AI-Powered Buyer Journeys

This data was originally featured in the October 30th, 2024 newsletter found here: INBOX INSIGHTS, October 30, 2024: Undoing Toxic Cultures, AI-Powered Buyer Journeys

In this week’s Data Diaries, let’s take a step back and think for a second. What are generative AI tools like large language models really good at? Language, of course. They’re superb at processing language.

What are they not good at? Well, math, for one thing, because they do absolutely no form of computation. To the extent that any LLM-based tool does math, it’s because [a] the model had a lot of math in its training data or [b] it’s been taught to recognize math and then write code (a language problem) to solve the math. When you see ChatGPT do its “analyzing” of any kind of tabular data, that’s what’s going on.

So in the context of analytics, what does this mean? Fundamentally, it means that language-based AI tools shouldn’t be used for math. Instead, they should be handling language and have the math already processed and handed to them.

Let’s look at a real world scenario. Suppose we have a high value prospective customer, or an actual customer who is a high value customer. We have lots and lots of data about this customer’s interactions with us from our CRM, like so:

Last page seen  https://www.trustinsights.ai/expertise/services/artificial-intelligence-consulting/ 8/21/2024 at 9:58 AM EDT
Last referring site https://www.trustinsights.ai/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Trust-Insights-Generative-AI-Cheat-Sheet-Kit.pdf    8/21/2024 at 9:58 AM EDT
Last page seen  https://www.trustinsights.ai/insights/webinars-events/the-marketing-singularity-large-language-models-end-of-marketing/"https://www.trustinsights.ai/rappel">Trust Insights RAPPEL AI Prompting Framework, we feed all the information about the customer into a large language model like Google Gemini or ChatGPT and get the following:

The customer’s journey appears to be primarily focused on open-source AI models and their practical application in marketing. They repeatedly visited resources highlighting the benefits of open models, such as data privacy, cost savings, and customization. This suggests potential concerns or limitations with closed models in their current role. Their downloads of cheat sheets and exploration of AI consulting services indicate a desire for practical guidance and potential support for implementation. Their revisitations and downloads may indicate that they either lost access to the downloaded material, had to redownload it, or was finding it very useful to have in a readily available location.

The lack of engagement with introductory content confirms they are not new to this space and seek more specialized information. Their focus on “managing people who manage AI” suggests leadership responsibilities and potential challenges in guiding their team through AI adoption. This further strengthens the narrative of a leader looking to leverage AI effectively within their organization. They may be working in an industry where data privacy and security are critical or they want to optimize resources and streamline workflows using open-source tools.

Now imagine pushing this data back into your CRM so that your sales executive managing this account knows exactly what the customer wants. That’s the power of using AI for what it’s good at.

The key takeaway here is to use the right tools for the right job. Analytics data, quantitative data, tells us what to prioritize. It tells us what happened. Qualitative data, data like language and content, lets us peek into the motivations and language inside our customers’ minds.

Critically important, we’re leveraging the data we already have. None of this information came from outside sources; everything was already in our Hubspot instance or on our website. As external marketing data gets harder to obtain, we need to rely more on the data we already have.

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.