Agentforce allows marketers to forge deeper relationships, from personalised conversations to proactive retention strategies. Let’s explore five use cases that you could build an agent to solve.

1. Automate personalised, two-way conversations on WhatsApp

Interacting 1:1 with every customer who might respond to a promotional campaign on WhatsApp is a tall order for any marketing team. Historically, there’s been limited chat bot capabilities that typically use only keywords, or no ability to respond to an WhatsApp message at all. But with Agentforce, you can connect a customer-facing, autonomous agent that acts like a personal concierge, right from the WhatsApp thread itself. 

Imagine a customer receiving an exclusive offer for a product they’ve shown interest in. They reply with a question, and an agent instantly responds with tailored product recommendations, current offers, or even information on complementary products. If a customer decides to make a purchase, the agent can guide customers through the entire checkout process, from completing the transaction to sending order status and updates. If they need additional help, the agent smoothly transfers the conversation to a human service rep, maintaining continuity.

Why it matters: This approach not only boosts conversions by keeping customers engaged, but it also builds satisfaction and loyalty through timely, relevant responses. By reducing support team load, Agentforce helps deliver a consistent brand experience that feels truly personal and seamless.

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2. Create personalised agendas for event attendees

Events are an invaluable tool for marketers to foster connections and create value for customers. However, ensuring each attendee finds the sessions and resources most relevant to them can be challenging. Trusting the attendees can find the sessions most relevant to them with a self-guided experience can result in more opportunities to abandon registration. Agentforce for Marketing can help you greet visitors on your event website, scaling the ability to provide 1:1 assistance to every visitor. 

The autonomous agent can recommend sessions based on interests and help attendees build personalised agendas. By analysing past attendance and engagement data, the agent can curate an agenda that aligns with each attendee’s preferences and priorities, from keynotes to breakout sessions. For repeat attendees, the agent can even suggest new content based on past sessions and complete registration with their customised agenda.

Why it matters: Personalised agendas help create a memorable event experience that leads to attendee satisfaction and loyalty. By making the registration journey seamless and reducing bounce rates, Agentforce supports stronger connections and builds long-term interest in your events.

3. Capture and qualify leads effortlessly on your website

When visitors land on your website, use Agentforce to welcome them with tailored product or service recommendations, offer exclusive content, and capture contact information. Depending on visitor behaviour, the agent can suggest gated assets such as case studies, demo videos, or even register someone for an event or webinar. This helps avoid self-guided experiences for the visitor, often resulting in opportunities to bounce before becoming a lead or talking to a sales rep.

For highly engaged prospects, the agent can schedule follow-up meetings with sales reps, ensuring they receive immediate value without friction. This proactive, conversational approach nurtures leads by guiding them to the right solutions based on their needs and interests.

Why it matters: Automated lead capture accelerates qualification and boosts conversions. By keeping visitors engaged and moving seamlessly through the pipeline, Agentforce for Marketing nurtures leads naturally, resulting in higher-quality opportunities, and, ultimately, loyal customers.

4. Improve customer journeys with intelligent reprioritisation

Keeping your audience engaged while respecting their communication preferences can be a balancing act. Before customers reach their communication limit, reassign them to the most relevant journey based on both their interests and your business goals. By reprioritising messaging, marketers can ensure high-value content is delivered at the right time, without overwhelming customers. For example, if a customer is close to their communications cap, use Agentforce for Marketing  to prioritise an upcoming product announcement or a VIP event invitation, aligning customer interests with timely opportunities for engagement.

Why it matters: Intelligent reprioritisation leads to higher conversion rates, lower unsubscribe rates, and stronger customer relationships. By adapting dynamically to customer behaviour, Agentforce helps ensure every interaction is relevant so customers stay engaged with your brand without feeling overwhelmed.

5. Reduce churn with proactive, personalised promotions

Retaining customers is just as important as acquiring new ones, especially when they may be at risk of churning. Agents can identify these at-risk customers by analysing specified churn indicators — such as low engagement or decreased purchase frequency — and autonomously send a tailored promotion based on their profile and guardrails set by the marketer.

For example, if a customer’s churn score nears a threshold, reach out with an exclusive loyalty discount or renewal incentive that guides them through the redemption process. By reaching out proactively, agents helps identify where to rekindle interest and engagement before the customer decides to leave.

Why it matters: Proactive AI-powered retention strategies boost customer lifetime value, reduce churn, and foster brand loyalty. With minimal manual effort, Agentforce helps marketers stay connected to customers who might otherwise drift away.

Agentforce is more than an automation or co-pilot tool — it’s an essential partner that empowers you to deliver the seamless, personalised experiences your customers expect. By building agents to implement these five use cases, marketers can increase customer engagement, increase conversions, and build deeper, lasting relationships.

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The post 5 Ways Agentforce Can Elevate Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Salesforce.

What is AI (Artificial Intelligence) Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) marketing represents a paradigm shift in how businesses approach marketing strategies. By harnessing the power of AI, companies can automate and enhance various marketing processes, unlocking a world of possibilities and revolutionising how they engage with their target audience.

AI marketing leverages data, analytics, and machine learning to optimise marketing efforts, personalise customer experiences, and elevate overall marketing efficiency and effectiveness. This data-driven approach empowers businesses to make informed decisions and accurately identify trends, patterns, and customer preferences. With these insights, companies can tailor their marketing campaigns to resonate with their audience, increasing engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.

Moreover, AI marketing streamlines marketing operations by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing marketing teams to focus on more strategic and creative pursuits. This automation encompasses content generation, social media management, email marketing, and customer service, ensuring a consistent and engaging presence across multiple channels.

AI marketing is not just a buzzword; it’s a transformative force reshaping the marketing landscape. By embracing AI, businesses gain access to a wealth of new tools, data science and technologies, empowering them to reach, engage, and convert their target audience with unparalleled precision and effectiveness. In today’s competitive business environment, AI marketing has become an indispensable tool for businesses seeking to thrive and stay ahead of the curve. AI Marketing encompasses various use cases, including:

1. Data Analysis: Automating the collection and analysis of large volumes of marketing data from different campaigns and programs, eliminating the need for manual sorting.

2. Content Generation: AI generates both short and long-form content for marketing purposes, including video captions, email subject lines, web copy, blogs, and more. 

3. Media Buying: Predicting a business’s most effective advertisement and media placements, maximising the return on investment (ROI) of marketing strategies while reaching the target audience.

4. Real-time Personalisation: Modifying a customer’s experience with marketing assets, such as web pages, social media posts, or emails, to align with their past preferences and encourage specific actions, such as clicking a link, signing up, or purchasing.

5. Natural Language Processing (NLP): Utilising AI to generate human-like language for content creation, customer service bots, personalised experiences, and more.

6. Automated Decision-Making: Assisting businesses in deciding which marketing or business growth strategies to employ based on historical or external data inputs.

By adopting AI marketing strategies, businesses unlock the potential to deliver exceptional customer experiences, build stronger customer relationships, and drive sustainable growth in the ever-evolving digital landscape. AI marketing represents the future of marketing, and businesses that embrace its transformative power will be well-positioned to succeed in the years to come.

How does AI Marketing work?

AI marketing uses artificial intelligence technologies to automate and enhance marketing processes. These technologies can be applied to a wide range of marketing tasks, with AI marketing platforms including:

Marketing Automation: AI automates lead generation, scoring, and customer retention tasks. By leveraging AI, marketers can identify potential customers and engage with them at the optimal time when they are most likely to respond positively to marketing messages.

Content creation: AI can generate marketing content, such as blog posts, articles, and social media posts. This can save businesses time and money while still producing high-quality content.

Customer service: AI can provide customer service by answering questions and resolving issues. This can free up human customer service representatives to focus on more complex tasks.

Predictive analytics: AI can analyse data and predict customer behaviour. This information can be used to personalise marketing campaigns and improve customer engagement.

Personalisation: AI technologies create customer profiles based on data gathered from their purchase history and interactions. Marketers can then deliver targeted advertisements, offers, and new products that align with customers’ preferences. Targeted marketing, powered by customer data, enhances engagement, conversion rates, and overall marketing return on investment (ROI).

Forecasting: AI serves as a valuable tool for predictive analytics and forecasting. Predictive analytics utilises data from past customer interactions to anticipate their future actions. When applied to larger audience segments and scaled up, AI can also forecast business metrics such as revenue outcomes, providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

Overall, AI marketing is a powerful tool that can help businesses reach, engage, and convert their target audience. By leveraging AI, companies can gain a competitive edge and thrive in the digital age.

How is AI changing digital marketing?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force that is reshaping the digital marketing landscape. Its capabilities are automating mundane tasks and empowering marketers to delve deeper into strategic initiatives. One remarkable application of AI lies in crafting personalised customer experiences. By leveraging AI-driven tools, marketers can analyse customer behaviour, preferences, and past interactions to deliver tailored product or service recommendations. This personalised approach fosters stronger customer relationships and enhances the overall brand experience.

Furthermore, AI is pivotal in aiding marketers to comprehend their customers more profoundly. Through meticulous customer data analysis, AI uncovers hidden patterns, trends, and insights. With this knowledge, marketers can devise targeted and effective marketing strategies that resonate with their audience.

