I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing functions were merged and run by Sales, What would be your main focus? Why?

As you can see, 68% of those surveyed said that increased lead generation and demand generation was a top priority. What this means is that people see Marketing as a vehicle to increase Sales and Revenue.

Free Trials

Previously, I have discussed the marketing strategy of free trials, discounted trials, and loss leaders.

Free Samples

Another great marketing strategy for brands to get prospects and current customers to try a new product or retry an existing one is to offer a free sample. This can be done by handing out the product sample during online, field, and tradeshow marketing.

Field & Trade Show Marketing

Samples can be in the form of a physical product, a link to an online offering, offering a discount to make a purchase. Recently, I attended the 9th Avenue International Food Festival in New York. I received sample food products. One of the vendors offered a food sample and a coupon to make a purchase.

At Tradeshows, brands can offer physical and digital products in exchange for customer information. This is an excellent tactic for lead generation. Most times brands scan the badge of customers to collect this information.

Online Marketing

Brands can also reach customers online to get them to request a free sample. The sample can come in the form of a download or a physical offering depending on the product type.

Brands can also offer branded merchandise as a way to be remembered by prospects and customers.

How have you used free samples to attract new customers, renew, upsell, and cross-sell existing customers?

Share your thoughts and join the conversation.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, and SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; a blog that covers industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing,

Sales Enablement, Enablement, Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, and Recruitment Marketing.

Open on the title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

Trends in AI & Generative AI: Insights from The 2023 AI Summit New York 

Last week, I covered the AI Summit in New York. I was excited to learn about the trends in AI and generative AI and to see some commercial applications of these new technological advancements. 

Patrick Murphy of UAB led the AI Exhibitor hub. Patrick shared insights from his research on Entrepreneurship. He shared how start-ups use AI, and Generative AI to scale up and bring products to market. 

Generative AI is being used in the following eight ways:

1. Content and Asset Generative
2. Automated Processes
3. Ideation
4. Financial Management
5. Project Design
6. Optimized Structures
7. Acceleration and incubation
8. Ethics and Risk Management. 

There was a pitching completion where start-ups did pitches in multiple rounds. At the beginning of the competition, they received advice from judges on best practices. 

One of the start-ups that was of interest was Botwise. Jan Nowak shared how his team shared a use case on how they leveraged Language Learning models (LLM)using statistics and GPT solutions for rapid automation in customer service for Mylead.global is a platform that allows influencers to earn money. As a result, MyLead.global was able to screen influencers faster and better for their big brand clients.

AI-Powered Use Cases from across the board panel discussion

Leaders Saira Kazmi Ph. D. (CVS Health), Matthew Blakemore (Creative Industries Council) Taha Mokfi (HelloFresh), Kriti Kohli (Shopify), and Kris Perez (Data Force) share how they use chatbots, improving both the buyer and seller experience using AI. How AI can be used in video games to identify levels of violence and how AI can improve in healthcare and Radiology reducing the amount of time images are read while improving accuracy and detail. 

Another interesting Panel was by Tim Delesio CTO of techolution

Tim asked What’s driving the explosive rise of AI all of a Sudden?

The answer is the economics of the labor market.

On the demand side, he cited labor shortages and persistent high inflation. 

On the supply side, he cites the rise of ChatGPT and, major scientific and Technological breakthroughs in the past five to seven years. 

He shared trends in AI for 2024 that include:

1. Physical Labor with AI to help deliver small batch sizes with high-precision quality control
2. Improved customer engagement by providing a new generation of customer service agents using Generative AI 

Tim demonstrated some of these trends when he ordered a soda using an AI-powered robotic arm. 

The booth had another machine showing how AI can enhance inventory management when items are ordered. 

I was amazed to see some AI Tech that techolution brought to the marketplace.

On that note, I saw an AI-powered Kiosk by Graphen where a man ordered his food and paid. This company is using AI to revolutionize all industries.

Man orders food AI Kiosk

Man pays for food at AI Kiosk

There were so many great talks and exhibits. 

Additional pictures can be found on Instagram. 

I want to thank the AI Summit for having me as their guest. If you want to use AI and Generative to improve business outcomes, sign up for the AI summit in your city.

What do you think is next for AI and Generative AI?

Comment and share below.

Additional pictures can be found on Instagram. 

I covered The AI Summit in New York last week because I wanted to learn more about AI and Machine Learning.

According to Tractica, AI is being implemented globally.

AI and Machine Learning used in many verticals and processes. For example, when I compose an email using GMAIL, I received suggestions on how to finish a sentence. To use the GMAIL suggestion, I can tap the right arrow button on my keyboard.

Think about your routine and your processes, I bet that AI influencers your decisions from where to eat to what to watch.

It is important not to fear AI; use it as a tool to be more productive and live better.

Data Privacy

There are many issues on Data privacy with legislation such as GDPR, CCPA among others. Right now we’re are at the level where AI can understand customer behavior and make suggestions.

AI In the Home

I attended an LG Labs event on AI in the home where it was suggested that companies need to collect more customer data to make better products. To convince customers to provide more data, companies need to provide customers with a ROD analysis or Return on Data. The return on Data should measure customer benefits against the amount of data they are providing. For example, in exchange for providing X amount of Data, we improved our product By Y i.e. increased functionality and better user experience. Think of an ROI or ROAS analysis.

The next evolution for AI is to go from predicting current user intent to future user intent based on user actions. Eventually, AI devices will be consolidated and work cross-functionally.

How AI will impact Sales, Marketing and the Customer Experience

Mark Beccue of Tractica opened up the Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience part of the Summit.

Matthew Quinn of Columbia University shares his insights on AI’s impact on Sales and Marketing.

Companies will not have just Salespeople or Machine Learning in the sales process. Instead, to increase Profits companies will have a hybrid model.

A business’s reason for using Machine Learning and AI is to become more efficient, get better insights and better ROI and profits.

Businesses need to think globally by applying cultural diffusion to their business through localization and language translation.

Marketing

AI will improve Marketing KPIs by allowing brands to measure improve linguistic effectiveness.

Shared by Smith Yewell of Welocalize

Customer Segmentation

Shared by Ranjit Jangam of Comcast

How ML can improve Customer Segmentation Data

AI will improve the customer experience by allowing customers to control their buyer journey with less interaction from the seller.

Shared by Priyanka Tiwari of Interactions.

Conversational AI will help power a self-service model according to Gartner.

What is Conversational AI?

Where AI needs to improve

I want to thank The AI Summit for having me as their guest. If you want to use AI to improve business outcomes, sign up for the AI summit in your city.

What do you think is next for AI?

Comment and share below.