How To Artificial Intelligence (AI) To Grow Your Business

How To Artificial Intelligence (AI) To Grow Your Business

 

Host and Guest

Mark Fidelman, Jerry Abiog

Mark Fidelman  01:18

Hello everyone welcome to the digital brand builder podcast Joining me today is Jerry Abiog and Jerry has done something that I started early on in this podcast which is introducing AI into a marketing platform. And because there’s artificial intelligence in this platform, you can increase your revenue you can scale your business and he’s got to focus, and one of those focuses is restaurants, but this can be applied to many businesses. As I see it, so today I want to talk to Jerry about how you use and how his customer has been using artificial intelligence to grow their business. So Jerry, welcome to the show and can you give us a little bit of background on yourself.

Jerry Abiog  02:33

So a little bit about my background. So I’ve had over 25 plus years in sales and marketing 10 years ago I left the corporate world, and I started my own business with helping software companies, drive sales and marketing. And as I said I’ve had some good clients and I’ve had some bad clients and as they say in life you learn from failure. And one of the things I learned during this time was actually from a bad client. But this bad client had an AI and machine learning, machine learning company. Well that company. You know didn’t go so well, if you will, and as it was imploding through serendipitous events. I met my future co founder who was visiting from India, he was visiting Atlanta. He’s live here. And he pitched me this idea about a pro AI driven prototype that could help businesses drive repeat buyers. So knowing what I learned from my last experience with working with an AI and machine learning startup. I took this concept from Atlanta flew all the way to Denver Colorado and outdoor retail show. When I returned to Atlanta. A week later, I had secured to beta clients and that had standard insights the company standard insights form. And we’ve been growing ever since the last couple years, we started in the e commerce vertical because they were the early adopters of artificial intelligence and branch to brick and mortar, finance, and restaurants and actually last year at this time, we created an AI driven digital application for restaurants. And to be honest, market kinda we kind of fell in our face. Just because it was not the right time for bringing an AI driven digital menu to the market so we shove that concept, continue to work on other things. And along comes COVID in March shuts the whole planet down, we pull it out of the garage, did some tweaks and now we’ve relaunched it and we retweeted it too. I ordered menu and Alas, you know we’re gaining momentum is the whole planet stealing COVID with an AI driven digital menu. Got it.

Mark Fidelman  04:43

Okay, so let’s start from the beginning what and why is AI doing in marketing and sales How is it helping, why does it matter who needs it,

Jerry Abiog  04:59

man if they want to be competitive in today’s business world man it’s hyper competitive nowadays. And just can’t approach your marketing or sales efforts, flying blind. I, you know, compared to hey you’re, you’re driving down the highway, your windows are all fogged up right you didn’t turn on the defrost or you’re driving before your windows have been frosted and you’re looking at a small sliver putting your head down and trying to drive. That’s what it is when you’re not being data driven versus using the tools available today with the democratization of AI available to you where you can be more precise in your marketing efforts. We’re already seeing this happen to big companies that are using AI very well. Amazon with their product recommendations and Netflix, with their movie recommendations.

Mark Fidelman  05:51

Okay. Yeah, I mean, if you look at what Netflix is doing that, that’s amazing and just for clarity, they’re not your client right they’re just doing it on their own

Jerry Abiog  06:00

on their own but so they were the so AI has been around since the 1950s. But more recently, it’s become more popular. And everyone knows our Amazon everyone knows Netflix so on a high level Cliff Notes level. Those are two big players they’re using artificial intelligence. And just to give your listeners a cliff notes version of what artificial intelligence is, it’s getting a computer to think and act like a human. So, where there can retail IT security self driving cars, you name it. That’s what AI does. Okay, great.

Mark Fidelman  06:31

Yeah, I love that and I love the Netflix analogy because it is really important. Unfortunately I think the Netflix, just creates their own AI for themselves. It’s not something that you can use in everyday life, which is where your platform comes in so alright so let’s, let’s start with a scenario. What has your platform been used for and what did the AI do to improve their business.