Beyond enhancing customer experiences, AI also revolutionises how marketers measure their campaigns. Real-time tracking and analysis of campaign performance empower marketers to make informed adjustments, ensuring optimal allocation of resources and budget. This data-driven approach minimises guesswork and maximises return on investment.

In content creation, AI proves to be an invaluable asset. AI identifies topics and interests that captivate the target audience by analysing customer data. This enables marketers to craft highly relevant, engaging content that resonates with their customers. Compelling content fosters brand loyalty and drives conversions, propelling businesses toward success.

Examples of AI’s practical applications in digital marketing abound. Chatbots, powered by AI, simulate human conversations, providing round-the-clock customer support and assistance. Personalised recommendations, driven by customer data, enhance user experience and boost sales. Dynamic pricing, enabled by AI, optimises pricing strategies based on market dynamics, maximising profits while ensuring competitive offerings. Fueled by AI’s data analysis capabilities, predictive analytics empowers marketers to anticipate customer behaviour and trends. This foresight allows for developing highly targeted and successful digital marketing campaigns.

As AI evolves, its impact on digital marketing will only deepen. The future holds boundless opportunities for marketers to harness the power of AI, unlocking new frontiers of innovation and driving unprecedented success.

What Are the Types of AI Marketing Tools?

In the marketing realm, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer, offering many solutions that automate and enhance various tasks.

1. Machine Learning:

Machine learning, driven by AI, utilises computer algorithms to automatically analyse information and enhance digital marketing campaigns based on experience. By leveraging relevant historical data, machine learning devices can inform marketers about effective strategies and help avoid repeating past mistakes.

2. Big Data and Analytics:

The rise of digital media has generated a significant amount of “big data,” presenting opportunities for marketers to gain insights and accurately assess value across different channels. However, the abundance of data can be overwhelming. AI marketing comes to the rescue by rapidly sifting through the data, filtering it to its essentials, and providing analysis. It can also recommend the most valuable elements for future marketing campaigns.

3. AI Marketing Platforms & Tools:

Effective AI-powered marketing solutions offer digital marketers centralised platforms for managing the vast amounts of collected consumer data. These AI marketing platforms extract valuable marketing intelligence from the target audience, empowering marketers to make data-driven decisions about effective outreach strategies. For instance, frameworks like Bayesian Learning and Forgetting aid marketers in understanding a customer’s receptiveness to specific digital marketing efforts, leading to improved campaign targeting.

4. Content creation:

Generating high-quality articles, blog posts, social media updates, and personalised emails. By analysing vast amounts of data, AI tools identify trends, customer preferences, and relevant topics, allowing businesses to create content that resonates with their target audience. Additionally, AI optimises content by recommending keywords and phrases that enhance search engine rankings and drive organic traffic.

5. Personalisation:

Another critical aspect of modern marketing. AI algorithms analyse customer data to gain profound insights into individual preferences, behaviours, and pain points. This information is then leveraged to create personalised marketing campaigns, product recommendations, and customer experiences. By delivering tailored content and offers, businesses enhance engagement, conversions, and overall customer satisfaction.

6. Voice search:

With the proliferation of voice-activated devices like smart speakers and smartphones, voice search has become a critical channel for businesses to connect with customers. AI-powered voice search optimisation ensures businesses are easily discoverable to customers using voice commands, maximising their visibility in voice search results.

These examples illustrate the diverse spectrum of AI marketing solutions available. As AI technology evolves, we can anticipate even more innovative and advanced solutions to revolutionise how businesses market their products and services.

What Are the Benefits of Leveraging AI in your Marketing strategy?

Integrating AI into marketing practices has unlocked a treasure trove of benefits that can dramatically transform a business’s approach to reaching and engaging its target audience. One of the most profound advantages of AI marketing is its ability to elevate customer experiences. By deploying AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, companies can provide immediate and personalised responses to customer inquiries, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable customer journey. Moreover, AI-driven analytics offer businesses a profound understanding of customer preferences and behaviours, enabling them to tailor their marketing strategies precisely and deliver content that resonates deeply with their audience.

Another significant competitive advantage of AI in marketing lies in its remarkable potential to enhance operational efficiency. AI automation seamlessly handles repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as data entry, automated email marketing campaigns, and social media management, liberating marketing teams to devote their attention to more strategic and creative endeavours. This streamlined workflow optimisation increases productivity and significant cost savings, allowing businesses to allocate resources judiciously and effectively.

AI’s role in improving decision-making and optimisation within marketing campaigns is genuinely remarkable. By meticulously analysing vast amounts of data and uncovering hidden patterns and trends, AI-powered analytics empower marketers with invaluable insights that guide strategic decisions. This data-driven approach allows businesses to optimise their campaigns with surgical precision, target specific segments more accurately, and maximise their return on investment, propelling their growth trajectory to unprecedented heights.

Personalised marketing and customer engagement soar to new heights with the advent of AI marketing. AI algorithms can delve deep into customer data, extracting profound insights that enable the creation of personalised experiences and marketing messages tailored to individual preferences. This profound level of personalisation fosters deep customer engagement, cultivates unwavering brand loyalty, and dramatically elevates the likelihood of conversions. AI-powered recommendations and dynamic pricing strategies amplify personalised customer experiences, driving exponential revenue growth and unparalleled customer satisfaction.

Finally, AI injects a refreshing dose of agility and innovation into marketing strategies, propelling businesses to the forefront of industry trends. As AI technology continues its relentless march forward, it unveils many new opportunities for businesses to stay ahead of the curve and outpace competitors. By wholeheartedly embracing AI and fearlessly experimenting with its innovative applications, companies can differentiate themselves from the crowd, drive unprecedented growth, and shape the future of marketing. From AI-generated content creation to predictive modelling, the possibilities are boundless, empowering businesses to unleash their full potential and achieve extraordinary success in the dynamic digital age.

Cost Efficiency:

AI minimises costs by streamlining expenses across various marketing tactics, from SEO and content marketing to paid ads and influencer outreach. This enables digital marketing teams to redirect resources towards strategic objectives, ensuring a more efficient budget allocation.

Personalisation:

Addressing the increasing demand for personalised experiences, Salesforce AI analyses past customer data platforms to deliver tailored messages at scale. This not only enhances customer engagement but does so without the need for manual intervention.

Predictive Analysis: 

Salesforce AI empowers businesses to anticipate industry trends and customer behaviour. Organisations can inform their marketing strategy by analysing customer behaviour and market trends and optimising product launches and campaigns for maximum impact.

ROI Optimisation:

Leveraging AI-driven insights, Salesforce AI contributes to a boost in return on investment. It is a reliable tool for identifying growth opportunities, optimising ad spend, and enhancing the overall customer experience.

Time Effectiveness:

Salesforce AI marketing automation liberates time from repetitive tasks, allowing teams to focus on high-value activities. This includes content creation, nurturing customer relationships, and fostering a more strategic marketing approach.

What Are the Pitfalls and Challenges of AI Marketing?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that can be used to improve marketing campaigns. Still, it is essential to be aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges before you invest in AI marketing solutions. This section will discuss some of the key challenges and considerations businesses should consider when using AI for previous marketing campaigns.

One of the biggest challenges of AI marketing is the potential for bias. AI algorithms are trained on data, and if the data is biased, then the AI algorithms will also be biased. This can lead to unfair or inaccurate marketing practices, damaging a company’s reputation. For example, an AI algorithm trained on data biased towards white males may be more likely to recommend products and services to white males, even if there are other groups of people who are more likely to be interested in those products and services.

Another challenge of AI marketing is the need for more transparency. AI algorithms are often complex and challenging to understand, making it difficult for businesses to know how they make decisions. This can lead to a need for more trust in AI marketing solutions, making it difficult for companies to get the most out of them.

Additionally, the cost of AI marketing programs can be a barrier for some businesses. AI marketing solutions can be expensive to develop and implement, making it difficult for small businesses to compete with larger firms with more resources.

Finally, there is the potential for AI marketing to be used for malicious purposes. AI algorithms can create fake news stories, spread misinformation, and target people with personalised marketing campaigns designed to exploit their vulnerabilities. This can hurt society and make it difficult for businesses to use AI marketing responsibly.

Despite these challenges, AI marketing has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool for businesses. By being aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges, companies can take steps to mitigate these risks and use AI marketing to improve their marketing campaigns.

What Are the Examples of AI in Marketing?

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming increasingly common on business websites and apps. These AI-driven tools can provide customer service 24/7, answer questions, and help users navigate websites. Chatbots can also collect data and provide insights into customer behaviour.

AI-driven personalised email campaigns and content recommendations are another powerful way businesses use AI in digital marketing strategy. By using AI to analyse customer data, companies can create personalised email campaigns that are more likely to be opened and clicked on. AI can also be used to recommend products and content tailored to each customer’s interests.

AI-generated product recommendations and upselling opportunities are other ways businesses use AI to boost sales. By using AI to analyse customer data, companies can identify products that customers are most likely to be interested in and then make personalised recommendations. AI can also create upselling opportunities by suggesting complementary products or services that customers might not have considered otherwise.

