The first thing I do every weekday morning is tell my Amazon Alexa to turn off my alarm. In other words, the very first interaction of my day is with artificial intelligence (AI) — kind of surreal now that I write it.
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This is just one example of how AI can impact our everyday lives, and the same can be said about AI in B2B marketing.
According to HubSpot’s State of AI, 62% of business leaders say their company has already invested in AI and automation tools for their employees to leverage. And who can blame them?
In almost every use case, AI is known to increase efficiency, speed up optimization, lower costs, and increase ROI. Want to see for yourself? Here are nine of the best ways to use AI in B2B marketing to level up your day-to-day.
The State of AI in B2B Marketing
Before we dive in, let’s get a quick lay of the AI land.
According to our research, marketers are using AI to get ideas and inspiration (22%), conduct research (48%), and learn how to do things (32%) — myself included.
On average, that means we’re getting 12.5 hours back per week or about 25-26 additional working days in a year. That’s huge.
And looking at the numbers, it works too.
75% of marketers surveyed say AI and automation help them spend less time on manual tasks, which means more time on the creative parts of their jobs they enjoy most. And another 68% say AI has actually helped grow their careers.
Despite these positives, however, there are still many hesitations.
Artificial intelligence (especially generative AI) is plagued with concerns about plagiarism, bias, and data security. Then, of course, there are perceived effects on job security.
Nearly half of the marketers we surveyed said they felt their jobs — and the entire job market — were at risk of being replaced, but 62% also agreed that people should use AI and automation in their roles, but they shouldn’t become overly reliant on it.
Truthfully, we don’t know what the future holds for AI, especially with the potential for government regulation looming. But from what I’ve seen of current tools, they cannot replace us — but only help us work smarter.
The best way to be prepared for whatever the outcome is to know as much as you can about the current state of AI in B2B marketing. If you’re reading this article, I see you’re doing the work. We’ve got this.
How to Use AI in B2B Marketing
1. Generate content and assets.
Let’s go ahead and get the obvious out of the way — content generation.
Thanks to a number of different tools, anyone can create a variety of content (like images in the Microsoft Designer example below) using just written prompts.
It’s no wonder 83% of marketers say that AI helps them create significantly more content than they could without. Those robots are fast.
One of the most common applications of generative AI in B2B marketing is aiding in the writing process. But the keyword here is aiding. As a content professional and writer for over a decade, I can’t stress this enough.
AI-generated content is derivative by the very way it’s made. Yes, it may be fast and easy, but it lacks the quality, original thought, and expertise needed to stand out from the competition. So, don’t simply take it as is and hit “post” or “publish.”
My good friend and founder of digital consultancy Harness & Hone, Nick Bennett, explains:
“If AI can create it, consumers don‘t need it from you, me, or anyone else. The job is no longer just to create content and smear it across the internet. The job is to create content that *only* you can create. If you don’t want to be replaced by [AI], create things that it can’t.”
Thankfully, most marketers recognize this.
86% of marketers report taking time to edit content produced by AI.
And when they do use it, they’re writing pieces with short shelf-life like social media posts (46%), emails (47%), and outlines (41%).
About one-third (34%) lean on generative AI to get ideas or inspiration.
How can you get started with AI content generation? HubSpot has several AI tools you can use, such as our Free AI Content Writer, AI Blog Writer, and AI Email Writer (in Beta).
But there are dozens from others as well. Check out these articles for detailed lists and insights:
You can also dig specifically into ChatGPT with our free guide, “How to Use ChatGPT at Work.”
2. Scale your conversational marketing.
In an age of push notifications and constant connection, buyers have come to expect quick answers from brands. Unfortunately, fielding questions and conversing in real-time isn’t always scalable — especially with a small team.
Chatbots on your website or social media can help. Conversational marketing and chatbots are some of the oldest uses of AI in B2B marketing, but that doesn’t mean they’re outdated. In fact, 74% of consumers prefer to talk to a chatbot when looking for quick answers.
For example, you can set up a chatbot to start a conversation with users when they visit particular pages on your website (e.g., those that signal high intent, like a pricing or demo page).
The exercise equipment and tech company Peloton uses this strategy on its website:
A chatbot like this can deliver relevant content and calls to action or even simply ask if the user has any questions.
Drift, Facebook Messenger, or even Slack are great options to set up a chatbot. But if your website is hosted on HubSpot, you can use HubSpot Conversations.
