7 Ways to Leverage AI-Powered Data to Reach Revenue Goals

Every marketer feels the pressure to consistently create campaigns that break through to intended targets across a variety of channels with a message that resonates deeply. Mastering the art of engaging prospects and transforming leads into mutually beneficial customer relationships in which all your revenue-generating goals are realized — better yet, surpassed — is no easy feat. However, with a little help from AI-empowered data, this mystic mountain of a task suddenly becomes infinitely more scalable. In today’s blog we’ll walk you through seven actionable steps you can implement now in order to make AI deliver on its promise to provide you with the leaf-piles of revenue you always knew it could.

#1 — Define Your Goals

Before you embark on a path of generating more revenue than ever before, it’s important to be clear about what it is you are striving toward. Research maintains that people who set goals are 43 percent more likely to achieve them. This means you need to write down in detail precisely what you intend to make happen. For example, it’s not enough to say, we’re going to improve the quality of our leads and increase sales. You need to be specific and say, “In the first quarter we’re going to double the number of last quarter’s leads and increase our close rate by 25 percent.” In that one short sentence, we just set two very measurable goals, and now that we know what to measure, it’s much easier to draw a linear path between the dream and its realization.

AI Pro Tip: If you are having trouble articulating what it is you want, start by using an AI-powered data analyzation tool to mine last year’s data and pinpoint all areas that need improvement. Then, use past performance and to set a realistic and measurable goal for each area you chose. Finally, prioritize goals according to what delivers the biggest bang for your bucks.

#2 — Target the Right People

When we talk about generating revenue, it’s hard not to imagine a giant cash machine spitting out dollars at our will, but in truth, this phrase is deceptive because no one is actually “making money” apart from the federal reserve and a few master counterfeiters. All revenue that is “generated” came from a person, who heard the pitch, liked what they heard, and decided to buy what you are selling. So now that we’ve made it abundantly clear that all sales are personal, and every buy is emotional, let’s dare to be a bit hypocritical by using AI and data to build a clone of the sort of people who spend the most money with us.

Develop an Ideal Customer Profile

When you think about the people you need to attract in order to sell more products and/or services you should begin to note some patterns and commonalities that your best customers and biggest deals have. A marketing ops dashboard that centralizes your view of data in combination with a data analytics tool will help you explore important patterns in the common characteristics of your best customers.

These patterns occur naturally in your data as you analyze customers using a variety of variables such as demographics, geography, industry, size, titles, etc. Knowing the characteristics of your dream customer is also known as an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and this info is critical to your ability to target the right people with the right message that addresses their particular interests, and solves their unique problems.

Form a Top 10 List
To develop your ICP, take an inventory of your best customers and compare those findings with data form other business units, like sales and customer service. Determine which customers everyone agrees are high value and form a list of your top 10 customers. Once you have your 10, it’s time to use AI to do a side-by-side comparison of each one, and outline what attributes they have in common. Start broad and then go granular. Don’t worry about how long your list is, the bots can handle it. After all, it’s better to have too many attributes than not enough. Once you’ve got your attribute list, it’s time to prioritize the most valuable characteristics. By the end of this practice, you should see a profile emerge of who your ideal customer is.

Pro Tip: Your ICP needs to be based on real customer data, not opinions or agendas. It is objective, quantifiable, and specific. Use nouns and verbs instead of adjectives to describe ICPs. Also, in order to get the best results, make sure your data has been cleaned, enriched, and corrected for issues with standardization, normalization, etc. You can use an AI-powered tool, like Sureshot’s Data Solution to enhance your data quickly and completely.

# 3 —Establish List Segments

Targeting the right customers with the right messages through personalized campaigns is much easier to do when you use your ICPs to segment your campaign lists into groups that share similar interests, backgrounds, needs, budgets, etc. Aside from being an economical and effective way to make the most of your marketing budget, segmenting your lists allows you to test a variety of pain points on small cross sections of your audience and discover what resonates. Armed with insights on what works best for each customer profile, you’ll soon be able to scale content that is proven to strike a chord with your best customers and begin winning outliers as well. According to research from email giants, Constant Contact, segmented lists are proven to produce these results:

• Increased engagement — Relevant content always enhances campaign performance.
• Better ROI— Reach the right people with the right message at the right time.
• Reduce churn — Relevant content encourages people to stay subscribed.
• Boost loyalty — Personalized content (according to segments) makes customers feel seen, heard and loyal.