AI-powered social media marketing analytics and optimisation tools are helping businesses to get more out of their social media marketing efforts. Using AI to analyse social media data, companies can identify which posts are most popular, track brand sentiment, and find influencers who can help them reach their target audience. AI can also optimise social media campaigns by automatically posting content at the best times and targeting the right audience.

AI-enabled image and video recognition technology is used for content moderation and optimisation. By using AI to analyse images and videos, businesses can automatically identify inappropriate content and remove it from their websites and social media channels. AI can also be used to optimise images and videos for search engines and social media platforms, making them more likely to be seen by potential customers.

How to use AI marketing

To effectively utilise AI marketing tools and platforms, businesses must first identify their target audience and understand their needs and preferences. This can be done through market research, data analysis, and customer feedback. Once the target audience is identified, businesses can choose the right AI marketing tools and platforms to reach and engage with them. Many different AI marketing tools and platforms are available, each with unique features and capabilities. Businesses should carefully evaluate the options and select the best fit for their needs and budget.

Once the AI marketing tools and platforms are in place, businesses can create a data-driven AI marketing strategy. This strategy should outline the goals and objectives of the AI marketing campaign, as well as the specific tactics that will be used to achieve those goals. The fully integrated AI marketing platform and strategy should also include a plan for measuring the campaign’s success and adjusting as needed.

One of the most important aspects of AI marketing is personalisation. AI can collect and analyse customer data, which can then be used to create personalised marketing campaigns tailored to each customer’s needs and interests. This can lead to increased engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.

AI can also automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as sending emails, scheduling social media posts, and generating reports. This can free up marketing teams to focus on more strategic tasks, such as developing new marketing campaigns and analysing data.

Businesses can gain a competitive edge using AI marketing and deliver more personalised and relevant customer experiences. This can lead to increased engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.

What are Generative AI Marketing Predictions and Trends?

The realm of marketing stands on the precipice of a transformative era as generative AI reshapes the landscape, empowering businesses to craft personalised and captivating content, automate mundane tasks, and, with data science talent, unlock profound insights into customer behaviours. As the accessibility and sophistication of AI technology surge, the coming years will undoubtedly witness an exponential embrace of AI-driven marketing strategies.

One pivotal trend is the meteoric rise of AI-powered content creation tools, capable of generating high-quality and distinctive content at an unprecedented pace, thereby liberating marketing teams to channel their efforts into more strategic endeavours. Concurrently, AI-driven chatbots are undergoing rapid advancements, offering businesses an avenue to engage with customers round-the-clock, promptly addressing queries with remarkable efficiency.

Another trend that warrants close attention is the ascent of AI-powered predictive analytics. This technology empowers marketers to comprehend their target audience better and tailor their marketing endeavours with pinpoint accuracy. By meticulously analysing customer data, AI uncovers hidden patterns and trends, paving the way for personalised marketing campaigns that resonate profoundly with customers, fostering stronger connections and driving business growth.

Furthermore, generative AI holds immense promise in elevating customer experiences to unprecedented heights. AI-powered virtual assistants emerge as invaluable assets, providing real-time assistance to customers and swiftly resolving their queries and concerns with remarkable efficiency. Additionally, AI seamlessly personalises the customer journey, presenting tailored recommendations and enticing offers that align precisely with individual preferences, ensuring unparalleled customer satisfaction and loyalty.

In essence, the future of AI marketing brims with boundless potential. As AI marketing technology embarks on its inexorable evolution, we can anticipate many groundbreaking innovations that will revolutionise marketing strategies, propelling businesses to unprecedented heights of success.

How can you best implement AI?

To successfully implement AI in your marketing efforts, there are several key steps to follow:

1. Identify your goals and objectives: Clearly define what you want to achieve with AI marketing. Whether improving customer engagement, increasing lead generation, or optimising campaign performance, having clear goals will guide your AI implementation strategy.

2. Assess your current marketing efforts: Evaluate your existing marketing processes, data sources, and technology infrastructure. Identify areas where AI can complement or enhance your current efforts and prioritise those areas for AI implementation.

3. Choose the right AI tools and platforms: Select AI tools and platforms that align with your goals and objectives. Consider factors such as functionality, scalability, ease of use, and compatibility with your existing systems.

4. Integrate AI into your marketing workflows: Seamlessly integrate AI into your existing marketing workflows to ensure a smooth transition. This may involve training your marketing team members on using AI tools, establishing data-sharing protocols, and updating your marketing processes to accommodate AI-driven insights.

5. Monitor your results and make adjustments as needed: Continuously monitor the performance of your AI marketing initiatives and analyse the results. Use data-driven insights to identify what’s working and what’s not, and make necessary adjustments to optimise your AI marketing investments and implementation.

6. Consider ethical implications: Ensure your AI marketing practices adhere to ethical standards, including data privacy, transparency, and fairness. Implement robust data security measures and obtain consent from customers before using their data for AI-powered marketing.

By following these steps, you can effectively implement AI in your marketing efforts and unlock its full potential to drive growth and success.

Utilising AI Marketing with Salesforce

Salesforce Einstein is a powerful AI tool that can be used to enhance your marketing efforts. With Einstein, you can create personalised marketing campaigns, automate marketing tasks, and gain insights into your marketing data.

Einstein offers a variety of features that can be used for ai enabled marketing campaigns, including:

Einstein Lead Scoring: Einstein can help you identify your most qualified leads so you can focus your sales efforts on the most likely to convert.

Einstein Segmentation: Einstein can help you segment your customers based on their demographics, interests, and behaviours so you can create more targeted marketing campaigns.

Einstein Content Recommendations: Einstein can help you recommend the most relevant content to your customers based on their interests and past behaviour.

Einstein Predictive Analytics: Einstein can help you predict customer behaviour and trends so you can make more informed marketing decisions.

You can improve your marketing efficiency, effectiveness, and reach by using Einstein. Einstein can help you create more personalised and relevant marketing campaigns, automate marketing tasks, and gain valuable insights into your marketing data. This can lead to increased leads, sales, and revenue.

To start with Einstein, you can sign up for a free trial. Once you have signed up for the AI marketing program, you can access Einstein from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Commonly Asked Questions About AI in Marketing

As AI marketing continues to gain traction, it’s natural for businesses to have questions about its implications and applications in marketing program. Here, we’ll address some frequently asked questions about AI in marketing to provide a clearer understanding of this transformative technology.

1. How does AI affect traditional marketing strategies?

AI complements traditional marketing strategies by enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency. It automates repetitive tasks, allowing marketers to focus on more strategic and creative aspects. AI also enables personalised customer experiences, data-driven decision-making, and improved campaign performance.

2. What are the limitations of AI in AI marketing tools?

While AI offers immense potential, it also has limitations. These include the requirement for high-quality data, the inability to completely replace human creativity and emotional intelligence, and the potential for bias if not adequately managed.

3. How effective is AI for small businesses?

AI is highly effective for small businesses as it levels the playing field by providing access to advanced technologies and analytics that were previously only available to larger enterprises. AI can assist small businesses in optimising their marketing efforts, reaching a wider audience, and competing more effectively.

4. Will AI replace human marketers?

AI is not meant to replace human marketers but to augment their capabilities. AI handles routine tasks, freeing up marketers to focus on strategic decision-making, creative problem-solving, and building meaningful customer relationships.

5. What are the ethical considerations of using AI in marketing?

The use of AI in marketing raises ethical considerations, including data privacy, transparency, and potential bias. Businesses must implement ethical guidelines, obtain customer consent, and ensure responsible AI practices.

By addressing these commonly asked questions, businesses can better understand AI marketing and its implications. AI can revolutionise marketing strategies, enabling enterprises to succeed tremendously and deliver personalised customer experiences.

The post What is AI Marketing – A Complete Guide appeared first on Salesforce.

Process automation applies software and technology to streamline and automate business processes, aligning them with predefined organisational goals. In today’s rapidly changing and competitive business environment, companies face the challenge of staying ahead of the curve. They must not only boost competitiveness and profitability but also enhance resilience and agility to thrive. Process automation is a key strategy to address these challenges.

The Growing Importance of Process Automation

Increasingly, businesses are turning to process automation as a powerful tool in their quest for competitiveness and profitability. According to a recent Gartner survey of global industry leaders, 80% of respondents cited automation as a core business priority for success.

Defining Process Automation

Process automation involves leveraging software and technology to automate business processes and functions. These automated processes help organisations achieve specific organisational goals, whether it’s producing a product, onboarding employees, or providing customer service. Process automation offers a simpler and faster way to enhance business efficiency and agility, allowing companies to create workflows and automate tasks without extensive coding.

Business Process Automation to Digital Transformation

Initially, Business Process Automation (BPA) was conceived as a discrete component within the broader framework of Business Process Management (BPM), with a predominant focus on enhancing back-end productivity by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. This initial iteration of BPA aimed to alleviate the burden of routine operations, thus increasing efficiency and reducing the potential for human error. It was a crucial stepping stone in the journey toward more streamlined and efficient business processes.

