Marketing artificial intelligence isn’t just for B2C brands. These technologies are being used profitably in plenty of business-to-business operations to help marketers better personalize, produce, predict and perform.
In fact, 60% of marketers who responded to a Salesforce survey say they expect AI to improve analytics efficiency, digital asset management and the ability to collect business insights, according to eMarketer.
At the Marketing AI Institute, we’re always on the lookout for real ways that brands can use AI starting today. So we outlined some of the top B2B use cases and solutions we’ve seen so far as we analyze artificial intelligence’s impact on marketing. This list should give B2B brands an idea of what solutions are available right now to test.
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Predict What Your Customers Want Next
Prediction is a top AI use case in marketing. B2B artificial intelligence excels at extracting insights from large datasets, then using that data to guess how customers will behave.
CaliberMind is a solution that uses AI to make another valuable prediction: the system will tell you who your ideal customers are. The company’s SaaS platform uses data from your CRM, marketing automation platform and social networks to build a picture of your buyer personas. Then, it recommends communication throughout the buyer journey to speed up time to close.
Optimize Your Content Marketing
An example of this in action is Cortex, a machine learning platform that predicts what reactions people will have to your content. Machine learning analyzes photos and reads text—analyzing everything from color of photos to post timing—then compares this information to historical data to determine how you should optimize and deploy your content.
The result is accurate predictions on what content to produce next for maximum engagement.
Skyword, a content marketing platform, employs AI tech like deep learning to deliver personalized content recommendations for brands (about half of its client base are B2B firms). These recommendations are then brought to life by the firm’s freelancer network, which produces the content the system predicts prospects will love.
Create Content at Scale
B2B artificial intelligence doesn’t just excel at prediction and content optimization. It’s also good at improving marketing productivity. One big way it does that is by making content marketing faster and better than with an all-human team alone.
One solution, Narrative Science, uses natural language generation (NLG) technology to automatically create written narratives from structured datasets. This functionality is currently used by, among others, consulting firms who automate internal reporting for business clients. An AI-powered template creates the ability to automatically generate more reports in less time.
Another solution, Acrolinx, uses artificial intelligence to optimize content across different departments and creators. The company’s AI system “reads” your content, then offers immediate feedback on how to standardize and improve it. The end result is that your content is guaranteed to align with brand goals, tone and style. (It’s used to that effect by companies like IBM, Boeing and Caterpillar).