Jerry Abiog  06:58

Start off with, with e commerce vertical So to give you an example we’re working with a company. They sell shoes online. They that are been around what 200 or they’ve been around for 10 years have roughly 200,000 customers and $10 million in, in revenue. So what we were able to do was able to number one, break down to 200,000 customers into a mean who were the most profitable, who were in the middle, who fell in the middle, and who were in the bottom here so now once they get a good concept of who their profitable most profitable and least profitable customers, if you will, they can better allocate their marketing budget. Next, what we did we broke their the segment’s down. So, this client the shoe company has about 200,000 customers, they sell worldwide but we just focus mainly in the US, so we were able to determine amongst their top five and top cities and states, not only where their products were being sold, but the specific products, and the shoe company had 50 different products use skews if you will. So now we can determine to what T was selling in LA which selling in Atlanta was selling in New York City and Dallas in every city in between. In the US, so now when you have that information, you’re better to be able to prioritize and execute data driven campaigns. If you’re doing stuff on Facebook and other social media platforms so those, those are one way you know a couple examples. The third example is we’re able to predict what each and every one of those 200 there’s 200,000 people are predicted to buy just based on studying everyone else’s purchase patterns.

Mark Fidelman  08:47

Can you do that. Can you do that with data. Anyway, why do you need the AI to analyze that. What does the AI do differently.

Jerry Abiog  08:56

You can do this yourself. You know, you know manually, if you will, right so if I give you a spreadsheet. I say, Hey, Mark, a man here are 2000 customers with 50 different products, you know sort them out, based on city and state. So just could be 2000 customers, 200,000, or 2 million, But the thing in with this is, it’s all about time and efficiency with AI and once everything is put in play, and you can analyze these these data points, literally in minutes. Once everything is set up. So, using AI to become competitive in a data driven world, are you becoming competitive when yeah you can do this manually on your own, but you’re stuck in the room, analyzing October 1000 customers you may be there for a month and not come out, maybe for drink for a drink and some food, or you can analyze this within minutes and that person who can do that can immediately execute campaigns mean who’s going to win.

Mark Fidelman  09:59

Right, okay. So it just speeds things up, and maybe finds things that humans can’t just because their attention span so short these days.

Jerry Abiog  10:07

But you also need the human aspect to it. Yeah, software and AI and technologies. They don’t operate well with humans so yes you have to have the human component to it. What’s the first and foremost yep you’re gonna lead off with technology.

Mark Fidelman  10:22

Okay. All right, good. So what was the result of these campaigns where you know I know you can’t really conduct an A B test on them with their AI without it. But what are your customers tell you are the result of using AI with, with the, with their campaigns

Jerry Abiog  10:45

improvement in sales. 10%, improve average order value because if you’re providing upselling cross, cross sell recommendations, north of 20% and reduction of customer churn. So those are three big things, whether it’s an e commerce, whether it’s in finance, or even in restaurants those three things are the results of using artificial intelligence

Mark Fidelman  11:10

proper. Okay, and then where are we going with this so anyone listening on this call, and if they want to improve their kind of data analyzation or data analysis, and they want to use this solution in order to, you know, improve their decision making. What is the, what’s the next step beyond that, what is gonna happen next with with AI. Oh no, just specific to marketing.

Jerry Abiog  11:43

So any company that you know this is kind of a new wish thing if you will but just like with life in general man if you’re more progressive in your outlook and open to learning new things and trying it out maybe trying that, you know foods that you’ve never tried before like hey man, this, this actually tastes good or trying to you drink. It’s all about expanding your mind. And if any of your listeners out there expand their minds like hey, you know, we, it’s a data driven world we’ve got data. You know everywhere, spreadsheets and apps, but we need to do something with it right because data by itself, sitting in a garage does no one any good. You got to do something with it. Just like I could tell you hey, to be healthy, you’ve got to, you know, eat salads and workout. That’s fine and dandy but if you’re not actually executing on it, then it’s a moot point. So just to your listeners out there, you’re kind of learning, or hearing about AI whether it’s here or in podcasts or other podcasts, or what have you. Yeah, be open to trying it out. be open to reading more about and be open to listening podcasts like this and how AI can help your business, drive growth and improve efficiency

Mark Fidelman  13:03

and how hard is it to set up what’s kind of the process to get this integrated with someone’s current systems.