3. Repurpose your content.
Repurposing your content for different audiences or mediums is one of the smartest ways to get the most out of the work you’ve already done. But it can be extremely time-consuming.
Although repurposing content is likely not new to you, AI makes it much easier to do at scale than ever before.
How else can you use AI to repurpose content?
- Turn blog posts into videos or video scripts.
- Turn podcasts or videos into blog articles.
- Transform long-form content into short-form educational social media posts.
- Add visuals to a long-form piece to share on social.
- Build landing pages from email sequences or podcasts.
- Get a head start on localizing or editing content for new regions or audiences.
- Turn product content into marketing promotional materials.
- Take raw data and create data visualizations and reports.
Here were the results when I asked ChatGPT to write five tweets based on one of my recent articles:
The opportunities are vast and growing. There are also an increasing number of AI tools being explicitly built with content repurposing in mind, such as HubSpot’s Content Remix.
With Content Remix, Professional and Enterprise-level users of Content Hub can repurpose existing content into new formats. This can be materials you have hosted on HubSpot (i.e. images, social posts, text messages, ads, and blog posts) or new content you upload to the tool.
You can remix content from the content remix tool, the overview page for your posts or pages, and the content editor.
4. Manage and analyze your marketing/customer data.
Another way B2B marketers can capitalize on AI is in their data management.
“I’ve been using AI to organize unstructured data,” shares Marketer-in-Residence at MarketerHire Jason Howie.
“For example, I’ll take free-form question fields such as ‘How did you hear about us?’ and ask ChatGPT to group the responses into categories to make reporting easier. It’s extremely helpful.”
“Another great use is normalizing company names from acronyms to full names or even finding website domains when we didn’t have them before. These tasks save a ton of time and make our data far more accurate and actionable.”
But AI’s power doesn’t stop at data management. It can also analyze and interpret data faster than humanly possible to:
- Provide and explore insights
- Segment your customers
- Identify customer trends and preferences
- Create datasets for training purposes
- Create dashboards and reports (and even automatically email you the report)
- Monitor business performance
Check out HubSpot’s ChatSpot in action with co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dharmesh Shah:
Some can even use predictive analytics to:
- Predict market outcomes
- Forecast demand
- Make strategic suggestions
For example, the media planning tool ReBid’s AI assistant can use sales and performance data to share ad placement suggestions. It can tell you which device, ad, and platform to focus on with your ad budget.
To learn more about using AI for data analysis, check out our free guide.
5. Make your marketing more interactive.
So far, we’ve just talked about how you can use AI to be more productive and effective, but why not make it a part of what you put out into the world as well?
If you have the knowledge and development resources, interactive content powered by AI can be an extremely valuable B2B marketing tool.
Take SEO analytics company Ahrefs. They built an AI-powered product description generator that anyone can use without sharing personal information.
Ok, maybe something like that’s a bit ambitious. But you can capture the same idea with a custom quiz or self-selection tool for your website built with TypeForm or Wyng.
A self-selection tool is basically any type of interactive feature (e.g., a button, form, etc.) that customizes the user’s experience on a website. For example, it may guide the user to the information that answers a question they have or the product that matches their needs.
Some of the most common are pricing or cost calculators, a builder/generator, or a “finder” that helps you identify the right product or solution for you.
One of my favorite self-selection tools I’ve ever encountered is the makeup brand Il Makiage’s Power Match quiz.
This quiz (and the subject of many viral makeup videos on YouTube) leads you through a series of multiple-choice questions. Then, it tells you what shade of their foundation will perfectly match your skin.
They’re so confident in the results that they even let you try the product for 14 days before you pay for it.
For something that can be as difficult as choosing the perfect shade of foundation — I can’t even do this in person sometimes — this quiz is a compelling and fun way to use AI to market your product.
(And in case you were wondering, they indeed matched my shade.)
6. Automate mundane marketing tasks.
Another way AI can help you be more efficient with your B2B marketing is through marketing automation.
Marketing automation uses technology to automate monotonous marketing work, like sending emails or doing data entry.
For example, you can use ManyChat to send a direct message when people comment a specific word or phrase on an Instagram post. Or if you’re a HubSpot user, try workflows to add a marketing contact to a particular list when they fill out a form.
This article on the 23 best marketing automation tools is a great place to start.
7. Improve your SEO.
I know Google seems like an unconquerable beast (probably because it is), but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. So, we still need to care about optimizing for it and other search engines.
