AI and B2B Marketing: What’s the deal?

We’ve written several blogs recently about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the telco industry. But our readers (and clients) aren’t just telco professionals; they’re also marketers. That begs the question, how does AI impact them in the domain of B2B marketing?

The question of whether and how much AI impacts B2B marketing is a vexing one, mainly because there’s no definitive answer. That’s essentially because AI’s role in the marketing domain gets right to the heart of the broader AI debate about the degree to which machines can replace human functions. So somewhat predictably, In B2B marketing there are areas where AI can help, and other areas in where its contribution is questionable.

As we examine the pluses and minuses in more detail in this blog, what’ll become clear is that there are aspects of human intervention in the marketing process that AI cannot supersede (and other areas of marketing that it can). For example, imagining that a chatbot can better nurture a sales lead for a high-value product than an expert human is wishful thinking at best, though an AI system can quite probably parse a data lake to identify key trends far more quickly than a team of humans.

The pluses: where AI can help

AI’s biggest contribution arguably falls around “table setting”, which is to say the business of laying the groundwork for humans to progress and close deals. For example:

AI impacts targeting and lead generation

AI can help you (marketers) whittle down prospect lists to isolate and better target your most likely buyers. It can do this by analysing large datasets by metrics like, for example, buying signals, engagement patterns, website behaviour, etc. This drives more accurate lead scoring, better identification of accounts most likely convert, earlier detection of purchasing intent, and more focused account-based marketing targeting. If you’re using platforms including Saleforce or Hubspot, you’re likely already using AI in these ways.

AI improves customer insights

If there’s one area that AI excels in, and we see this in domains ranging from medicine to marketing and beyond, it’s uncovering patterns that are difficult for humans to detect. In a marketing context, this means AI is particularly valuable for tasks like:

• Customer segmentation
• Churn prediction
• Pipeline forecasting
• Sentiment analysis
• Competitive intelligence

Basically, AI helps teams make more informed decisions based on data rather than intuition alone, because in simple terms AI can rapidly see patterns that weren’t previously accessible to you.

Measurement and attribution

Telco buying journeys are generally lengthy and involve multiple stakeholders. AI can help you understand which activities influence success by, for example, evaluating multi-touch attribution, forecasting revenues, analysing campaign performance, or predicting customer lifetime value. This provides information that can help both justify marketing investments and allocate budgets more effectively.

The Minuses: You need humans more than ever!

While AI brings, as we’ve seen, some serious pluses to the marketing table what it doesn’t do is replace humans. People close deals, not machines. And generally, sales and marketing remains the business of relationships. For example, does anyone seriously think an AI chatbot is going to nurture and sell a seven-figure telco software product? Does anyone think an AI chatbot is going to build the relationship necessary to generate a qualified sales lead?  Does anyone think ChatGTP is going to deliver truly personalised insights, rather than generally useful “helicopter-level” overviews of a subject?

Summary

The point is, yes, AI helps B2B marketers. It enables then to focus on strategy, building human relationships, and decision-making rather than repetitive, lower grade tasks. Correctly deployed and utilised, its impact is a plus. But it doesn’t fundamentally change how you market. B2B marketing success remains built on the ability to form and leverage human relationships. So, think of AI as a means of strengthening your marketing, or telemarketing, or e-mail campaign efforts, but not as something that replaces them or changes the fact that human interaction is a fundamental requirement for building successful relationships of any kind.