Content Marketing & Sales Attribution In the Smart Economy
You don’t need AI to better understand the basic information about the state of your business. However, AI tools help extend the ability to analyze that data for hidden patterns and opportunity to improve. Simply knowing how many new contacts were engaged by your sales team, how many calls and messages were shared with customers, and the current interest level among customers for each of your products is available expands management’s ability to exert control over costs and conversions.
That’s why we built these practical data points into the dashboard in the Gig Economy Group platform:
- Number of contacts added across the network;
- Number of distributor logins;
- Number of distributor meetings scheduled;
- Number of shopping carts shared;
- Media assets viewed;
- and more.
Sales attribution is the foundation of a well-run funnel and business. Counting up the cost and results of a sales campaign, its supporting marketing collateral and social distribution costs, to arrive at an understanding of how each dollar spent, as well as every action taken by the sales team, is the basis of a well-run business. In the world of machine learning and smart platforms, this data is the raw material used to optimize messaging and conversion, but direct-sales managers can view this numeric data themselves to see into and tune their funnel for improved results without AI assistance.
The GEG Dashboard delivers valuable human-readable metrics that sales managers and marketers can act on daily. (Sample data based on GEG app testing.)
Sales data is the meat and potatoes, machine learning is the gravy. You’ll want more gravy. We serve more meat and potatoes, too, frim the first day the system is launched.
Imagine starting the week knowing that new contacts are down by 5 percent or 10 percent or that scheduled meetings are up by 6 percent provides managers a starting point for actions to improve closing rates. Management can take action and immediately see if key activities change in the dashboard.
Real numbers
Using real-time sales activity data, a company can adjust production and inventory to lower costs in response to projected demand. This practical application of the data generated by well-defined sales processes developed at the outset of an AI project can be applied to a variety of ordinary human business tasks from Day One.
AI will improve recommendations — our initial customer data suggests overall conversion rates can be increased by 5 percent to 10 percent within weeks.
How much did a single content asset, such as a product video, was viewed by prospects? The question can be answered without AI assistance. Managers can see the results for a single asset, and how it contributed to conversion rates to the next step in the sales process, deciding whether the asset has performed to expectations. These data views support constant improvement in content development.
Where does the AI fit in? It uses the same data, examining correlations between messages, media, and engagement frequency, along with customer feedback (are they more or less interested in a product after viewing a video, for example) to propagate the messages and media that work best. Human managers will need to track the sales context in which each media asset is shared to ensure both human sales reps and the AI remain focused on the customer’s needs and personalize for the individual. Tools will help sustain a meaningful context as distributors and customers’ expectations change.
AI coaches your distributors’ creativity with personalized guidance that helps them adjust each presentation for the person sitting across the table. AI is an additional tool that coaches the distributor while management receives insights that allow better content investments.
Smart coaching
Ultimately, it is the manager’s responsibility to improve sales performance. The process begins by articulating every step of the sales process to understand which resources contribute most to closing a sale.
The data displayed in the GEG dashboard delivers more insight into the direct-selling process that can be used for daily decision-making. If, for instance, the field or an individual distributor are not making enough calls, sales managers can drill into the dashboard to understand how to coach the field for improved results. The AI features of the GEG platform help the field to personalize the messaging and presentation of data, yet it is the distributor who is the soft interface with the customer that captures the most important feedback to customer experience magic.
The combination of human insight and long-term machine-learning analysis of trends creates conversion lift. Alibaba, the Chinese online retail shopping behemoth, has found that personalization of its offers on its Singles’ Day — the equivalent of Amazon.com’s Prime Day — led to a 20 percent higher conversion rate compared to generic offers. In direct sales, management coaching can be blended with AI guidance to give the distributor better insight into the what will move the customer.
AI is ubiquitous and the most effective forms are delivering behind-the-scenes improvements that improve the customer experience. Using raw data and AI suggestions, sales and marketing teams have unprecedented access into the conversion impact of every asset and every rep. It’s a new era for sales accountability, one that starts every morning with a quick view of the state of conversion events in your sales network.
GEG surfaces important data is easy to understand and use in real-time, even before the AI gets to work. Do you have that information at your fingertips today? If not, we’d like to show you what GEG can do.
