GenAI for Marketing

How can marketers improve their go-to-market approach? What are the proven benefits of generative AI for marketers?

A Radical Path to B2B Marketing Transformation

By David H. Deans

The traditional approach to business-to-business (B2B) marketing must change. For too long, business technology vendors have marketed their hardware and software products in isolation -- touting features and functions to IT staff, without connecting them to the concrete business outcomes their customer decision-makers crave.

This Inside-Out view fails to resonate in today's market. A mindset reset is no longer optional. It's imperative.

Business leaders and C-suite decision-makers don't buy technology for its features; they buy IT solutions to achieve strategic business objectives -- either to overcome their challenges or to pursue new digital growth opportunities.

Product marketing teams that don't speak directly to desired business outcomes are losing ground. No matter how impressive the speeds and feeds, if buyers can't clearly see how a solution will impact their bottom line, it's game over.

Therefore, continuing with a 'business as usual' mindset is not acceptable. Incremental improvements to product-centered messaging don't matter. What's needed is a fundamental shift to Outside-In thinking, first and foremost.

Transformation Benefits of Radical Change Management

Effective B2B marketing must start with the known business objectives that buyers want to achieve. Marketing messaging should focus less on what products do (features/functions), and more on what they make possible (compelling business outcomes).

This dramatic reset of expectations won't be easy for legacy IT vendors. But those that do embrace radical change will gain a competitive advantage. Those who refuse will be left behind. The time for incremental change is over and done.

Your end goal: focus less on how AEs pitch product-centered proposals, focus more on how you help customers with actionable information and guidance that empowers the buyer's committee members to make a wise decision.

How Generative AI will Transform B2B Marketing

The B2B marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and savvy vendor leaders are seeking new ways to reach their target audiences. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is a tool that can revolutionize B2B tech marketing.

GenAI can be used to automate many of the tasks that are currently done manually in B2B marketing, such as buyer research, content creation, and narrative customization. This can free up marketers' time to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as developing new strategic marketing campaigns and measuring the results of their new efforts.

In addition, GenAI can be used to create personalized content that is more likely to resonate with customers and lead to conversions. This is especially important in the B2B market, where solution buyers are often more knowledgeable.

As a result of these advantages, the demand for GenAI app solutions in the B2B marketplace is growing rapidly. According to a study by Gartner, the emerging market for these proven solutions is will reach $667.96 billion by 2030.

This growth is being driven by the increasing adoption of GenAI tools, as well as the development of new and innovative GenAI applications. Now is the time to learn how to apply these tools, and the practical use cases.

As you'll see, there are several ways these tools can help to transform legacy Product Marketing organizations. 

Introduction to Generative AI for B2B Marketing

Generative AI is a type of co-pilot automation that can be used to create new content, such as text, images, and videos. This technology has the potential to revolutionize B2B marketing by automating many routine tasks.

Here are some of the known benefits of using Generative AI in marketing:

• Increased productivity: Generative AI can automate many tasks that are currently done manually, freeing up marketers' time to focus on more strategic value creation initiatives.

• Improved quality: Generative AI can create meaningful and substantive outcome-oriented content that is more helpful, actionable, and engaging than human-generated tech content.

• Personalized experiences: Generative AI can be used to create highly personalized content for each individual customer, which can lead to increased engagement and sales conversions.

• Better targeting: Generative AI can be used to target marketing campaigns more effectively by understanding the unique interests and demographics of each customer and buyer archetype.

• Reduced costs: Generative AI can help to reduce the operational costs of legacy product marketing organizations by eliminating bland messaging, improving go-to-market effectiveness, and accelerating the B2B buyer's journey.

Compelling B2B Marketing Use Cases for GenAI Apps

Here are some of the most compelling marketing use cases for GenAI:

• Purposeful content creation: GenAI can be used to create a variety of content, such as blog posts, social media posts, email campaigns, and purpose-built go-to-market narratives. For example, imagine a situation where a marketing team is struggling to create new ideas. They could use GenAI to generate a list of potential topics, or even to write the entire first draft.

• Buyer personalization: GenAI can be used to personalize content for each individual customer, and each buyer archetype. This can be done by understanding interests, demographics, and past behavior. For example, imagine an email campaign for a new product. GenAI can personalize the email content for each buyer, based on their prior purchase history.

• Audience research: GenAI can be used to conduct buyer research. This can be done by analyzing customer data to identify trends and patterns. For example, imagine a situation where a marketing team is trying to understand why their conversion rate is so low. GenAI can analyze their existing content assets and website data to identify potential problems and recommend remediation.

• Campaign optimization: GenAI can be used to optimize marketing campaigns. This can be done by testing different variables, such as the content topics, targeting, and timing of campaigns. For example, imagine a situation where a marketing team created a social media campaign. GenAI can test different messaging and targeting options to see what works best in each situation.

• Website chatbots: GenAI can be used to create chatbots that can interact with customers in a natural way. Chatbots can be used to answer buyer questions, provide user support, and even propose SaaS solutions. For example, imagine a situation where a customer is having trouble with their app. They could use a chatbot to get Customer Success information and guidance.

• Visual/audio content: GenAI can be used to create multimedia content, such as images, videos, and podcasts. This can help marketers to engage buyers in innovative ways. For example, imagine a situation where a vendor is launching a new product. GenAI can create a video script that showcases the business outcome benefits.

• Predictive analytics: GenAI can be used to make predictions about behavior. This information can be applied to improve marketing campaigns. For example, imagine a situation where a marketing team is trying to predict which customers are most likely to churn. GenAI can analyze SaaS user data to identify factors most likely to drive churn.

Get Help to Advance Your B2B Marketing Mindset

To begin, develop a business case to elevate the strategic value of GenAI, starting with team productivity.

We have proven experience helping Product Marketing organizations evolve their mindset. Using a talent diagnostic approach, we can assess the skill level of your Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) and design remedial actions.

While you plan to train and coach team members to resolve skill or experience deficiencies, we can supplement your team's capabilities with our interim support services, thereby enabling the rapid development of business outcome-related assets. We can also coach sales and marketing leaders via customized knowledge transfer programs.

Our empirical research: explore the GenAI Frequently Asked Questions and the Top 10 actionable responses.

Our expertise and experience: view our customer case studies about past Interim Consulting accomplishments.

Our methodology: discover our related GTM thought leadership that has empowered B2B SaaS vendors.

Our GenAI tutorial: step-by-step guide to the art and science of Prompt Engineering and Prompt Design.

Learn more > contact us now