However, the evolution of BPA has been nothing short of remarkable. What was once a supporting element has now taken centre stage and transformed into the driving force behind BPM. In the contemporary business landscape, BPA has emerged as the catalyst for comprehensive digital transformation. It has expanded its scope and capabilities to encompass not just the back end but also the front end of business operations, ushering in an era where process optimisation touches every aspect of an organisation.

The Role of Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Management (RPM) represents a pivotal aspect of modern process automation. It encompasses integrating robotic process automation (RPA) tools and bots into business systems, further enhancing automation capabilities. RPM leverages software robots that are meticulously programmed to replicate human actions, allowing them to execute an array of rule-based tasks. This technology not only simplifies and accelerates processes but also ensures the consistency and accuracy of operations. By automating these routine and repetitive tasks, RPM liberates human resources to focus on more strategic and creative endeavours within the organisation. The synergy between RPM and other cutting-edge technologies like AI, machine learning, and workflow automation solidifies its position as a cornerstone of digital transformation, streamlining processes across various business functions and offering a competitive edge in today’s dynamic business landscape.

Identifying Automation Candidates

Not all activities are suitable for automation. Process automation is most effective for repetitive tasks with well-defined steps, sequences, and rules. This approach ensures that the business process is consistently executed with the right people, in the correct order, and within specified timeframes. Some areas that commonly benefit from process automation include recruitment, employee onboarding, payment and payroll processes, workforce scheduling, invoicing, customer experience enhancement, and compliance and regulatory tasks.

Key Technologies in Process Automation

Two core technologies at the heart of business process automation are Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Workflow Automation. RPA involves software robots that emulate human actions to automate rule-based tasks within business systems. In contrast, Workflow Automation focuses on the independent execution of tasks, documents, and information flows in line with established business rules.

Techniques and Technologies in Process Automation

To achieve optimal outcomes in process automation, organisations employ a diverse array of techniques and cutting-edge technologies. These innovative tools and approaches empower businesses to not only streamline their operations but also enhance their decision-making capabilities and adaptability. Here’s a more in-depth look at the key technologies that play pivotal roles in achieving the best results in process automation:

1. Hyperautomation:

Hyperautomation is not merely a technology but rather a comprehensive strategic initiative. It involves identifying, vetting, and automating as many businesses and IT processes as possible. By orchestrating multiple technologies, tools, and platforms, including AI and machine learning, hyper-automation enables organisations to automate various tasks and processes. It extends the reach of automation to virtually every aspect of business operations, paving the way for an extensive digital transformation.

2. Intelligent Process Automation (IPA):

Intelligent Process Automation represents the next evolution of traditional process automation. It combines process redesign with the power of robotic process automation and machine learning. IPA not only automates repetitive, rule-based tasks but also incorporates AI and cognitive technologies to mimic human activities and even learn from them. This infusion of intelligence into automation leads to improved performance, increased speed, reduced risk, and enhanced customer experiences.

3. Low-Code/No-Code Automation:

Low-code and no-code automation platforms are designed to be accessible to individuals with limited programming or coding expertise. They offer drag-and-drop functionality, visual tooling, and pre-built content. These platforms empower subject-matter experts to automate processes according to their specific needs. Simultaneously, they maintain governance and ensure compliance standards, allowing IT teams to oversee the integration of new automated processes within the system securely.

4. Big Data Integration:

Big Data is characterised not only by its volume but also by its complexity and speed. It encompasses structured and unstructured data, such as customer feedback, emails, videos, and images. Big Data integration into process automation allows businesses to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to guide decision-making, accelerate processes, and reduce the burden of repetitive tasks and assessments. It provides valuable insights previously buried within data, aiding in more informed decision-making.

5. Artificial Intelligence (AI):

AI technologies complement process automation by addressing the challenges posed by unstructured data. While traditional process automation thrives on structured data, AI is proficient at processing unstructured data, such as scanned images, webpages, and PDF documents. AI can convert this data into a structured format, making it understandable for other automation tools, which enhances the overall accuracy and utility of process automation.

6. Natural Language Processing (NLP):

NLP-powered tools excel at understanding human speech, context, and tone. In process automation, NLP can be deployed to enhance interactions, providing both internal and customer-facing automated responses. It allows organisations to deliver more effective and context-aware automated services and support.

7. Machine Learning:

Machine learning relies on Big Data to make informed decisions. When integrated with RPA, AI, and NLP, machine learning can identify trends, patterns, and insights from both data and human users. This augments the accuracy and relevance of process automation, making it a more valuable asset for organisations.

8. Intelligent ERP Systems:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have evolved to become intelligent and capable of supporting a wide range of business functions. Modern ERP systems incorporate AI and machine learning technologies to enhance operations across the organisation. Many automation functions are now integrated into these ERP systems, improving efficiency and performance in various departments.

Incorporating these advanced techniques and technologies into process automation solutions equips organisations to not only optimise their processes but also harness the full potential of their data. It results in more agile, adaptable, and intelligent operations that can respond to changing market conditions and customer needs with speed and precision.

Benefits of Process Automation

The advantages of business process automation are significant and include:

• Increased business structure agility and resilience.
• Enhanced operational efficiency with faster cycle times.
• Improved compliance through transparent data trails and monitoring.
• Reduced burden of slow, manual processes, enabling greater freedom to innovate and grow.
• Real-time collaboration across the organisation, fosters teamwork and employee satisfaction.
• Improved customer service quality and faster response times.

The Path to Digital Transformation through Process Automation

Successful digital transformation relies on several key strategic components:

1. Strategic Priority: In any organisation aspiring to navigate the digital transformation landscape successfully, automation must transcend the realm of individual processes and be elevated to the status of a strategic imperative that permeates the entire organisational fabric. Rather than viewing automation as a series of isolated initiatives, it should be ingrained in the company’s overarching strategy. This strategic approach ensures that automation is not merely a reaction to specific operational challenges but an integral part of the organisation’s vision for growth, efficiency, and competitiveness. By making automation a strategic priority across all functions and departments, companies can unlock its full potential, realising the benefits of coherence, cost-effectiveness, and adaptability.

2. People-Centric Approach: An essential facet of digital transformation is placing people at the forefront of the automation journey. Instead of expecting employees to conform to rigid automation processes, businesses should design automation solutions that adapt to the needs and preferences of their workforce. This people-centric approach emphasises that technology should serve as an enabler, enhancing human capabilities rather than replacing them. By focusing on making technology work for people, organisations can foster a culture of innovation and collaboration. Employees feel empowered to explore the creative aspects of their roles, while automation takes care of the repetitive and mundane tasks, leading to a more motivated and satisfied workforce. Furthermore, this approach promotes seamless human-machine collaboration, wherein both elements complement each other’s strengths, resulting in an agile and adaptive organisation well-prepared to thrive in an era of rapid change.

3. Scalability: Amid today’s unpredictable market conditions and an ever-shifting business landscape, scalability is a critical determinant for achieving and sustaining process automation success. The ability to scale automation initiatives effectively equips organisations with the flexibility and adaptability to meet evolving market demands.

As market dynamics change and business requirements shift, organisations must have the agility to respond promptly and effectively. Scalability in process automation ensures that automation solutions can grow with business needs, accommodating increased workloads, expanding operations, and addressing new challenges without requiring a complete overhaul of existing systems. This adaptability is crucial for organisations seeking long-term value from their automation investments.

Implementing Process Automation

Implementing process automation within an organisation is a transformative journey requiring careful planning, strategic alignment, and a commitment to continuous improvement. The process begins with a thorough assessment of the existing workflows and processes, identifying areas where automation can yield the most significant benefits. Once these areas are pinpointed, the next step involves selecting the appropriate automation tools and technologies tailored to the specific needs and goals of the organisation.

Successful implementation hinges on clear communication with all stakeholders and fostering a culture of collaboration, where employees actively participate in the automation journey. Change management strategies are essential to ensure a smooth transition. Furthermore, it is critical to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact of automation, monitor progress, and adjust strategies as needed.

Training and upskilling employees to work alongside automation solutions is also crucial. As processes are automated, they must be continuously monitored, optimised, and adapted to changing circumstances. The successful implementation of process automation does not represent an endpoint but a continuous cycle of improvement, enabling organisations to unlock the full potential of automation while staying agile in an ever-evolving business landscape.

Automate Your Business Processes with Salesforce

Transform your business operations with the power of automation using Salesforce. Instead of relying on your users to manually execute every step of a business process, empower your organisation with the efficiency and consistency of automated workflows. The advantages are twofold: your team can redirect their valuable time and skills to more strategic tasks, and you can have confidence that each process is executed precisely as intended.

Salesforce provides a comprehensive suite of automation tools, from guided visual experiences to behind-the-scenes automation and approval processes. Even more appealing is that these tools don’t require writing a single line of code – they’re all point-and-click.

Choose from various Salesforce Flow features to streamline and automate your business processes. Flow Builder, for instance, simplifies the automation of your organisation’s repetitive tasks, creating a graphical representation as you build it. It combines the capabilities of workflow rules and Process Builder, offering a unified, point-and-click solution.

