Emotional intelligence will and should always be present in sales and marketing, even more so with the implementation of artificial intelligence and martech. As long as we serve humans, we need human empathy to balance the AI biases and impersonality.

Persuasion angles are nothing new, but they are important when considering how to craft personalized messaging for marketing and sales outreach.

AI also traditionally relied on historical data to make predictions about the future. But we’re in a new world now; the past can only tell us about the past. Today’s AI and automation are equipped to start aggregating new data to begin to make accurate predictions/prescriptions.

AI helps us collect, build, and act on, a huge bank of emotion-related data. And personalization — if it’s going to be effective — must invoke human emotion.

The brands that are doing the best marketing/outreach right now in the time of COVID-19 are those that understand their target audience’s fear and struggle, not just right now with the world turned upside down, but all the time.

At this time, while we’re all on limited contact with people, cold calls might be appreciated and come back in style, especially when it’s done right. Everyone’s craving contact — yes, even introverts. The cold call just has to be done right.

Crisis management is for achieving some modicum of stability amidst incredibly choppy waters. When it has no end in sight, adjusting replaces managing. We accept this new environment we need to work in (we have no choice), so we need to think about ways we can prepare to face it with competence now and later on.