That said, AI can also help here. In fact, 84% of bloggers and SEO specialists reported that AI and automation influenced their SEO strategy in 2023.
My teammate and HubSpot staff writer Erica Santiago recently shared several ways how including:
- Monitoring search data to uncover trends.
- Finding keywords based on your chosen topics.
- Identifying opportunities to optimize content.
- Generating structured data and schema markup.
- Finding link-building opportunities.
- Detecting and fixing technical issues, such as broken links.
Dive deeper into these use cases and find a list of helpful tools in her article, 17 Best AI SEO Tools & How to Use AI in 2024 [New Data].
8. Personalize your customer experience.
According to the 2024 ACA Survey by customer experience expert Shep Hyken, 81% of customers prefer companies that offer a personalized experience.
In a brick-and-mortar business, this meant remembering a customer’s name or sending them a note on their birthdays. Details like these can be hard to remember. So can creating experiences like these in a digital age, especially as your company grows.
But once again, artificial intelligence can help.
Use AI to address people by name or create content targeting a buyer persona’s unique interests, previous activity, location, and other traits.
The point is to take what you know about who you’re trying to reach and find ways to incorporate that into your marketing.
If you’re a HubSpot user, try using the platform’s personalization tokens to add information from the CRM to your website pages, landing pages, and marketing emails.
9. Conduct research.
If you’re in marketing, you’re no stranger to research.
Whether it’s hunting for information on your persona’s buying habits, your competitor’s latest product launch, or keywords for your next blog article, research is likely a part of your weekly routine.
AI can help dramatically speed up the process.
With a search engine like Google or Bing, you have to manually type your query into the tool, click through the results, cross your fingers, and hope they have what you’re looking for.
With an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, however, you can ask specific queries as if you were talking to another person. There is no need to spend hours reading through dozens of search results to distill information; the bot does that for you.
Here’s a helpful research tip from our AI marketing trends report:
“When using AI tools, prompt writing is an art and a science. Try several variations on your prompt before turning to a new solution — the more specific, the better the result.
One very popular prompt for research and learning is, ‘Explain ____ to me like I’m five years old.’ It makes for an excellent starting point for any new initiative.”
Have a look at what it said when I asked it to explain “brat summer.”
Examples of AI in B2B Marketing
Now that you know how you can capitalize on AI in B2B Marketing, let’s take a look at some examples.
Ahrefs Amazon Keyword Tool
I know we mentioned Ahrefs earlier. But it’s hard not to be impressed by what the SEO company is doing with AI in its marketing, so I had to include them again.
In this example, Ahrefs targets businesses directly by giving them a free tool to look up the best keywords to use in their Amazon product listings.
All you have to do is enter a broad description of your product into the tool and it shows you the most popular keywords (aka what people are searching most) related to it.
This tool showcases the power of Ahrefs technology and offers immense value to potential customers without even requiring an email address.
Ventura Foods Website Chatbot
Ventura Foods is a food manufacturer that produces product lines like Hidden Valley Salad Dressing and Smart Balance Butter. On its website, it has a virtual assistant named Brie ready and waiting to answer your questions as soon as you arrive.
I asked the bot a few questions like “What does Ventura Foods do?” and it responded within seconds with direct answers and a link to the company’s “about us” page to learn more.
It made it extremely easy to get answers without navigating through the entire website, but was a bit quick to send me the “contact us” form and customer service phone number when it wasn’t sure what I was asking.
HubSpot Marketing Plan Generator
Creating a marketing plan takes a lot of time and effort. Recognizing this common pain point, HubSpot built an AI-powered Marketing Plan Generator.
This custom AI simplifies yearly planning by analyzing and organizing the user’s answers to several questions into an easy-to-understand one-page marketing plan. It includes their company’s marketing priorities and suggests other relevant initiatives based on the goals they enter.
Tools like this one are engaging ways to use AI to offer value to your target audience and generate potential leads.
(AI)ming higher with your B2B marketing
I know the potential of artificial intelligence can be scary. Millions of people are feeling it too, but here’s a reminder that has comforted me: AI is really nothing new.
We’ve had spell and grammar checks on word processors for years, but editors still exist. Consumers can easily buy tax software, but they still hire accountants. Both editors and accountants use these tools themselves.
The AI available to B2B marketers won’t take your place, but it will help you take back time to level up where it matters most.