As your business grows, you can leverage Flow Orchestration to manage complex workflows, involving multiple users and departments, regardless of geographical boundaries. For personalised experiences, Einstein Next Best Action provides the means to display tailored offers and actions to the right people at the right time, refining recommendations based on your unique criteria.

Salesforce’s automation tools extend to Automated Actions, reusable components that perform background tasks such as updating fields or sending emails. Approval Processes take automation a step further, allowing you to define a sequence of steps required to approve a record.

Salesforce Workflow Rules enable the automation of standard internal procedures and processes, simplifying your organisational operations. Alternatively, you can harness the power of Process Builder, which offers graphical representation as you design automated processes.

The post Understanding Process Automation: Examples and Benefits appeared first on Salesforce.

In our Trends in Personalisation survey, we found that 94% of marketers say customers expect a personalised experience. Still, only 26% of marketers are confident that their organisation has a successful strategy for personalisation. So what stands in the way of personalised marketing? 

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Obstacle 1: Lack of organisational alignment

Often, the biggest factor that leads to personalisation strategies failing is a breakdown of coordination across departments and teams. Our survey found that 42% of marketers say a lack of organisational alignment is one of the biggest personalisation challenges. Customers can tell when different departments at your company aren’t sharing the same data.

“If you’re not aligned, the result is that customers get a very siloed experience,” said Leigh Price, senior director of product marketing at Salesforce. 

Our State of the Connected Consumer report reveals that 56% of customers often have to repeat or re-explain information to different representatives, and 55% say it generally feels like they’re communicating with separate departments, not one company.  

But when that customer journey is uniform across departments, people take notice. In our report, 79% of customers say they’re more loyal to companies that provide consistency across departments. 

So how can you build a cohesive personalisation strategy from the start, so your customers don’t end up frustrated? Identify stakeholders for the three main functional areas of personalisation: strategy, channel execution, and product management. Then build your strategy and collaborate. 

Not sure where to start? Here are the stakeholders you need working in harmony and how they align with the three functional areas: 

You’ll need an executive sponsor to help you strategise, own the overall program and provide support. This may be your vice president of marketing, CMO, or even chief customer officer. 

After you develop a strategy and appoint an executive sponsor, you’ll need several stakeholders to help you implement and manage your overall personalisation program. Some of these roles include: 

• Program manager: This person will oversee the personalisation program by managing and maintaining schedules, coordinating groups across departments, and providing resources. 
• Product manager: Working in alignment with the program manager, the product manager will oversee the day-to-day management of the program and will act as an expert for your personalisation product.
• Tech lead: Although marketers can run many aspects of personalisation campaigns independently, it’s still essential to appoint a tech lead or establish a relationship with IT. They will set up the initial integration and be available as a resource when technical issues arise.  
• Analytics lead: An analytics lead can synthesise data and owns all program insights. From the beginning, you will need this key stakeholder to stay on target, meet your goals, and innovate new approaches to personalisation. 

You’ll also need a channel execution team to help you coordinate and execute campaigns. They may start with one channel and then extend your personalisation efforts across channels little by little. 

Obstacle 2: Not being able to access the right data

Once you’ve got the departments aligned, you have to make sure they’re working with relevant data. Our report shows that 61% marketers believe the lack of data stands in the way of adopting generative AI to improve personalisation. Different teams working off different data is one of the major personalisation challenges that companies face.

Organizations often have a wealth of data available to them, but marketers don’t always have access to that data. 

“In order to drive connected experiences, it’s important to consider all of the data we have on that individual,” said Victoria Calkins, product marketing manager at Salesforce. “For example, we want to know when they’ve browsed on our website or contacted customer service. As marketers, we often don’t have access to all of this data because it may live in other parts of an organisation.” 

Siloed data — when departments don’t have the same information — leads to disconnected customer experiences. Here are two ways you can overcome this: 

• Break down your data’s barriers: Invest in technology that will house your customer data in one place, such as a customer data platform. This allows departments to work from the same set of data, giving them a 360-degree view of the customer journey.
• Start small: You may not know where to start when you have a lot of data at your fingertips. Rather than looking at all your data, focus on simple use cases to get started.

“People think, ‘I can do one hundred things with personalisation,’” said Price. “But just focus on your website and simple use cases, focus on your email program, and you can iterate and grow from there.” 

Obstacle 3: Lack of knowledge and skills

With coordination and access to proper data in place, now it’s time to ensure your department has the proper technical skills to build a personalisation strategy. Personalisation requires a team of people with both technical and creative skills. Some marketers don’t have the technical skills to deliver end-to-end personalisation, while others lack the creativity to provide relevant and engaging content.

Our Trends in Personalisation survey found 43% of marketers say a lack of knowledge and skills is their most significant personalisation obstacle. Embracing technology like AI can help take some of the more routine tasks off your department’s plate, letting them tackle big issues.

“We are coming out of the age of managing marketing campaigns manually, and you no longer have to do it all yourself because of artificial intelligence,” said Calkins. “Using AI will allow your marketing efforts to go further without adding extra work to your teams.”

Learning about AI can help marketers move customers toward a purchase, sending messages that are relevant and timely to them. For example, you can use triggered messages, emails that are automatically sent when a customer takes a certain action — like placing an item in the cart, but not making a purchase.

There is only one solution when it comes to this obstacle: investing in the education of technologies that can do the heavy lifting. Companies should empower their talent by expanding their understanding about what customers want to see, giving them the knowledge they need to overcome personalisation challenges. 

Obstacle 4: Finding the right mix of messaging

Once you’ve got your organisational alignment, data, and knowledge bases all in order, you still need to figure out how to best connect with your customers across a multitude of channels. You don’t just want to blast them with a firehose of branded content or redundant messaging, either. The key is to speak to them on a personal level. But how do you use your customer data to scale your efforts, yet still tailor your messaging? 

This is where AI can help with one of the biggest personalisation challenges. It isn’t realistic for a single marketer in most businesses to keep track of every piece of outreach, content, and engagement on a per-customer basis, but it’s a breeze for a properly trained AI. With a well-trained generative AI drawing off good data, your customers will receive ongoing engagement tailored to their personal preferences, not only in terms of which content they see, but when they see it, and how often. 

For example, take a customer who’s mostly responsive to email outreach but also tends to jump on special offers on social media. They would see a regular content drip in their inbox, but might only encounter your messaging on social when there’s a special offer that echoes items in their purchase history.

When you do it right, every interaction will feel like part of the same pleasant, ongoing conversation with a brand that recognises them as an individual, rather than just a faceless customer. It makes sure everyone gets what they actually want out of your brand, and it makes sure your brand gets the most out of your customers. 

Time to start overcoming personalisation challenges

Personalisation is a work in progress. Tech tools are evolving, and so are our processes and skills (not to mention customer expectations). Now that you’ve identified the four top personalisation challenges, take stock of your own organisation and build a path to success – both for yourself and for your customers. 

Learn what customers expect from their personalised experiences

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Editor’s note: Brandi Holness contributed to this blog post.

The post Frustrated by Personalisation Challenges? 4 Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience appeared first on Salesforce.

We’ve already seen how AI can help marketers, commerce teams, salespeople, and more make informed decisions. This merely scratches the surface on how brands can use AI in their marketing to become more efficient and productive.

Explore generative AI basics

Discover how generative AI is transforming the future of work — helping your teams work more efficiently and create better customer experiences. This Trail is a helpful learning module that breaks it all down clearly.

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Einstein GPT: Quick Look

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We recently asked marketers how this technology will help, with 60% saying it will transform their role. More than half (51%) are already experimenting with generative AI or using it at work already.

In our survey, marketers estimated that generative AI could save them 5 hours per week — that adds up to over one month a year. Imagine how much more you could do with that time back.

Though generative AI is still in its early stages, here are three ways marketers can use it today to better connect with customers.

What generative AI for marketing could look like

Generative AI can help with drafting marketing materials or providing quick answers to customer responses. But that’s just the start of what businesses can do with this technology. 

Combining generative AI with an intuitive customer data platform can arm companies with the tools to take action on real-time insights. This can help you deliver personalisation at scale, such as product recommendations, tailored to individual customers based on their browsing and purchase history. 

Consumers also expect brands to use their data to offer more relevant services. We found that over 60% of customers expect that companies instantly react with the most up-to-date information when transferring across departments. Generative AI can satisfy this customer need by giving agents suggested responses generated right in the moment, based on real-time data. 

The next step for brands? Education. In our latest research, 54% of marketers told us that generative AI training programs are essential to them successfully using this technology. And 72% expect that their employers will provide them with the opportunities to learn how to use generative AI.

The last mile of personalisation

Today’s customers expect personalisation at every step. Recently, we found 65% of customers say they will stay loyal if the company offers a more tailored experience. 

Combining the power of generative AI with your CRM data gives marketers the ability to create those kinds of digital experiences for their customers. Altogether, this results in more efficient marketing journeys that are better tailored to their audience across content generation, design, and targeting.