Jerry Abiog  13:10

Yes, so the data has to be clean it has to be structured in a certain way. But really most tools these days and most software companies have API connectors. And it could be data could be gone that way, an API connector and once you have that it’s relatively simple to put structured data together and run it through the machine if you will.

Mark Fidelman  13:34

Okay, but even if it’s structured let’s say it’s coming out of salesforce.com or something. How, how does how does the AI, analyze it and then how is the results structured, I’m just trying to picture okay you could give it data, but how does it know how to understand the data, and then get presented to you in a way that’s actionable.

Jerry Abiog  13:58

We’ll take a look at your listeners may be familiar with the concept of RFM reset someone purchased a product, how often they purchase a product, and how much money they spent with your company so that’s one simple example so we pull all that data, run it through the algorithm. It’s been synthesize we presented a nice bar graph or pie chart, and then within a few clicks, you have this buckets of people in those different categories champion customers, loyal customers, sweeping customer. So, for example, three buckets and then right away you can execute campaigns based on where people fall. Okay, so maybe for your champion customers you may be offering them. You know special that the treatment customers you may not like to say they’ve spent a lot of money with you. You know, and pass treat them accordingly.

Mark Fidelman  14:54

Okay. And so, let me present a scenario before we wrap things up let’s say I’m a ecommerce, I sell pet products online. And I am looking to improve sales, what would you come in and do, and then what would the AI do to help me increase those sales, just the whole, the whole picture.

Jerry Abiog  15:18

Taking example you got all the data right you got geographic demographic data so maybe you’ve got a, you know, single guy who’s out of college, you know, who’s like 25 years old, two years out of college, maybe. The data shows that guys like him and that demographic tend to have, you know, medium sized stock, typically maybe a German Shepherd or or golden retriever so with that being said, if you know that you can target him right with you know bigger dog toys. Right, versus just, you know, shooting off the hip and presenting him dog toys or dog food, that doesn’t pertain to him right so that’s a simple example of how AI can predict things looking at past data. And then, You know executing campaigns that are relevant to someone. And when campaigns are being extra relevant to someone, the likelihood of them converting goes up tremendously.

Mark Fidelman  16:24

Okay, so you take that data. It analyzes what they’re doing their behaviors their purchase patterns, and they’re making recommendations as to what to send them, or they’re just telling you to buy. Okay. Okay. And how does it know what they’re predicted to buy, does it is it analyzing all of the products that the pet company has

Jerry Abiog  16:50

all the products that the tech company has come in they all kind of analyzing what everyone’s bought and what products that company has okay so analyzing all that. My sense is, like, you know, For example, hey, men tend to buy t shirts that are color blue and women tend to buy t shirts or colored pink right so now if you’re marketing that’s a real simple example. But that’s how you can drive growth, and now pictured being more nuanced with the plethora of pet, pet products out there and that’s what you can get with AI.

Mark Fidelman  17:26

Okay. My sense is it probably also is looking at, well they bought that blue shirt but you know, two weeks later, 30% of men bought these blue shorts. And maybe you might want to offer them this specific blue short

Jerry Abiog  17:41

shirt Okay, you just bought a shirt but people that bought shirts into my shorts correctly maybe a hat. So, I mean you can get as granular as you want.

Mark Fidelman  17:51

Yeah. And then, what is the. How long does it take to implement your solution.

