Artificial intelligence may seem like it’s still a far away off, but in many ways, it’s already here today. Facebook, for example, uses artificial intelligence (AI) for its facial recognition tools used to spot faces in photos, and Netflix uses AI to predict which movie you’re going to watch next. So it’s perhaps no surprise that AI is headed to the enterprise as well.
In fact, according to a recent survey by DemandBase, 80% of B2B marketing executives said that they think AI would revolutionize marketing by 2020. That’s just a few short years away! However, at the same time, only 10% of B2B marketers are currently using AI tools as part of their daily workflow. When they do, here are three ways that AI will likely change B2B marketing forever.
#1: Better customer insights
Right now, there’s a lot that B2B marketers already know about their prospects and customers, but AI promises to take that level of insight to a whole new level. For example, take the classic buyer persona. Most companies have a set of 5 to 7 personas that accurately describe their most likely customers. And most of those personas are largely based on demographic data, reinforced with details about the customer’s interactions directly with the company.
However, AI could help to spot relationships, behaviors and preferences that may not be readily apparent from the data. This is especially true for larger companies, where the sheer magnitude of data available sometimes makes it feel like searching for a needle in a haystack for today’s B2B marketers. And it’s also true for companies with clients in several different industries or verticals.
#2: Ability to predict customer behaviors
And that leads to the second major area where AI could change B2B marketing. It’s going to become a lot easier to predict customer behaviors. That’s going to make it easier to choose what audience is best for a specific message, or to optimize the time when a message reaches a prospect. For example, if you can predict with a high degree of accuracy that a prospect will read a white paper but won’t watch a webinar, then is there really any doubt about how to approach that prospect?
#3: The right message at the right time
The goal of any B2B marketing campaign is being able to deliver the right message at the right time to the right customer. AI, then, could be the key to determining which message to share on a specific social media platform, how often a corporate newsletter should be sent out, or what the optimal message is for any prospect.
It’s no wonder, then, that a lot of different vendors appear to be getting into the AI space for enterprise solutions. Salesforce, for example, has Einstein, an AI-powered package that’s been customized for B2B marketers. As these solutions start to gain traction, that prediction of AI revolutionizing marketing by 2020 might not be so far-fetched after all!
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.