3rd-party cookie replacement

Third-party cookie deprecation and access to high-quality data — data that’s well-structured and useful — is a growing challenge for marketing organisations. We discovered that 41% of business leaders cite a lack of understanding of data because it’s too complex or not accessible enough. 

As data becomes increasingly difficult to collect, store, and analyse, marketers can now turn to AI tools to help analyse the data they do have and make the right decision. AI will help marketers process their existing, perhaps limited, first-party data and provide them with rich insights.

That trusted first-party data is important for generative AI to work well, 63% of marketers told us. Marketers themselves also play a pivotal role in generative AI’s success, with 66% saying that human oversight is necessary to make sure a brand’s voice stays authentic.

Ways to develop generative AI responsibly

Generative AI has the power to transform the way we live and work, but it’s not without risks. Here are five guidelines for building it inclusively and intentionally.

Read the blog

Letting you focus on the customer

This shift in focus and conversation around generative AI is imperative, not a nice-to-have. By eliminating the confusion and delay in analysing data, generative AI takes the heavy lifting out of content creation. This technology can generate product descriptions that are accurate, compelling, and optimised for search engines. 

With generative AI handling lower-level tasks, marketers are able to focus on strategic campaigns, executing on creative, and creating connections with customers. Generative AI can fundamentally change how marketing departments operate, allowing teams to place more focus where it belongs — on the customer.

What are marketers saying about generative AI?

Generative AI can be the next big innovation in marketing. How can it help? What needs to be done next? We asked marketing leaders all about it.

Get the scoop

The post 3 Ways Generative AI Will Help Marketers Connect With Customers appeared first on Salesforce.

It was inspiring to gather so many industry leaders together, but if you weren’t able to attend, don’t worry. We have curated the highlights of the event for a virtual broadcast — join us on Thursday 25 May at 10am (Singapore time) for a recap of the best sessions, including the keynote address, led by Sujith Abraham, Salesforce Senior Vice President and General Manager of ASEAN.

Be inspired by global and local leaders at World Tour Essentials Asia

Register for the virtual broadcast

The future of business — AI + Data + CRM

Kicking off the event, the keynote address put laser focus on how artificial intelligence (AI), data and customer relationship management (CRM) will be the foundation of business in the years to come.

The power of AI to drive business growth is already being seen, and Generative AI is taking the world by storm. From marketing to sales, AI is becoming an important part of many businesses’ tech stack. It has the power to automate personalised service interactions, create hyper-targeted marketing messages, and accelerate your sales pipeline.

We recently announced Einstein GPT — the world’s first generative AI for CRM. See it in action in an inspiring demo in the World Tour Essentials Asia keynote, and watch the broadcast to see Clara Shih, EVP and GM, Service Cloud who outlined what Einstein GPT will bring to your business

We heard from Alison Olsson, Regional Vice President, who shared our new Customer Company Playbook, including how Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and more, can help any company become a customer company.

AI skills for the future

Amidst the discussions around the potential of AI, we also explored how ready the workforce is to use these innovations. We unveiled the results of our AI Digital Skills Survey, revealing that 72% of knowledge workers in Singapore are excited about the use of generative AI for their job. Yet, many are not equipped with the right skills, highlighting the need to accelerate the workforce’s digital readiness and aptitude for AI. Currently only 15% of employees in Singapore are using AI in their day-to-day role.

Upskilling will be the way forward to address the AI skills gap. In fact, nearly all (98%) of respondents in Singapore believe that businesses should prioritise digital skills development for their employees.

Sujith spoke to Poh Cheng Pang, Group Director, Business Technology Group at SkillsFuture Singapore, about the importance of lifelong learning, and the company’s vision for enhanced customer experiences.

Pang Poh Cheng, SkillsFuture Singapore + Sujith Abraham

Incredible Trailblazers

We took a look at how Formula 1 creates incredible fan experiences using Salesforce Customer 360. Using Data Cloud, a global organisation like F1 can deliver personalised content to each of its 500 million fans worldwide. Watch the demo and the mesmerising Formula 1 film in the World Tour Essentials Asia broadcast.

And we heard from Chia I Mun, APAC Commercial Excellence Lead at Johnson & Johnson Vision, who shared how the company is improving customer engagement, the skills needed for success, and the metrics that Johnson & Johnson Vision uses to measure success. Tune in for those words of wisdom in the keynote where I Mun speaks to Polly Sumner, Chief Adoption Officer, Salesforce.

Chia I Mun, Johnson & Johnson Vision + Polly Sumner

Inspirational sessions

The virtual broadcast will also showcase many of the sessions from the live event. Here’s a breakdown of what you can look forward to:

Your Sales Playbook for Cost Efficient Growth

Eighty-two percent of sales reps say they’ve had to adapt quickly to new ways of selling. Empowering your teams to sell smarter not harder, is top of mind, and we explore how features currently available in Sales Cloud help your teams maximise this digital first, automated CRM, powered by AI, to work more productively and reduce costs.

Choon Soon Gan, Head of Business Process at ShopBack, shared how Sales Cloud helps their business scale fast across the region and work more effectively and productively across teams.

Choon Soon Gan, ShopBack

How To Generate Lifelong Loyalty with Service

A loyal customer is a lucrative customer — 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its product or services — up from 80% in 2020.

To nurture the kinds of relationships that lead to customer loyalty, you need to provide a consistent experience across your channels — especially as 83% of customers expect to resolve complex problems through one person.

Clara Shih, EVP & GM, Service Cloud demonstrated the power of Service Cloud when it comes to delivering excellent customer experiences that keep your customers coming back for more.

We were also joined by Shilash Sharma, Senior Manager, Business & Digital Transformation at Anantara Vacation Club, who shared how they can scale at pace with customer growth, and drive loyalty through excellent service and personalised customer engagement.

Shilash Sharma, Anantara Vacation Club

Marketing Moments That Count: Maximise First-Party Data to Drive Conversions, Growth and Customer Loyalty

The latest State of Marketing report contained at least one wake-up moment — 75% of marketers say they still rely at least in part on third-party data.

With the ongoing changes to the way that platforms are handling third-party cookie data, it is becoming increasingly important that marketers have a robust first-party data strategy — something that only 54% of marketing professionals have done so far.

In this session, see how Marketing Cloud can help you achieve business growth and deliver impactful customer experiences using a first-party data strategy.

Salesforce experts guide you through the demos, and an extra special guest — Golden Hoodie winner Shibu Abraham, APAC Head, Salesforce Practice at UST, shares how businesses can leverage Marketing Cloud to get closer engagement with their customers.

Shibu Abraham, UST

Unlock Your Productivity With Slack and Generative AI

Slack is the engagement layer for Customer 360, powered by automation, knowledge sharing, and connection. It enables you to bring together your teams to boost performance with improved decision making and increase efficiency with automated workflows.

In this session Shweta Verma, Regional Vice President for Slack Sales, demonstrates how a new generative-AI-powered Slack will transform the way you work.

We spoke to Michael Brady, Group Director Operations at Cebu Pacific Air, ASEAN winners of the Slack Award for Unlocking Productivity. Michael will reveal how Slack has empowered their business — saving time, improving customer experiences, and streamlining internal communications.

Michael Brady, Cebu Pacific Air

Stream it to believe it — World Tour Essentials Asia 2023.

Learn about

• the apps the help you create a Customer 360 in your business 
• the platform that lets you innovate 
• how to leverage your data so you see and understand every customer

Tune in from anywhere and discover how the future of business is AI + Data + CRM with Salesforce Customer 360. Get inspired by Einstein GPT in our keynote, hear from industry experts, soak up demos, and tune in to Trailblazer stories as we invigorate you on your journey to become a Customer Company with the #1 CRM.

Experience the magic of Einstein GPT with live demos!

Register Now for the virtual broadcast of Salesforce World Tour Essentials Asia!

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As a result, many businesses are now focused on optimising their operations to meet these demands. The complexities of sales, service, and marketing have prompted businesses to improve cross-functional alignment, enhance data quality and accuracy, and modernise technology.

According to the State of Marketing report, CMOs have identified the need to continually innovate to remain competitive, with 91% stating this as a priority. Additionally, 70% of marketers who invested in process/workflow automation view this as a long-term strategy shift.

By leveraging apps such as Slack, Mulesoft, and Tableau all within the Salesforce Customer 360, businesses will be better positioned to drive growth and improve both employee and customer experience.

Build your Digital HQ with Slack

Building a Digital HQ with Slack can transform the way teams collaborate. It’s more than just a platform for communication — it’s a platform where businesses can streamline their operations and increase productivity.

The IDC Marketscape Report has positioned Slack as one of the leaders in worldwide collaboration and community applications. This is due to its easy integration of apps within the Slack environment, making it popular among developers. The platform’s low-to-no-code interface is also user friendly, allowing anyone to create custom workflows that automate routine tasks and improve efficiency.

At Aureus Academy, in addition to facilitating daily collaboration between departments, Slack is used to motivate employees and celebrate their achievements. By recognising employee contributions and successes, Aureus Academy creates a positive work culture and increases employee engagement.