Jerry Abiog  17:58

The big challenge is getting the data structured. If it’s not structured well there’s going to be. There’s going to have to be involved some data cleanup. With that, but if it’s structured, literally within once a minute, but within half hour I mean, you pull the data in runs it through and then poof, it’s, it’s on the platform.

Mark Fidelman  18:19

Okay, so if the data structure got it. All right, and what is what is it kind of what’s the cost for someone like say they’re interested in checking it out. Is there a trial period is there a cost to this what.

Jerry Abiog  18:37

And they let me try the food so, but the minimum. I guess size we work with is with a business that has a minimum of 250, or plus customers because AI works better with a lot of cause and effect. So minimum to 15 that will reflect, you know, according to cost. And then all the way up to, you know, clients with 100 200,000 customers, or more, with a bunch of different products so that’s how it works. I mean works better with a lot of cause and effect data. So we can start at bare minimum with the client or customer that has 250 customers. And what’s the cost around that just roughly ballpark, you’re looking at, depending north of 500 bucks a month. Okay.

Mark Fidelman  19:27

Yep. Good. I think that’s reasonable if it’s I mean it fits driving all sorts of recommendations that pay off it’s definitely worth it. Yeah,

Jerry Abiog  19:39

definitely have to be open to it. Right. Most everyone is like hey, they want to do what feels good. Instead of what the data says, right, like a It feels good to eat a cheeseburger. When I should be eating a salad. It makes me feel good, but really to be argued if you overindulgent cheeseburgers and may not be good for you. I don’t think that’s an argument.

Mark Fidelman  20:01

Yeah, I think that’s a fact.

Jerry Abiog  20:06

The fact that hey, if you’re flying blind. In today’s competitive markets. That’s not good for you either,

Mark Fidelman  20:13

right. Yeah, I wouldn’t want you as a pilot, that’s for sure. Okay, so we’re gonna come down to our two final questions, and I asked everybody this. The first one is, what’s the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend I assume that you’re gonna say yours but is there something else that you recommend people.

Jerry Abiog  20:42

Be open to being data driven, or using any other AI tool out there, whether it’s mine, mine, you know that that’d be great or anyone else, I mean the goal of this podcast is to help improve the business protocols of your listeners so whether it’s my AI tool or someone else’s, you know do that for yourself. Yeah. I mean, the becoming democratized now where it’s relatively affordable for most everyone you know do something good for yourself and stop flying blind.

Mark Fidelman  21:13

I think most people will answer well it’s just too hard to implement the, the, the, squeeze isn’t worth the the the juice that I put out and

Jerry Abiog  21:29

sell today isn’t really gonna help my numbers. You know tomorrow I mean, that’s the decision that each individual business leader needs to make you know for themselves, right, like go with the AI and salad or do I just fly blind and eat a cheeseburger.

Mark Fidelman  21:47

Yeah, okay, I mean it’s it’s a good CounterPoint. All right, let’s go to the second question Who is the most influential person in marketing today at least from your perspective,

Jerry Abiog  21:56

Neil Patel. Well how he helps. Help is driving traffic to their site. Yeah, because if you can get people to your site. It’s never always easy, right, right, you get a starting point to do something.

Mark Fidelman  22:10

That’s right. Yeah. Okay. And then, where can people find you, where do they go if they’re interested in using your technology.

Jerry Abiog  22:21

You can find me on LinkedIn, Jerry LinkedIn standard inside some yellow one there shoot me an email, Jerry JT ROI at standard insights.io or go directly to our website Sander insights.io or if you’re a restaurant owner, listen to this podcast or subdomain is I order dot menu. If you’re interested in seeing how AI driven technologies can drive growth in this competitive business environment. Okay,

Mark Fidelman  22:48

well, Jerry it’s been a pleasure thanks for coming on talking about AI, and your solution, and I look forward to speaking with you in the future about this, especially when you, when you take it to the next level. No problem. And we’re off, I thought that was really good, very educational right up the alley of, you know what my listeners are looking for. Truly

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