The Small Business (SMB) marketplace is the bedrock driver for economic development and employment. It is a large marketplace (over 25 Million in the US alone) which lags the broader marketplace in terms of core business productivity, and in fact is ripe for a number of cloud-based B2B software applications. However, this market has been traditionally considered to be the “dead end” for these B2B companies because of the difficulties of distribution to the SMB marketplace. From a distribution point-of-view, the SMB marketplace is lodged between the traditional consumer market (over 300M consumer in the US) and the enterprise market (fortune 500 companies). In the enterprise market, the transaction size is such that a dedicated sales channel can be justified. However, for the SMB marketplace, the transaction size is typically much smaller, so a dedicated sales channel is not economically feasible. In the consumer marketplace, the market size is large and broadcast based methods (TV commercials) have been demonstrated to be effective. However, from a point-of-view of market size, reach, and relevance mass broadcast methods are not typically efficient for the SMB marketplace. In this paper, we describe a technology based solution which uses an Artificial Intelligence Bot (AIB) technique combined with targeted mass market techniques to build an AIB solution which has the sales focus characteristics of a dedicated sales channel in the context of a consumer like mass marketing campaign.

1. An AI Bot Approach to SMB B2B Marketing
Di Wang, Qi Zhao, Tyler Bobbitt, Rahul Razdan

2. Outline
• The Awkward Position of the SMB Market
• Existing Attempts
• The Solution: AI Bot + Communication
• Implementation: A Case Study of Ocoos
• Conclusion
2 |

3. Trade-off of Marketing Strategies
The two parameters of a marketing strategy
• Scalability: The extent that a methodology can be
scaled to cover more customers
• Sales Focus: The extent of dedication of resource
required to close a particular sale
3 |

4. Characteristics of Markets
The three characteristics of a market that guide the trade-
off
• Size: The volume of individual targets in the market
• Risk: The potential negative impact to a buyer from a
wrong purchase decision. The bigger risk is, the higher
sales focus is required to tackle a more complicated
decision-making.
• Profit Margin: The space for net profit in a single deal.
Small profit margin doesn’t support high sales focus
4 |

5. The Enterprise Market
Direct sales is the proven solution: low scalability, high
sales focus
Size
Risk:
Profit Margin:
Handful Millions
A few dollars Business strategy
A few dollars Millions
The demand of scalability is small
The demand of sales focus is high
Support sales focus
5 |

6. The Consumer Market
Size
Risk:
Profit Margin:
The demand of scalability is large
The demand of sales focus is low
No support sales focus
Handful Millions
A few dollars Business strategy
A few dollars Millions
Large-scale advertising is the proven solution: high
scalability, low sales focus.
6 |

7. The SMB Market
Proven solution: ???
The demand of scalability is largeHandful Millions
A few dollars Business strategy
A few dollars Millions
The demand of sales focus is high
No support sales focus
Size
Risk:
Profit Margin:
7 |

8. The Awkward Position of SMB Market
The Size and Profit Margin are like the consumer market,
require Scalability
The Risk is like the enterprise market, requires Sales
Focus
The Profit Margin is like the consumer market, doesn’t
support Sales Focus
8 |

9. Huge SMB Market
Presences
Sales
CRM
Finance
Data
...
27M US based SMBs
...
https://resources.datanyze.com/research/the-marketing-stack-of-top-smb-software-providers
9 |

10. Existing Attempts
Distribution
• Broadcast
• Search
• Associations & Influencers &
Others
• Targeted Marketing
Conversion
• Organic
• Direct Sales
• Inside Sales
10 |

11. Broadcast
TV broadcast
$$$$$
Low conversion
Channels built for Consumer
Marketing (only one of 20
consumers are SMB owners)
Low sales focus
Typically casual context
Radio broadcast
$$$
Low conversion
Google Display
$
Low conversion
Social Media Ad
$
Good for branding with
smart audience selection
Physical Billboard Not effective
Direct Mail Not effective
11 |

12. Search
Global Search
$$$
High competition over small
volume
SMB owners are not tech-
savvy enough to know what to
ask or how to ask.
One cannot ask for something
one does not even know is
possible.
Local Search
$$
High competition over small
volume
12 |

13. Associations & Influencers & Others
Influencer
Marketing
Not effective No obvious influencers
Industry
Associations
Not effective
Little credibility recommending tech
products
Social Media Viral
Marketing
Not effective No active sharing
Distribution
Partners
Effective
Highly depends on the commitment and
capability of partners, not a generally
effective method
13 |

14. Targeted Marketing
Email Marketing Effective
Requires audience, intelligence,
branding and credibility
Direct sales
$$$$
Effective
Difficult to scale
14 |

15. Conversion
Organic Not effective
Not effective for B2B systems
without enough branding
Direct Sales $$$$, effective Difficult to scale
Inside Sales Effective
15 |

16. Case Study: Wix
Wix: Broadcast + Organic Conversion
Superbowl commercial
NPR radio
Facebook Ads
Global Search (non-branded keywords)
Organic conversion (a DIY solution)
Never profitable
Lost $44M in 2016
16 |

17. No Existing Solution Yet
Presences
Sales
CRM
Finance
Data
...
27M US based SMBs
High and Unnecessary Cost
Miss the opportunity to adopt
technologies and receive benefits
An Urgent Demand:
A solution that capable of generate high sales focus with
scalability
17 |

18. Lesson: Give Up on Sales Focus?
Trust Gap
Financial risk
Business migration risk
Training cost
Flow adjustment risk
Administrative adjustment
Opportunity risk
...
Won’t work because the Risk always high
Reputation/Branding
Referral
Sales Focus
Cause Solve
18 |

