Five Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming B2B Marketing

Over the last few years, B2B marketers have begun turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and accelerate business growth. Research shows that 80% of B2B marketing executives believe that AI will revolutionize the field in the next five years. However, only 10% report using AI applications today. The lag in adoption is a missed opportunity.Improved lead generation has been a key focus of the buzz around AI, but it's only the tip of the iceberg for B2B companies. AI-driven solutions can be a boon throughout the marketing and sales lifecycle, distilling huge swaths of data into actionable insights. AI's power to predict consumer behavior and automate aspects of the buyer's journey is helping B2B marketers make smarter decisions and improve efficiencies like never before.While that can seem frightening for marketers, there’s no need to worry about robots taking their jobs. AI is actually helping sales and marketing teams do what they do best: undertake creative work and relationship-building.The AI application B2B marketers have focused on most so far is lead scoring. That’s largely because technology vendors have invested heavily in this area and it aligns well with dominant B2B marketing and sales models. Now that companies have vast amounts of data about the behavior of existing leads and prospects, machine learning algorithms can harness that information to predict the best leads and most important accounts. These insights can help marketers and sales representatives prioritize the most promising accounts and identify hot prospects not yet in the pipeline. Predictive lead scoring helps sales reps hit their numbers and close more deals, particularly on teams that focus on account-based marketing. And, when hot leads are mapped to the right accounts in their CRM, both marketing and sales win.