From Prospect to Customer: Leveraging Data Cloud + AI Throughout the Buyer's Journey

Introduction:

Gone are the days of a linear buyer's journey that starts with "Attention" and ends with "Conversion." Today, the digital buyer's journey is much more complex, involving multiple stakeholders and several touchpoints. Fortunately, marketers hold the golden key to unlocking this box—data. With the right tools and expertise, you can convert prospects into customers and then to loyalists.

The TL;DR

The challenges that B2B marketers face while converting prospects include dealing with multiple sources of siloed data, limited visibility due to increasing data privacy, and complex sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders.

Data and AI experts can help marketers overcome these problems by consolidating data into a single source of truth, leveraging first-party data, and providing data-back strategies with the help of Salesforce Data Cloud and AI.

B2C marketers, on the other hand, have to cater to multiple personas, battle for a share of the attention economy, and figure out how to send hyper-personalized content to a large customer base to prevent the issue of cart abandonment.

Leveraging generative AI, backed by real-time data from Data Cloud, can help solve these challenges. Data and AI experts can identify critical use cases and set up AI tools to build dynamic segments, create personalized content, and provide actionable insights to boost conversion.

Let's dig deeper by first looking at the challenges faced by B2B brands during this journey and how experts can help you overcome these with Salesforce Data Cloud and AI.

The B2B Buyer’s Journey: Winding Roads With Limited Visibility

The Problem: Multiple Data Sources

B2B purchases are never spur-of-the-moment decisions. Depending on the stage of the purchase funnel, buyers might take actions ranging from research and education to evaluating vendors. 

While marketers may have access to a prospect’s digital journey, bringing together all the data, analyzing it, and then taking action can take time. There is also the challenge of selecting the right channel, frequency, and messaging. 

Questions such as “Where do I engage with my prospect?”, “How often should I engage?” and, most importantly, “What should I say to help them make a decision?” can lead to an analysis-paralysis situation.

The Solution: Single-Window Data

Salesforce Consultants can help you identify data from various systems, such as CRMs, marketing platforms, social media, and website activities. They can unify this data on a single platform with the help of Salesforce Data Cloud to ensure that all customer interactions and touchpoints are visible in a single interface. This accessibility helps marketers understand where a prospect is in the purchase funnel and tailor their strategies accordingly.

Using AI-powered platforms like Tableau, consultants can set up autonomous Agents to make data preparation and visualization faster with conversational language.

The Problem: Data Privacy & The Slow Death Of Third-Party Cookies

According to BCG Managing Director and Senior Partner Mark Abraham, “...we’re very much in the twilight of third-party cookies.”

While Google has held back its decision to eliminate third-party cookies on the Chrome Browser, they are creating a framework that allows users to opt out of cookies easily. With this phase-out and heightened data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, marketers face significant challenges in gaining visibility into customer behavior and delivering personalized content.

The Solution: Leveraging First-Party Data

Consultants with strong experience in handling marketing journeys can help your team collect and utilize first-party data effectively. By integrating Data Cloud with Salesforce's Customer Data Platform (CDP), they can create unified customer profiles that respect user consent and privacy preferences. Generative AI can be set up to create personalized content to engage with these unified profiles.

This approach ensures compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy laws, enabling you to maintain customer trust while giving your team access to the behind-the-scenes data they need.

The Problem: Complex Sales Cycles Involving Multiple Stakeholders

According to a report by the RAIN group, 43% of sales leaders say sales cycle times have increased. This indicates that the B2B sales cycles are becoming more complex and longer, with multiple stakeholders and teams having to sign off. 

Your sales team now has to engage with decision-makers from different departments and levels in the organization, each with their specific needs and concerns. And your marketing team has to devise a strategy to improve the buying interest in an account with Business Development Executives, Mid-to-Senior Managers, and even the C-Suite over several months.

The Solution: Data-Backed Strategies

Salesforce Data Cloud and AI can be highly effective for sales and marketing teams in tackling long and complex B2B cycles. 

Consultants can help your teams create robust strategies by analyzing structured data like form submissions and unstructured data like call recordings with prospects, emails, and chat transcripts with the help of Data Cloud. They can also go a step further and use AI to predict buyer behavior, identify the most influential stakeholders, and determine the optimal times and channels for engagement. 