#4 — Invest in Third Party Data

According to Acumen Research and Consulting, in 2021 the Data Enrichment Solutions Market had grown to $1.7 Billion, but is projected to more than double that number, reaching a whopping $3.5 Billion by 2030. Companies are quickly realizing that supplementing their first-party data with high-quality third-party data is a wise investment because it empowers you to do several things, including, but not limited to:

• Better understand current customers and cater to their preferences
• See new patterns and commonalities in your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs)
• View and pursue new markets, different approaches and opportunities
• Segment lists in more productive, efficient and profitable ways
• Personalize content according to each customer’s unique desires and needs

#5 — Explore Multiple Forms of Content Personalization

When it comes to reaching revenue goals, perhaps the most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal is the tactic of using AI to personalize content. According to research from McKinsey, companies can generate as much as 40 percent more revenue simply by using personalization. There are numerous ways to expand your personalization repertoire and create a more compelling journey for your customers. A few things we recommend customizing using the ultimate power combo of first- and third-party data include:

• Inbound Marketing – Personalize all of the pieces that compel folks to visit your site, from blog ads and case studies, to podcasts, SEO, webinars, and more. Use a variety of data points to draw people in, from shared problems and buying behaviors, to industry issues, geo-specific needs and title/role-driven goals.
• Outbound Marketing — Ads, emails, SMS, MMS, Direct Mail, etc. are all easy to personalize, thanks to the wonders of AI-powered automation. What’s more, when you personalize cold outbound campaigns you have the potential to boost your ROI by eight times!
• Website — From web images that transition to mirror your customers’ personas and aspirations, to landing pages that address the specific problems they are trying to solve, there are many ways to subtly personalize content so that customers feel represented and understood by your brand. Additional places to consider personalizing content based on visitor data include headers, subheads, images, body copy, sidebars and calls to action (CTAs).
• Customer Service Communications — Don’t miss opportunities to further personalize a customer’s experience via transactional communications, such as invoices, receipts, shipping notifications, account updates and more.

#6 — Scale Personalization Across Channels

Marketing to every customer in a way that resonates deeply, without overwhelming your budget and resources is a matter of using AI to automate as much of the process as possible. There are a variety of levels of personalization, from broad approaches that are industry and or job-title specific, to highly customized content created for a specific segment of accounts or a single account. A few simple ways to personalize content include:

• Addressing the recipient by name and noting their title and role
• Using images that reflect the customer’s industry and experience
• Sending case studies specific to the customer’s industry or market
• Adding a personal note to pieces through a sales enablement tool

#7 — Track KPIs and Manage the Customer Journey

It’s imperative that everyone on your team understands each touchpoint in the customer sales cycle. Once campaigns are out there, it’s important to use your data dashboard to track the open rates, click-through rates, opt-out rates and requests for materials. These metrics demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of each campaign and enable you to make modifications that ensure subsequent campaigns perform better. Tracking interactions also helps reveal insights that will improve the customer’s experience of your brand, as it shows you the places where prospects are dropping off and which campaigns are generating the most action, among other insights.

KPI Kick-Starter Questions

To mine insights from your data, you will need to start at a fixed point in time and track the journey of your KPIs. Use AI-powered data management to analyze your data and compare benchmarks to your latest measurements to determine if you are on track to hit goals. As you track metrics over time, and note patterns and trends, you will glean insights on how to optimize performance. Your marketing data dashboard will help you share insights in graphic reports that enable everyone to see and make decisions based on what the numbers show. A few questions to think about as you seek to leverage AI-powered data to reach revenue goals are:

• What’s the engagement rate of each marketing piece? If it’s low, investigate if the content provides value to customers.
• What channels are producing the most engagement with leads? Are you investing in the wrong channels?
• What’s the landing page conversion rate?
• What percent of leads are from our ideal customer profile?
• How many leads took the next step, i.e. booked a call, started a trial, signed up for the newsletter, etc.?
• How many leads converted to revenue?

Bonus: Talk to the AI-Powered Data Experts at Sureshot

At Sureshot, we have a team of experts and a portfolio of AI-powered data, messaging and CX solutions that are proven to help you realize a greater ROI on your marketing strategy and initiatives. To find out how we can help you go from setting revenue goals to achieving them, start by taking our FREE Martech Assessment.