Another organisation that has leveraged the power of Slack is IBM. With 3,500 apps integrated and 3,400 Slack workflows created every month, the company has significantly improved its productivity and streamlined its processes. By automating routine tasks and enabling real-time collaboration, IBM has achieved faster time-to-market for new solutions and a more agile workforce.

With Slack, both Aureus Academy and IBM have created a more connected and productive workforce. This enables employees to work together in real time to solve problems, make decisions, and drive growth. This not only helps to improve team dynamics but also has a positive impact on the overall performance of the organisation.

Try Slack for free and see how it can transform the way you collaborate

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Put enterprise-level analytics in the hands of everyone with Tableau

Data analytics can help organisations make informed and effective decisions. A global survey conducted by Salesforce reveals that 73% of business leaders recognise that data reduces uncertainty and drives better decision-making.

When it comes to choosing a data analytics platform, ease of use is a top priority for many business users. They want a product that delivers clear business value and empowers non-technical users to perform advanced analytics without the need for IT support. Salesforce Tableau has enabled this.

Named a leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms, Tableau is a powerful data visualisation and analytics tool that helps businesses gain valuable insights from their data. As part of Salesforce Customer 360, it allows every employee in your company to easily connect, visualise, and share data across the entire organisation.

Take M1 as an example. Tableau allows its business teams to analyse data on their own and access real-time insights without having to rely on data analysts for reports. This results in faster decision-making and more efficient use of data. In the long run, it improves productivity and frees up employees’ time to focus on more meaningful work.

With Tableau, businesses can make data-driven decisions and gain a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced business landscape.

Tableau is a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

Read the report to find out why

Get the report

Integrate data from anywhere with MuleSoft

Part of Salesforce Customer 360, MuleSoft is a powerful integration platform that helps businesses connect, integrate, and unlock data from any system. A leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integration Platform as a Service, Worldwide (iPaaS), it uses the power of AI to deliver real-time insights and personalised experiences.

In the latest State of Service report, 79% of decision-makers say new technology solutions result in faster time-to-market. 77% of decision-makers who partner with IT say it helps the organisation save on software costs. This is the case for M1.

MuleSoft has been critical in enabling M1’s IT team to bring legacy technology and modern platforms together. MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform integrates its backend systems and automates its business processes. As a result, MuleSoft helped the team to go to market 25% faster than originally planned and saw a significant reduction in operational costs.

With MuleSoft, companies can streamline their workflows, reduce manual effort, and make better use of their data, enabling them to make informed decisions and drive business success.

Slack, Tableau, and MuleSoft are three powerful tools that can work together within Salesforce Customer 360 to help businesses automate processes, save costs, and improve the employee experience. With these tools, businesses can go to market faster and ultimately improve their bottom line.

Gartner recognises MuleSoft as a Leader and a Visionary

Read the report to find out why

Get the report

Learn more about Salesforce Customer 360 at World Tour Essentials Asia on 25th May. 

The post These 3 Apps Help Your Business Automate Processes, Save Costs, and Improve Employee Experience appeared first on Salesforce.

What is intelligent automation?

Intelligent automation combines robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, data, and more to create an end–to-end process that can learn and adapt on its own. Organisations that have already moved beyond piloting intelligent automation achieved an average cost reduction of 32%, according to Deloitte’s most recent automation survey. 

Here we’ll cover how you can bring next-level efficiency to your business.

Two-thirds of companies have implemented some task-based automation, which is the fairly simple automation of a single process within one business unit. For example, creating a service ticket, automatic credit approval, or automated email promotions.

According to Matt McLarty, global field CTO and VP of the digital transformation office at MuleSoft, the task-based automations used at many companies today aren’t reusable, scalable, or sustainable enough to deliver the value that’s so important right now. That’s because they lack the context and sophistication that businesses need to truly transform their business and serve customers better. 

Some examples: 

• a chatbot that doesn’t recognise a customer or their order history, and offers automated responses that don’t address the customer’s problem 
• a meal kit service that can’t say why your box hasn’t been delivered because it has no visibility into the logistics provider
• an automated HR system that’s siloed from an employee success system.

“A lot of the RPA solutions are very much focused on recording how a process works, and automating it,” McLarty said. “But if there’s an exception in that process, as there often is, all you’ve done is delay solving the problem by putting a bot between me and the person who will actually resolve my issue.”

Intelligent automation provides context

Intelligent automation provides context around your data so you get a deeper understanding of what’s happening. The context, which gleans meaning from images, text, and speech, detects patterns and can make recommendations, predictions, and decisions. 

Real-time connected data is a key to contextual automation, whether it’s internally automated business processes, or the ways in which companies automate interactions with partners and customers. 

We are in the relative early stages of this advanced automation, but it’s on the radar of many organisations. Deloitte’s survey found that AI is the next most desirable automation technology, with 46% planning to implement it in the next three years.

How to identify new intelligent automation opportunities

Once a company has delivered a handful of automations, the dividends tend to level off. That’s because the company is not able to easily identify new processes to automate, said Joe Surprenant, sales leader across Deloitte’s AI and Data Ops practices. Companies need to mine their data and processes to uncover these new opportunities. 

“Once you’ve exhausted heat maps and the idea box from process owners, you need a hybrid approach that includes both digital discovery tools and process expertise to identify the gaps,” he said. 

The technology that makes that possible is called process intelligence. It’s the data that’s collected to analyse the individual steps within a process or workflow, and can help an organisation identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency. While only about one in five companies surveyed by Deloitte use process intelligence (PI) today — several companies develop PI technologies — it is a fast-growing sector. 

“Process intelligence has opened up the eyes of many of our clients to show them things they did not know,” Surprenant said. For example, he said, one large company used process mining technology to analyse its end-to-end direct material purchasing process. The analysis identified steps in the purchase order maintenance process which had a higher manual activity and rework rate. This insight led to the development of a maintenance automation solution using a combination of RPA, business process management (BPM) workflow automation, and  analytics, ultimately driving $40 million in annual savings.

Another retail client used PI to uncover the root cause of a disconnect between the sales, payment, delivery, and return functions within its supply chain. These insights were leveraged to create a consolidated customer journey app to quickly trace and resolve issues across these functions. This led to a 23% reduction in order returns, $46 million sales risk mitigated, and 7% improvement in net promoter score. 

Process intelligence is beneficial in three ways: 

• It digitises and accelerates the discovery of automation use cases. In effect, it automates automation. 
• It provides an additional data point for what some business users suspect may be an area ripe for automation.
• It saves companies the time and money of hiring consultants to interview process owners to identify automation opportunities.

What you need to think about

Implementing more sophisticated, contextual automation is about much more than technology. Success requires a fundamental rethinking and re-engineering of your processes, all centred around your customers’ needs. 

McLarty, who works closely with customers on their digital transformations, suggested these first steps:

Consider the end-to-end customer experience

Map the entire customer experience, from end to end, how all those pieces are interconnected, and what customers need at each step. Most companies, he said, consider just one piece of the puzzle — commerce, service, or marketing, for instance — and automate just that one element. 

Real-time, connected data is a game changer in contextual automation. Next-generation customer data platforms integrate data from every customer interaction, from any system, channel or data stream, into a unified customer profile. Having this 360-degree view helps you see your customers in totality. For example, it helps you see how a service interaction with a customer impacts a marketing promotion for that customer. 

Meet your customers where they are, like never before

With a real-time CRM, you can connect all customer data at scale, from any system or device, and harmonise it into a single view.

Consider the technology that underpins a great solution

Is your technology repeatable and scalable? You should seek tools that can uncover different processes to automate in your organisation. These tools extract the metadata from the process, and turn it into an automated workflow. 

MuleSoft is the enabling technology connecting data from any system or channel. 

“The automated solution has to have connections into the predictive analytics that are synonymous with artificial intelligence and all the data sources, so it can tell you everything you need to know,” said McLarty. 

It’s hard to overstate how transformative AI-based contextual automation will be. Surprenant said it will be equivalent to the cloud. 

“We’re not there yet,” he said. “But when we get over the curve to where companies are automation-first when they design business processes, and they’re truly embracing a digital worker mindset, it will be as big if not bigger than cloud.”

The post Supercharge Your Automation for Bigger Cost Savings & More Efficiency appeared first on Salesforce.

Consider a process that starts with a customer interaction on your website and then ends with a complex supply chain request, like an order being placed with your supplier for more inventory to meet your customer’s needs. These types of experiences have been extremely difficult to automate from end to end, with every manual step of the process truly eliminated. 

Now, there’s a way you can bring automation across the breadth of your company, delivering a new standard of automation for the business and improving customer and employee experiences along the way.

In September 2022, Salesforce unveiled Genie Customer Data Cloud, now powered by Tableau, to help businesses better understand customer data and deliver actionable insights in real time and at scale. Genie Customer Data Cloud now processes more than 100 billion customer records on average daily across the entire Customer 360.

This is a game changer for MuleSoft customers because Genie Customer Data Cloud now enables every business to unlock real-time data across any modern or legacy system.

