B2B Audience Insight, NOT Content is the “Killer App” for AI
As previously published on 5/16/23 in MarTech
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
Less than 10 minutes after the release of Chat GPT 4 I received a spam email from a company offering AI generated blog posts, probably generated by the tool.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly 10 minutes, but it sure felt that way. Since then, I’ve recently received countless solicitations from companies offering all kinds of AI generated solutions.
Will the ability to send better emails/content written more quickly by AI change the lives of B2B marketers for the better? Not yet. In fact, the greatest performance impact will not be seen in creation, but rather, in execution.
The promise of AI’s ability to deliver mass “personalization” and unique experiences, is only realized if we focus on gaining better insight into the audience, specifically their preferences.
Here’s Why
The ability to create more content faster will only result in lower performance. In a 2019 survey, Gartner research showed that 89% of decision makers said the content they encountered through the buying process was of high quality.
In fact, they found that buyers were almost at the point of saturation in their cognitive ability to consume more information. Simply said, more content will not result in increased consumption or understanding. The supply of content is at maximum, according to buyers. And that was four years ago, imagine what they would say now.
This insight led to the discovery of the “sense making” seller. A person with the important attributes of being able to connect the right information to the right person, at the right time. They also possess the ability to filter out unnecessary information, giving the decision maker only the information they need in order to take action.
It’s one thing to have a human listening and understanding the needs of buyers during the sales process, but it’s another when trying to do this at the top of the funnel with marketing assets. This is where the opportunity for AI in B2B lies.
We’ve now built ABM stacks which typically encompass dozens of marketing technologies able to pump out endless contact and engagement data, yet the performance of those “leads” is still poor. Why? Mainly, because we don’t have a “sense making” filter to align and route the right marketing asset to the right person, for the right reason.
AI personality profiling tools represent an opportunity to be the “sense maker” for marketers. By understanding the distinct behavior of audiences, marketers can better align content based on individual preferences, understand what intent “signals” are real, and create messaging that appeals to specific segments of the market.
Understanding buyer behavior offers value beyond just outbound marketing. It extends to routing and aligning business development resources. It can help sales managers understand how to align their teams based on the preferences of prospects with their engagement activity.
The combination of understanding the personal motivations and engagement behavior gives insight into what “leads” hold the most potential to move forward. It can identify which targets to avoid and identify the most fertile ground to build relationships.
Here’s an example… A professional services firm was getting high attendance for its webinar series, but very few attendees converted into leads. After analyzing the audience they found that over 50 percent of their attendees had one dominant personality type.
Their webinars were rich with data and research and their content consisted of mostly research based white papers. And that was the problem; their audience was made up of mostly strategists and consultants. Their behavior was to learn the information in order to inform others. Their content preferences were for “light” content that traveled easily and could stand on its own without an explanation.
Think infographics and animated videos. In fact, that’s exactly what was created. Lead conversion post webinar increased by 35% after they shifted to “lighter” follow up content. Why, because this group had a personality profile of an “Influencer” – those who use information to inform others. They were not the “lead” but rather, they pointed to the opportunity.
The organization started tracking sharing versus downloads, and then followed the content to the intended audience. More content was not the answer, but personalized content aligned to how the audience wanted to use it was.
The “sense maker” in this case was the Influencer attendee who was routing the relevant information to the right person, at the right time. AI tools unlocked the insight into understanding their behavior and motivations. Better understanding the audience improved the performance of their outbound efforts.
And that is where the ROI will be found. If you’re truly interested in impacting performance, find the solutions that will provide you with insight into buyers. You don’t need more content, buyers already told you they do want or need it four years ago.
