses can’t miss this medium anymore. They are highly capable of supplying information to a wide user base straightway.
What’s great about AI chatbots is the capability to process numerous manual tasks. It can also help in improving the sales processes. Because of the versatility of AI chatbots, there are higher chances that you engage with more in real-time.
In fact, according to Microsoft, by 2025 AI will power 95% of all customer interactions. Technologies like AI – powered chatbots and voice assistants will continue to grow and play an important role in customer service.
Now that we define what exactly chatbots are and how the idea of enabling AI solutions are important for B2B companies. Let’s break down the following specific ways how AI enabled chatbots can be used to supercharge your B2B sales pipeline.
1. Offer Personalized Customer Experience
In order to create exceptional user experience, make sure your communication channels are personalized. To engage with users, deploy a chatbot on your website homepage to engage instantly.
According to Statista, 64% of businesses believe that chatbots will allow them to provide a more customized support experience for their customers.
2. Spread Awareness about Products
In the old days, businesses could create awareness either through newspapers, telly or flying posters all around. But now, there are more advanced channels helping businesses to connect with new customers.
According to Gartner, 30% of all B2B companies will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to empower primary sales processes.
To establish a strategy, measure your organization against the AI maturity model. This model can be used as a framework to identify where your organization is on the potential growth curve, communicate with management and decide what steps need to be taken. (Source: Gartner)
3. Provide Relevant Content
Blogs, eBooks, webinars, virtual events, videos, newsletters and other types of content you produce are intended to drive maximum reach to the audience. Plus, providing various types of content at each phase of the sales funnel helps nurture leads and convert visitors into possible regulars.
In fact, 69% of consumers prefer communicating with chatbots because of their ability for quick communication.
4. Engage in Real Time and 24/7 Support
Engaging instantly on time with speed and performance will always be appreciated by users. When it comes to catching a prospect’s attention, timing is most important. Engage with your visitors in real-time are likely to have chances to convert your leads.
According to HubSpot research, 82% of consumers rate an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have a marketing or sales question.
5. Use as a Lead Generation Mechanism
In order to automate leads using AI chatbots, you can use this as a lead generation mechanism. Plus, using AI enabled chatbots enhances customer experience and sales productivity. Use appealing offers to allow users to focus more on pressing tasks.
In fact, According to Accenture, 57% of businesses claimed that chatbot delivers large ROI on minimal investment.
6. Better Social Media Outreach
Another way to implement the AI chatbots into your B2B sales pipeline is through social media channels. In the past, businesses limited their interactions to only specific channels. But now, many B2B business owners make use of social media channels like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to interact with potential leads. One good opportunity that you don’t forget about is auto-reply chat function via chatbots. This can allow you to set a more unified experience for customers.
In fact, statistics says that 97% of businesses are getting leads from LinkedIn. B2B marketers have to limit their lead generation strategy within professional platforms like LinkedIn only.
Well, one more statistics that you must know – According to Facebook, the messenger chatbots can guarantee a near perfect open rate of up to 98%.
Conclusion
The concept of AI powered technologies like chatbots has changed the entire B2B marketing scenario. However, we can already see that chatbot technology not only engages better with customers but saves millions of costs.
The technology is constantly evolving in the digital era by providing enhanced user experience and automating lead generation strategies. If you haven’t entered the chat bot arena yet, go and integrate AI into your marketing strategy.
Stella Scooby is the Manager of Marketing at SLN Solutions, a leading B2B Marketing Data Solutions company. Having a rich experience of 10+ years in B2B marketing, she enjoys sharing her insights and thoughts in the world of b2b marketing.
Chatbots stock photo by sdecoret/Shutterstock