MuleSoft retail customers can use real-time data from campaigns, loyalty rewards, and point-of-sale transactions to deliver automated, personalised marketing and in-store experiences for customers. Likewise, patient care managers can prioritise high risk individuals at the right time. And healthcare marketers can segment patient and member populations and create personalised care journeys at scale with more comprehensive health data.

Here’s how you can use the power of MuleSoft and Genie Customer Data Cloud.

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What is Salesforce Genie Customer Data Cloud and why does it matter?

In today’s economic environment, you need to focus on your customers, and it all starts with data. Businesses have massive amounts of siloed, fragmented, and difficult to manage data. In the past, companies needed to build complex data pipelines and platforms, which resulted in issues with data duplication, stale data, and undermined decision making. 

Organisations need to seamlessly connect digital and real-world customer interactions to provide relevant, personalised, and compelling moments-that-matter. However, their efforts to drive this real-time engagement are often hindered by the absence of a single source of truth about their customers. 

On average, organisations use around 980 applications to run their business. These applications create data silos, resulting in potentially hundreds of versions of “the truth” about a single customer. This challenge is only going to compound as the amount of data created and processed each year continues to increase exponentially.

Genie Customer Data Cloud helps overcome these challenges by processing and harmonising real-time data from third-party systems and Salesforce into a customer graph, at massive scale. It includes built-in connectors that bring in data from every channel and stream, including mobile, web, APIs and proprietary data lakes. In addition to the built-in connectors, MuleSoft acts as the real-time data ingress layer for literally any system, anywhere.

Why is MuleSoft so important to Genie Customer Data Cloud?

MuleSoft is fundamental to Genie Customer Data Cloud as both an ingress and action layer. As we mentioned, MuleSoft can help Genie process real-time data from any system, application, or device into Genie Customer Data Cloud. In addition to this, MuleSoft is natively integrated as part of Salesforce Flow which enables it to act as the action and automation layer as well. This allows you to seamlessly automate your enterprise enriched by the power of customer graphs and AI-driven insights. Business leaders all over the world are focused on delivering success now by connecting with their customers in more valuable and cost effective ways. Automation is top-of-mind for almost every one of them — 91% of organisations reporting increased demand over the last two years, as we all figure out how to do more with less. The investments companies make now will determine their success today and into the future.

What’s magical about this experience is that data and insights from Genie Customer Data Cloud are as easily addressable as any other object in the Salesforce Platform, so when combined with Flow and MuleSoft, we can deliver sophisticated end-to-end and intelligent automation across both the Customer 360 and all other systems in the enterprise.

What excites you most about Genie Customer Data Cloud and MuleSoft?

Our customers rely on MuleSoft to connect all of their systems and data in their ecosystem with a resilient and scalable composable design. As those application networks have matured, our customers can use that same connectivity fabric to compose and automate entirely new workflows and experiences.

With Genie Customer Data Cloud, our customers can better understand their customers through this real-time unified customer graph. This enables us to bring this insight into every orchestration of their composable enterprise, making them more intelligent and personalised. This enables our customers to deliver the types of seamless and automated experiences their customers are looking for, and to deliver the promise of an automated enterprise overall. I’m excited to see where our customers take this next.

How will Genie Customer Data Cloud and MuleSoft benefit society at large?

As part of our 1-1-1 model we have been supporting the nonprofit sector since 1999, with over 39K+ organisations using our donated software. Countless other organisations use our platform to drive their environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.

Everything we’ve described above also applies here, including the overall productivity improvement the sector can achieve through data-powered automation. By analysing real-time data, food banks can identify where those who are in greatest need are, along with exactly which goods are in shortest supply. Non-profit organisations can capture a lot more data, helping to scale efforts to build stronger communities. In the renewable energy sector, energy companies can work with their customers to capture more granular energy usage data from devices in the home, so that they can make real-time suggestions for how to optimise their energy usage and take pressure off the grid.

With the power of Genie Customer Data Cloud and MuleSoft, we are excited to bring the immense opportunity of real-time data and automation to these incredible organisations that are helping our communities and the planet.

This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the Salesforce blog.  

The post How You Can Use MuleSoft and Genie Customer Data Cloud to Take Automation to the Next Level appeared first on Salesforce.

A growing number of companies are going beyond simply imagining it.  

The big trend

Companies have been investing in business automation for decades to eliminate manual tasks and enable employees to focus on things that drive growth. Those investments have accelerated as automation has become more sophisticated and spread to every corner of the organisation. Eighty-five percent of organisations said in a 2021 Deloitte study they are rethinking how work gets done, and are moving from task-based automation to end-to-end automation. Thirteen percent said their organisation has implemented over 50 automations, up from just 4% who did so in 2018.

Why it matters

Business leaders are prioritising technology investments that drive efficiency and productivity, and business automation is at the top of that list. Companies that take a broad view of automation (beyond simple, task-based desktop automations) have saved a lot of costs and increased productivity.

What your company can do

Apply automation anywhere, and everywhere

• Finance and accounting. Frees up time for more strategic things like analysis, strategy, and collaboration. One example, automated invoicing and approval routing. 
• Marketing. Helps you target customers with automated messages across channels. Identify audiences, design relevant content and automatically trigger actions. 
• Customer service. Next generation service automation, using AI, augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) can predict service events and automatically resolve them through digital channels. 
• Human resources. Automate job application processing, response tracking and interview scheduling, onboarding and offboarding, payroll management and benefits administration. 
• Sales. A third of sales tasks, including strategy, planning, lead identification, qualification, configuration, pricing, and order management, can be automated.

Want to learn more? Here’s a deeper look

Automating tasks makes workers happier and more productive

Many knowledge workers spend a lot of time manually entering and retrieving information between multiple systems as part of a multi-step, manual process. This is not the best use of a person’s time, and could erode morale and employee engagement. 

In the APAC Engagement Research conducted by Salesforce, 34% office workers strongly agree that outdated and inefficient technology makes them feel unhappy and unmotivated at work. And this lack of motivation adversely affects the quality of their work. They say their workplace experience could be improved with technology to help them with a variety of business tasks — particularly messaging or collaboration (49%), customer or client communications (45%), and client record management (39%).

When office workers were asked to nominate the issues that negatively affect their engagement at work, the top two were technology-related: when it fails or doesn’t work as it should (60%) and the quality of the technology (51%). 

How can companies identify opportunities for automation? Global Field Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of digital transformation office at MuleSoft, Matt McLarty said one large financial services firm did it by asking employees a simple question: What’s the dumbest thing you have to do every day?

“They made it into a contest, with prizes,” he said. “People were so frustrated about wasting their time on this stuff that they volunteered all this information, which created a foundation for the company to automate those things.”

Automation for every team

Efficiency, productivity, and cost containment are top priorities for business leaders. You can automate and integrate work across every business function and system, so you can focus on the things that grow your business.

Here's how

Business automation can be applied anywhere, and everywhere

You don’t need to understand exactly how automation works. You just need to understand its impact and how powerful it can be. Here’s how different departments can use automation to reduce manual processes, cut costs, reduce inefficiencies, and serve customers and employees better:

Finance and accounting

Automating financial planning and accounting functions frees up time for more strategically important things like analysis, strategy, and collaboration with stakeholders. One example is Accounts Payable. Data capture is automated (no more digging through miles of spreadsheets), invoices are automatically matched to relevant documents, and approvals are routed. This is not only more efficient but also reduces the risk of errors. 

Marketing

There is no value in having to press “send” on every email, campaign, or social-media post you create. By automating marketing, you can target customers with automated messages across multiple channels. The best tools help you identify your audience, design the most relevant content, and automatically trigger actions like offers based on schedules and customer behaviour. These efforts can then be aligned with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. 

Customer service

It doesn’t take a human to answer basic questions like “How do I reset my password?” or “Where’s my order?” Chatbots, voice bots, and self-service are already in wide use, freeing up agents to help customers navigate more complex service situations. Next-generation service automation, using AI, augmented reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT), can predict service events and resolve them through digital channels. And it can give customers a total view of service activity for self-service support and automated monitoring.

Human resources

HR systems can automate a wide range of tasks, from job application processing, response tracking and interview scheduling to job offers, onboarding and offboarding, payroll management, and benefits administration. Using analytics, these systems can also provide insights into workforce sentiment, productivity, and engagement.

Sales

One management consultancy estimated that about one-third of all sales tasks can be automated, yet many business decision makers don’t take advantage of the capability. Sales strategy and planning, lead identification and qualification, configuration, pricing and quotation, order management, and post sales are all areas ripe for automation. Early adopters, the firm noted, consistently report increased customer-facing time, higher customer satisfaction, and efficiency improvements of up to 15 percent.

Leaders need to consider business automation a strategic asset

Like other digital transformations, the success of end-to-end automation relies on cultural changes driven from the top and executed in each function. Training, incentives, and key performance indicators are all essential. 

Spending on automation, particularly AI systems in Asia Pacific will rise from $17.6 billion in 2022 to around $32 billion in 2025. The impact is profound, affecting the way we work, compete, innovate, and serve customers.

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This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the Salesforce blog.

The post Want To Be More Efficient and Productive? Automate More of Your Business appeared first on Salesforce.