How will AI enhance B2B marketing in 2024?

This time last year I was analysing the potential of the metaverse and Web3. But it’s clear that while that was a period of boom and bust, generative AI is quite the opposite.

The pace of change continues to transform marketing, enabling B2B marketers to deliver more personalised, relevant, and engaging experiences for their customers and prospects. Predictive performance is driving greater gains, from analysis of creative to assessing video engagement – and that’s before assets even enter the market.

During a recent conference of agency peers, there was consensus that planning technology advancement beyond the next four months was pointless… FOUR MONTHS! And that’s due to the explosion of AI services, their adoption, and further enhancement of first-generation services influencing marketing delivery and performance.

While AI certainly offers automation and efficiency tools, I think it should be rightly seen as an enabler, a source of innovation and creativity; one that will generate new insights, ideas, and content.

In this article, I’ll explore how AI can enhance B2B marketing now, and for the next four months (OK, maybe there’ll be some longer-term foresight too). I’ll focus on the:

• Immediate opportunity of custom GPTs
• Integration of AI across the technology stack
• The chance to enhance marketing with AI
  

The next frontier of conversational AI

If you’ve not yet experimented with ChatGPT then I think you’ll be in the minority, given the explosion of usage from day one.

And now there are different forms of ChatGPTs, including your very own customised chat integration. These can learn from large amounts of data, such as web pages or example content created by you, and use this as a reference for future assets creation.

Standard ChatGPT can be used for various applications, such as chatbots, voice assistants, and of course content creation. However, one of the limitations of ChatGPTs is that they are often trained on generic data. This means they may not be able to capture the specific tone, style, or domain knowledge of a particular brand, industry, or audience. Which is where custom ChatGPTs come in.

We’ve begun utilising custom ChatGPTs at Revere for specific use cases, like using additional data to give a truly relevant output, or to prove a hypothesis. As an example, I’ve created a custom ChatGPT that’s trained on my specific tone of voice. It has consumed blog material and non-sensitive data, as well as information on competitors. I can ask our ChatGPT to give me trends in competitor data, proof points drawn from the materials it has consumed, and even to provide insights on the articles generating the most engagement once published.

As I have loaded in several articles and content I’ve written, inclusive of common grammatical errors, I can be certain that draft one of any content it produces will be a good representation of my work.

But. I never forget or ignore the human value. I’d never publish content that is solely generated by AI, not yet at least. I’d hope that my output is way more intelligent and personal to the reader than thought leadership or blog content generated through AI.

My custom ChatGPT acts as my very own assistant. And it can even generate blog material in my tone of voice. Indeed, who (or what) wrote THIS article? 😉

Overcoming the frustration of chatbots

I’m sure we’ve all visited websites that have implemented chatbots – and then left more frustrated than when we first arrived. However, a custom ChatGPT can now be used to power a website chatbot, answering common questions, providing product recommendations, booking demos, and qualifying leads – all at scale.

While not a perfect science, it really does allow specialists within your marketing teams to focus on perfecting the content and process, as well as the alignment between marketing and sales.

A custom GPT can become a sales engine that nurtures known contacts, all without massive development overheads or large, reoccurring subscription costs.

The key to a seamless and smart marketing technology stack

I believe AI is a key component in enhancing and complementing other technologies in the marketing stack. However, I’ve also seen many existing SaaS relabelled as AI-driven, when, in fact, not much has changed about these offerings.

I speak to a lot of clients with disparate martech stacks. Indeed, it was one of our key discussion points of 2023. AI is now starting to bridge the gaps, to sync and update customer data across different systems such as CRM and marketing automation platforms. It can provide valuable insight to custom chatbots or tools such as Drift. So, AI can now ensure that customers receive relevant and timely messages tailored to their maturity in the buyer journey.

To assess your existing martech stack for AI opportunities, it is important to first review your goals and challenges in the marketing strategy, and then map out the current tools and capabilities to deliver against that strategy. Nothing groundbreaking here, but AI will assist on the solution side.

For example, if the goal is to increase conversions (conversion rate optimisation, or CRO), but the challenge is to understand the customer journey and preferences, AI tools can provide insights and recommendations, based on data analysis, that aid the completion of such conversion goals. Tools such as Unbounce have extended their solution offering to include AI-driven optimisation. And let’s not forget that GA4 has elements of machine learning to allow you to optimise the customer journey.

My next suggestion is that you evaluate your existing martech stack for AI readiness and compatibility. Start by assessing whether your SaaS has evolved to provide AI-driven insights and optimisation ‘out of the box’. And then evaluate interoperability.

For example, if data sources are fragmented and inconsistent, then it will be harder to leverage AI for data-driven decision-making. Similarly, if platforms are not well integrated and aligned, it will be more challenging to create a seamless and smart customer experience (CX) across channels.

AI is already helping us to create and deliver more engaging and effective content across images, videos, headlines, and copy – now you don’t even need to wait until a campaign has finished to know how your personas will react to the creative they’ll be exposed to. This is invaluable in optimising marketing budgets.

How to stay ahead of the curve: A positive, futurist’s view

AI is not a static or fixed technology. There are no limitations to its adoption in every nuance of the marketing stack.

I think one of the key benefits is that AI adoption is only limited by the operative’s imagination. I’ve found AI solutions for every challenge I’ve considered it for, from summarising documents at scale to applying a consistent tone of voice. AI tools are not a one-size-fits-all solution, but they’re customisable and adaptable and can be tailored to the specific needs and goals you’re looking to hit.

I’ve highlighted that the future of AI-driven marketing is not predetermined or predictable, but it’s certainly a creative and visionary one. I’d suggest we all need to be proactive, embrace innovation, and to consider how AI services can help us achieve our objectives and goals.

In the past I might have visited G2 for SaaS reviews and recommendations. I now take a view on researching AI solutions that can enhance versus replace the technology I have in place. This change in how I educate myself brings massive benefits and solves challenges, while also enhancing the delivery of digital marketing for our clients.

Hold that thought…

Before we all get carried away and crack on without considering the implications of using AI, I’d strongly suggest that a governance framework is implemented, ensuring the ethical, responsible, and transparent use of AI.

We’ve done this at Revere with great success. It means all employees adhere to the principles and standards of data privacy, security, and quality, and we’ve been very transparent with our clients about how and where we’re using AI.

I believe this builds trust and avoids potential pitfalls and challenges, such as data breaches, bias, discrimination, and misinformation – all critical considerations for marketers. And with the human value of our specialist teams, we are adding to our offering to accelerate the performance of our clients’ marketing.

Conclusion

So, while there’s a lot of AI noise in market, there are plenty of possibilities to make the most of its evolving value in marketing activities.

I’d recommend you think creatively to uncover how challenges can be overcome, and then adopt best practice to assess the technology. And stay up to date with further developments to help drive your future marketing performance.