AI, humans and the future of B2B

Working together is starting to mean something more these days, though, as there’s probably a bot sitting nearby. The unexpected eruption of generative AI tools for sales and marketing teams is truly putting AI chatbots in a seat whether people are ready for it or not.

“Our clients and everyone else has questions about how these new capabilities will impact day-to-day operations as well as go-to-market strategies,” said Cari Baldwin, co-founder and partner at UDG. “We are striving to be leaders in providing those answers.”

Navigating the AI frontier in marketing and sales

When go-to-market solutions provider Demandbase hosted SMART Day London, a speaker-packed event for sales and marketing professionals, one of the hottest events was a panel discussion on generative AI, moderated by UDG’s London-based president Lynsey Barron, where panelists spoke about how they are using AI at a high level for process automation and content creation.

“It’s a lot of trial and error,” said Louis Simmons, SDR international at Demandbase, explaining how he has added AI as a co-pilot for his work. “Every time I embark on a new project like putting together a new email campaign, I think, how can I use AI to make these processes more efficient and effective?”

Ben Lee, PR and content manager at Bidwells, a property consulting company, said generative AI has enabled his 500-person company to compete with much larger companies. They started experimenting with it two years ago.

“We immediately saw how we could use knowledge to create really good content ourselves. Then we moved on to the team about other ways to use it and apply to our processes. Now it’s embedded in our processes.”

Both Barron and Noelle Reno, global vice-president of Web3 at Smart Media Technologies addressed the common fear of AI that it will take over for humans. For content creation, Barron said humans are still needed to fact check AI-generated copy as well as turn it into branded storylines with the correct tone and brand, while Reno referenced the necessity of the human element to get the end goal of any business – growth.

“We use it for more mundane tasks so we can spend more time on sales and closings,” Reno said. “I do not think AI is going to replace what I do on a business development level because that is all about human relationships.”

Partnering for growth

As sponsors of the AI panel at SMART Day London, UDG’s motto is ‘Boldly human. Boldly B2B.’

“Hosting this panel with Demandbase was a brilliant opportunity because our missions are aligned on delivering more human-focused and thus more effective B2B growth strategies,” said Barron, who is overseeing UDG’s expansion in Europe and EMEA, a transformation the agency has undertaken to better serve its business technology clients, including some of the biggest global brands in their markets.

“Demandbase brings expertise and solutions for leveraging behavioral signals and other data to hyperfocus growth efforts on the right buyers,” she adds. “And then we bring in knowledge and services to help realize results with creative, integrated campaigns and RevOps enablement.”

Starting in 2018 with three employees and a handful of clients, UDG has grown to nearly 40 employees and 60 clients. Primary services include go-to-market strategies, demand generation, channel programs, RevOps, ABM, and content creation and activation.

The Demandbase platform helps people target ideal buyers for their B2B brand and identify where those buyers are in the buying journey. It also can push engagement data into CRM systems. These capabilities improve marketing ROI by providing clear signals that marketing and sales professionals can agree upon, thus preventing wasted time and effort with dead-end leads and off-point communications.

This integrated and personalized approach speeds up order value, according to proven ROI models. In fact, SMART stands for Sales and Marketing Accelerating Revenue Together, and event speakers presented strategies for growth-focused roles to win more deals by working together, side-by-side.

If you would like to gain access to exclusive content from Demandbase's SMART Day at London Zoo, register for Demandbase’s upcoming free virtual event on November 8th. Secure your spot and dive into some bite-sized content from industry experts. Register for the free event today.