Today’s business landscape is not only dynamic but also complex, filled with challenges and numerous moving parts. It is not uncommon to hear about business owners and leaders across categories seeking new ways to improve marketing efficiencies, exploring innovative business growth ideas and seeking unfair competitive advantages to achieve their growth agenda.
AI tools and platforms have been around for quite a few years now, acting as catalysts by offering transformative capabilities to enable businesses automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes and improve time management, all with the intent of providing businesses with better opportunities to connect, engage and build better relationships internally as well as externally.
While there exists a plethora of AI tools and platforms that address different functions and aspects within a business that would benefit from AI, for the purpose of this article we will limit AI tools specifically to advertising and marketing communications.
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The Current Overview of B2B and B2C Buyers:
There exist two types of buyers in today’s world; business-to-business buyers and business-to-consumer buyers. While both either buy a product or a service, their wants, needs, desires and biases make a big impact on their thought processes and purchase decisions.
Business-to-Business Buyers
B2B Buyers represent businesses that buy products or services to support the operations of their company or that will add value to their existing products or services. They are motivated by rational factors like efficiency, cost saving, revenue generation and productivity increase. Their purchase decisions are driven by specific business requirements and achieving other strategic business objectives. Their decision process is complex as it involves numerous people across various departments, be they finance, procurement, operations or management. They prioritize long-term relationships and focus on quality, reliability, support, Return on Investment and the overall value proposition. The sales cycles are longer due to the extensive research, evaluation and negotiation involved before any purchase is made, in addition to the level of customizations available, detailed and tailor-made proposals. B2B buyers tend to prefer content marketing, industry events, trade shows, account-based marketing etc.
Business-to-Customer Buyers
B2C buyers purchase products or services for themselves. They are motivated by a mix of emotional and rational factors as they looking for products or services that meet their personal wants, needs, desires and aspirations. Their decision-making process is shorter, less complex, and has fewer stakeholders, but relies heavily on reviews, recommendations, instant gratification, personal preferences and impulse buys. Their loyalty and purchase decision prioritize customer service, personalized experience and brand reputation. They respond better to limited-time offers, discounts, loyalty programs and content available on various media channels such as mass media, digital marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, emotional storytelling etc.
Related Reading: Creating Effective Buyer Journeys, The Power of Storytelling, Turning NO into YES with Buyers, Leveraging Insights to sell better, Understanding Buyer Psychology,
Challenges faced by Businesses due to B2B and B2C Buyers
Businesses and brands tend to face multiple challenges when delivering to the ever-changing demands, expectations and biases of B2B and B2C buyers. The top 5 challenges are:
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Increased Competition
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Evolving Expectations of Customers
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Overload of Information
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Trust and Brand Reputation
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Automation and Efficiency
The growing number of e-commerce platforms and digital channels poses an ever-growing challenge for businesses. This is further multiplied by new players who offer stiff competition, thus making it harder to capture and retain customer attention. Buyers have become accustomed to personalised experiences, after responses, omni-channel interactions etc., thereby putting additional pressure on businesses to meet these demands. Buyers today have almost instant access to information and alternative options available. While on one hand this is good, it can and does sometimes result in decision paralysis in addition to low attention amidst the noise. Establishing trust and building a solid positive brand reputation is difficult, especially with customer biases, skeptical and cautious mindsets. Advancements in technology and digitization of businesses add an additional layer to buyer expectations. Additionally, social technology platforms provide connectivity for buyers to voice their opinions, experience etc., which in some cases delivers a negative impact on a brand’s reputation.
Ways Businesses Can Address These Challenges with AI
There are many strategies that B2B and B2C brands can use to address these challenges. It begins with embracing customer centricity, leveraging data and analytics, enhancing brand reputation by delivering to promises and embracing an omni-channel approach to marketing and sales efforts. AI can aid the marketing and sales functions by addressing these challenges in multiple ways. AI can offer personalization at scale, process complex data sets to uncover patterns, provide actionable insights and finally provide enhanced customer engagement by offering real-time assistance, personalized customer support and improved overall engagement.