This allows your marketing team to build an active funnel of high-quality MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and your sales team to build relationships with stakeholders across levels and convert sales.

While the B2B buyer’s journey is like planning a corporate retreat involving a long planning phase and formal evaluation process, the B2C buyer’s journey is like planning a weekend getaway with friends. It’s quicker and more driven by personal impulse. 

Let’s look at some of the challenges marketers face in the B2C journey and how experts can solve them.

The B2C Buyer’s Journey: Impulse-driven Paths

The Problem: Handling multiple personas and segmentation

Segmenting audiences quickly and accurately is no longer just an advantage for marketers; it’s a necessity. The inability to manage multiple personas effectively can result in missed opportunities, decreased customer loyalty, and ultimately, lost revenue.

Dynamically segmenting the audience is a vital precursor to ensuring each segment receives tailored, relevant content that resonates with them.

The Solution: Dynamic Segmentation On a Single Platform

Using Salesforce Data Cloud and AI, consultants can help marketers use generative AI grounded in first-party data to build audience segments in seconds. They can also help marketers use Calculated Insights (like lifetime value) based on customer profiles and set up dashboards to optimize segment performance across channels.

The Problem: Dwindling Attention Economy

When your customers are online, several factors are fighting for their attention. Email notifications, social media pop-ups, and offers from brands are only a few things that are vying for their attention. Given the overwhelming content that customers are exposed to, it’s no wonder four out of ten Americans say they are often annoyed by digital ads. 

So, how can your brand help your customers fight the onslaught of ads and add value to their online experience? By serving hyper-personalized content in the moment.

The Solution: Personalized Recommendations With Data Cloud

Data Cloud has powerful features that can provide personalized recommendations to increase conversions. Let’s demonstrate this with a use case.

A prospect adds a sweater to their cart but hesitates to complete the purchase. They reach out to a customer service associate for assistance, and Salesforce's Einstein AI steps in to provide real-time, personalized insights.

Here's how it unfolds:

• Customer Sentiment Analysis: The AI detects that the prospect's tone in the chat is uncertain, indicating they may have reservations about the sweater, such as sizing or material.
• ‘Next Best Action’ Suggestions:
• Reassurance: It prompts the service associate to share specifics about the sweater’s fit and quality, such as customer reviews and a link to a sizing guide.
• Upsell Opportunity: The AI recommends suggesting a complementary scarf that pairs well with the sweater based on the prospect’s browsing history and seasonal trends.
• Incentive Offer: To overcome hesitation, the AI identifies a limited-time free shipping promotion that could tip the scales toward purchase.

The service associate takes these recommendations to the customer and the sale is made!

The result? A satisfied customer who completes the purchase—sweater, accessories, and all—boosting both sales and customer satisfaction.

However, implementing these features might require platform expertise. Consultants can work with your marketing team to identify potential use cases and implement Data Cloud and AI for different stages of the buyer’s journey while balancing spends.

The Problem: Cart Abandonment

The issue of cart abandonment has been a perennial thorn on the sides of B2C digital marketers, with abandonment rates as high as 70%1. Cart abandonment is a critical pain point because it signifies lost sales opportunities and potential revenue that never materializes.

Imagine a customer is all set to purchase. They've browsed, selected items, and are at the final step, but something derails the process. Whether it's unexpected shipping costs, a lengthy checkout process, or simply getting distracted by notifications on other tabs and devices, the end result is the same: an abandoned cart.

The Solution: Real-time analytics and AI

Salesforce Data Cloud offers the capabilities needed to tackle this challenge head-on. With the powerful combination of Commerce and Data Clouds, marketers can get real-time insights from multiple channels and a unified shopper profile. 

By leveraging these insights to understand individual shopping behaviors, marketers can tailor experiences to meet each customer's unique preferences and needs. This includes sending timely reminders about abandoned items, offering personalized discounts, and creating a seamless checkout process.

Conclusion:

The buyer’s journey is undoubtedly becoming more challenging. But with the right expertise and tools, marketers can unlock the power of their data to pave the golden path to conversion and loyalty.