• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 26, 2024

BONITA SPRINGS, FL -- One of the surprising uses emerging from generative AI applications is media reps finding better ways to sell their inventory to media planners and buyers, according to one enterprising sales exec speaking on "That Other AI" panel on the closing day of MediaPost's Publishing Insider summit here Friday.

"It's very difficult for us to reach buyers in the ad agencies that we need effectively," said Justin Geiger, Chief Revenue Officer of Betsperts Media & Technology Group, going on to explain how it began utilizing new AI-power tech supplied by sales prospecting software provider Winmo that has begun yielding better results.

Geiger, who studied psychology in college, explained that he "understood the value of understanding a person's psychological position.

"[Winmo] offers you the personality traits of each of the individuals that you're going after.

"Using that," Geiger continued, "we plugged that into a model trained on all of our audience demographics and all of our unique selling points."

He said Betsperts began integrating in the insights and customizing its outbound email pitches and sales calls based on the data via HubSpot to craft pitches that would be more attractive to individual planners and buyers.

"We've been running this for about six weeks now," Geiger concluded, adding, "We've seen our open rates increase and we've actually gotten our first response and meeting from it yesterday."

The disclosure is both ironic and telling in that many planners and buyers are trying to figure out how to leverage generative AI to identify, target and talk to the consumer targets of their clients ad campaigns.

But as Betsperts' Geiger reveals, the technology is being turned around and used on them too.