19. Sales Focus Builds Trust
Personalization
Relevance
Personalized engagement context
How do we scale sales focus? How do we build customized
products in a production-line manner?
19 |

20. The Solution
AI Bot that provides Sales Focus in a Scalable manner
• Find prospects autonomously
• Analyze and personalize strategies
• Have textual conversations with leads in personalized
contexts [Turing test]
• Operates in a scalable and efficient way
20 |

21. Turing Test on Marketing/ Sales
AI Bot
Lead
Lead
Lead
Lead
...
Veiled
Communication
Channel
Challenge of Delivery: Deliver through the email network
Challenge of Personalization:
Scalable concurrent
personalized engagements
Each single lead
should believe she/
he is talking with
another human
being who is
dedicated for her/
his specific problem
21 |

22. Challenge 1: Personalization
The AI Bot must be able to
• Collect information from various sources for a particular
lead
• Evaluate the lead
• Analyze and then predict the circumstance and potential
pain of the lead
• Customize engagement plan and contents
• Handle feedback in a personalized manner
• Conduct the above operations with a scalable amount
of leads in the concurrent manner
22 |

23. Communication Channel
We chose the existing email networks because
• Textual
• Individually customizable
• Business/work context
However, in the business context, the existing email
networks is designed only for 1-n-1 communication.
Many tools exist to prevent potential abuses
• ESPs’ own filters
• 3rd party watchdogs (sender monitors, blacklists,
spamtraps, etc)
23 |

24. Challenge 2: Delivery
The delivery component must be able to
• Generate and send customized messages in a scalable
manner
• Monitor delivery performance in real-time
• Adjust behavior dynamically
• Feedback to the AI Bot around personalization
Overall, if customers engage believing the message is from
a person, spam/ filtering through email network is
minimized!
24 |

25. Ocoos
A website company which provides an online business
infrastructure for SMBs
We built the AI bot named Robert Powers to search and
reach out to the online SMB owners who may have
problems with their websites
The goal is lead generation and increased sales
Several particular details that tailored for the specific case.
But the framework is highly generalizable
25 |

26. System Overview
Personalized Engagement
Tech based analysis
Business based analysis
Content snippets
Max-distinguishment
Personality
Knowledge
Collection
Knowledge
Base
Email
Meta (biz, tech)
Feedback
Email Delivery
Spreading
Dynamic campaigns
Blacklist handling
IP-MX relationships
Email performance collection
Engagement (Turing Test)
Learning
Email verification
Email-meta association
Sendability score
Robert Powers
26 |

27. Implementation Progress
13 million emails
22 million meta
140 technologies
346 business verticals
1500 content snippets
3 million emails sent with 1200 campaigns, per month
90% average delivery rate
15 million activities recorded since May 2015
27 |

28. Sample Conversation
We noticed you use Godaddy solution, and thought you might want to take a look
at Ocoos. What are the advantages?
1. We combine design, customer interaction, and marketing automation in a tight
technology package.
2. We deliver this capability to you through concierge services (no more DIY)
This solution is a nice combination of the control of DIY solutions with the services
of custom developers.. all without the costs. We are well regarded by various
review sites and we have partnerships with technology leaders such as Dell,
Microsoft, and IBM.
Personalized greetings
Personalized
introduction
Personalized demand
prediction
+
Tailored solution
My name is Robert from Ocoos. I am reaching out because we offer a solution
which we believe is superior to those one can get from Godaddy's website
builder.. even the new version.
Hello,
Would you be interested in learning more? If so, simply reply to this message with
a couple of times and phones number when I can chat with you. Vertical-driven CTA
Vertical-driven
personality
+
Tailored solution
Sincerely,
Robert Powers
Hi Robert,
I may be interested in what your company offers in the way of web design. The best
time to reach me is Thursday or Friday after 6pm at the phone number listed below.
28 |

29. Results
Ocoos Wix*
Conversion
Consultations/ Traffic
3.7%
Registrations/ Traffic**
2.6%
Cost per Paying Customer
Acquisition
$200 per sales closure $222 per premium
Individual Customer Value Per
Year
(Initial fee + recurring
fee of 3 years)/ 3 years
$700/ year
$150/ year
ROI
$500 per closure per
year
-$70 per premium per
year
*Q3 Wix.com Earning Reults
** Similarweb.com
29 |

30. Conclusion
Sales Focus is a must to overcome the trust gap
marketing to the SMBs
AI Bot is a promising approach to provide high sales
focus with scalability
The current email network needs adjustments to
support B2B marketing
30 |

31. TV broadcast
$$$$$, inefficient
Godaddy, Wix, Squarespace
Radio broadcast
$$$, inefficient
ConstantContact
Portal Ad $$$, good for branding
Google Search $$$, small demand
Google Display $, good for branding
Facebook/ Twitter Ad
$, good for branding with smart
audience selection
Social Media Viral
Marketing
not active sharing
Influencer Marketing no obvious influencers
Industry Associations
No effective, little credibility
recommending tech products
Distribution Partners Effective
Physical Billboard No effective
Direct mail No effective
Email Marketing
Effective with intelligence, branding
and credibility
Direct sales
$$$$, difficult to scale, effective
Paychecks
Organic
Not effective for B2B systems, low
branding
Inside Sales
Personal Sales $$$$, difficult to scale, effective
Distribution Methods Conversion Methods
31 |

32. THANKS