Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges
Bernie Borges - Host of the Modern Marketing Engine Podcast
Podcast
Episodes
Listen, download, subscribe
Identify Conversation-Ready Leads Faster With An AI Assistant
Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Bernie and his guests have discussed using AI assistant technology for increased marketing efficiency several times on the show and each time in a slightly different way. Bernie’s guest today is Kevin Colosimo, Senior Director, Digital Strategy and Innovation, North America Marketing at Oracle. Kevin describes how his team is augmenting their workforce with virtual sales assistants powered by AI to produce more conversation-ready leads, aka CoRE. Oracle is best known as the world’s leading provider of database software, but after investing over $6 billion in research and development today it’s recognized as the global leader in business software with a broad portfolio of solutions for companies of all sizes. Kevin is part of the North America Marketing team reporting directly to sales. His goal is to help marketing and sales work more effectively together to achieve better results. One solution his team is implementing is identifying conversation-ready leads faster with AI assistant technology from Conversica. If your company has considered integrating AI sales assistants into your sales and marketing workflow, you won’t want to miss this episode. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com What Are Conversation-Ready Leads And How Do They Impact Sales And Marketing? Kevin defines conversation-ready leads as those that are ready to talk with sales; they are actively in a buying journey. The issue that Oracle faced prior to implementing AI powered sales assistants was that marketing brought in tons of leads, but approximately 80% weren’t ready for a sales conversation. Neither sales nor marketing were happy because the leads weren’t converting fast enough into opportunities. Oracle’s sales and marketing teams approached the problem in two ways. The first was to identify qualified leads through a machine learning lead scoring system. This system ended up being less than effective because the lead scoring model identified leads that hit several of the metrics, but they weren’t resulting in more conversation ready leads. The second was through implementing AI-powered virtual assistants. Rather than funneling more non-CoRe or non-conversation ready leads through the nurture campaigns, they pushed them towards the virtual assistant programs. How AI Assistants Have Altered The Oracle Team Structure Oracle now has four virtual assistants that the marketing team funnels potential leads to when they are not conversation-ready. The four assistants Cynthia, Nicole, Isabella, and Wendy answer questions in a prompt and polite manner with responses specifically designed for certain projects. They also reach out to customers on a consistent and persistent basis that the human element cannot maintain. Through their conversations with the leads, the virtual assistants identify CoRe leads and automatically funnel those leads to the sales team. By augmenting their workforce with AI assistants, Oracle has opened up opportunities for their reps to become more efficient and effective in their roles. Rather than nurturing leads that are not yet ready to be delivered to sales because they’re not yet ready to have conversations, the sales reps can focus solely on those leads who are “conversation-ready” because they’re in the buying mindset. The reps have more meaningful conversations with those buyers because of the information obtained by their virtual assistants. The result is faster conversion to opportunities. Of Course There Were Challenges When Implementing The New Program... As with all major infrastructure changes, there were certain challenges to overcome. The North American Marketing team at Oracle put in place three key principles that increased their lev
Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges RSS Feed