AI-enabled tools are transforming content creation and optimization across categories and domains. Content creation is a critical part of marketing especially on the digital front. For businesses that have small marketing teams or who cannot afford the luxury of an external agency to help with content creation, AI tools can help save you time and money which could be invested in other areas of marketing and sales.
Here are 11 examples of how AI tools could be used to develop creative assets that are personalized at scale, effectively and effortlessly.
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Content Generation: AI tools can be leveraged to generate human-like content including articles, blog posts etc.
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Copywriting Optimization: AI tools can be used to analyze and optimize ad copy, website content etc. for better engagement and conversions.
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Content Idea Generation: AI tools can help provide content suggestions and topic ideas based on user inputs, trending topics etc.
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Writing Assistant: AI-powered writing assistants offer numerous benefits including grammar and style suggestions, thereby helping copywriters improve their content and content quality.
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Social Media Management: AI tools help schedule posts, analyze performance metrics, and provide content recommendations for use in social media platforms.
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Voice Assistants: AI-powered voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have the ability to offer personalized content, recommendations etc., including voice-activated search capabilities.
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Video Editing: AI tools can help automate video editing tasks, including color correction, visual effects and trimming.
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Branding and Design: AI-powered tools can assist in logo creation, brand identity design, and visual content generation, amongst other brand assets.
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Website Optimization: AI tools can analyze user behaviors, website performance etc. and suggest improvements for enhanced user experience.
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Image and Photo Editing: AI-powered tools can create, enhance and modify images, add filters, and remove background images and noise.
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Voice Generation: AI tools can create human-like voiceovers for podcasts, videos, e-learning etc.
Caveat
AI is rapidly transforming the way consumers behave and how businesses operate. Businesses implement AI to streamline processes, automate tasks and gain deeper consumer insights, while consumers look for ways to solve pain points and improve the quality of their lives. It is therefore no surprise that the market for AI-driven tools and technologies is growing at break-neck speed. It must be noted that AI (at its current level of evolution) does not replace the need for human intervention and involvement, and therefore must be seen as tools to improve the quality of output of human deliverables.
To make the most of any AI implementation, it is imperative that companies keep a close eye on a few best practices:
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Quality Data Management: Ensuring data collected is accurate, maintaining data integrity, delivering reliable insights and enhancing AI performance.
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Contextual Understanding: AI capabilities require human oversight to deliver optimal results. It needs a collaborative environment, both human expertise and AI agility, failing which AI output could not only be factually incorrect but also misleading and hype up existing fears or biases.
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Ethical and Transparent Use: Managing customer privacy and maintaining ethical standards before, during and after AI implementation is a must.
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Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Technology advancements are rapid and therefore require businesses to stay updated, invest in employee training, and create or adapt strategies based on evolving technologies.
Conclusion
As AI tools continue to evolve and advance, they will revolutionize the world of marketing communication by presenting new opportunities and endless possibilities for businesses to engage with customers, achieve better Return on Investments, optimize campaigns in real time and improve customer targeting.
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For marketers, these tools will empower them to analyze incredible amounts of data, identifying patters, extracting the smallest changes and deepest insights into customer behaviors, which will enable marketers to make data-driven decisions and tailor-make their GTM strategies.
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For customers, these tools will not only allow for personalized experiences, but remarkable and memorable experiences that in turn will enhance their engagements, foster brand loyalty and increase the likelihood of conversions. Furthermore, 24/7/365 customer support will further build positive brand associations.
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Finally, for content creators, agencies and influencers, these tools will offer unparalleled creative abilities, and produce astonishing and captivating content that emotionally connects brands with customers.
Marketers should embrace the transformational potential of endless possibilities that AI offers, and shape the future where advertising and marketing communications become more engaging, influential and impactful than ever before.
Related Reading:
How to use Viral Marketing, How Affiliate Marketing can help grow sales, How to identify and use Influencer Marketing, How to make the most of Social Media Marketing, Why Ethical Marketing is critical for customer trust and business growth,
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