AI Trends To Be Aware Of In 2023

Is AI Close To Taking Over Enterprise? – AI Trends To Be Aware Of In 2023

Artificial Intelligence is becoming an integral component of many innovation processes and tools because it helps people as well as businesses to enhance their productivity, decrease costs, and raise efficiency. With AI, enterprises can do things that they never thought were possible, though, the concern of whether AI bots will completely replace the human workforce, still hangs in the balance. So, it is relevant that AI tools are being designed in a manner that helps businesses add value to a job, and frees up precious human skills for better roles.

Here are some upcoming AI trends and their potential impact on businesses around the globe.

AI Trends to Know About in 2023

  • AI’s child – Metaverse

The social media giant, Facebook has already built its Metaverse where people can interact with each other in both professional and entertaining ways. AI, having played a key role in this development will pave the way for cases where machines and humans collaborate to achieve targets in the digital world.

  • Enhanced Language Modeling

Natural Language Processing (NLP) uses model-based techniques, broadly used for Machine Learning and Natural Language generation.  People are aware of speech recognition and text-to-speech conversion, with the use of various voice assistants available but there will be further advancements in these features along with Q & A platforms, forums, handwritten character recognition, and regional language recognition.

  • Automated Machine Learning (AutoML)

There are numerous cyclical or repetitive processes that every organization has to follow, for developing products or services. This is where automation comes into the picture for processes like producing, testing, scanning, and re-building. Till now AutoML has been used for supervised learning applications like classification and regression, but it can also perform unsupervised and reinforcement learning. For example, AutoML can help to analyze the structure and meaning of text data. It can be used to train an ML model to organize text data, pull information, or comprehend the view behind those words.

  • AI’s role in Cybersecurity

IT security teams around the world already have to deal with tons of privacy issues and cyber-attacks, due to the growing use of artificial intelligence and even though it sounds bad, these issues are going to keep growing. The threat is data poisoning where cyber criminals can manipulate the information to train machines and it can be untraceable, which can get through AI-powered defenses.

Also, with the increasing number of internet-connected devices, the vulnerability multiplies too. But, the good news is that if risks are increasing, so are the solutions. Even if the complexity of devices is increasing, so is the ability of AI to detect hostile network bugs with the help of information on attack trends in the database. AI is becoming more capable to protect the systems, which is going to prove beneficial in the long run.

  • Low code or No-code AI

There is a global shortage of AI skills, and this shortage is going to continue for a while as per market reports. But, with the growth of low-code or no-code web and app development technologies, the gap can be filled easily. By 2023, deeper research will deliver no-code or low-code AI systems. This will come with the ability to build user-friendly interfaces for intelligent programs, with the help of a code library having pre-designed modules for common functionalities.

  • Creative uses with AI

AI can now create music, art, poetry, video games, and dramas, albeit of basic nature, but when new AI models expand their horizons of possibilities, a more complex and ‘natural-looking’ output can be expected. There might be more than the use cases seen now, extending to creating logos, templates, basic videos, generating headlines for news and blogs, playing a basic keyboard piece, etc. These are just the promises of actual AI usage not the full-fledged use cases. Currently, the functions and possibilities of AI are rapidly changing. Added to the fact that computational techniques are evolving to show how they are getting closer to an as yet undefined concept of “actual” intellect or psyche. It will reveal more when we can define it in concrete.

The future, definitely, is both terrifying and exciting at the same time.

Final take –

It is easy to predict that the AI industry will show promising results with these trends. AI has the potential to transform the perception of everything around the globe, the interaction people have with each other, and the revolution in businesses by facilitating human efforts. The rise of autonomous vehicles, upgraded sensors for predictive examination in production, and robotics can be seen globally. Since the beginning of AI usage, it has come a long way and soon enough we may be on the brink of experiencing true artificial intelligence with natural outputs!

The Physics of Future-ready B2B Content

The Physics of Future-ready B2B Content

The term ‘physics’ may feel like a misfit here, but a few of its core attributes are being used as metaphors in the world of B2B content. With increasing audiences’ expectations for B2C-like experiences in the B2B world and advances in AI, analytics, and automation, the way we think about Content will change in the coming years.

So, here are the Physics metaphors that apply to the Content.

  • Schrödinger’s Cat Experiment – Is the Content Pursued by Target Audience?

In Erwin Schrödinger’s famous experiment, a cat is put in the box and, after undergoing certain life-threatening situations, is considered alive until the package is unlocked and the cat is observed. This experiment concludes that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat (a radioactive atom) in a box and seal it, you would not know if the cat is dead or alive until you open the box so that until the box was opened the cat was (in a sense) both “dead and alive.”

Relating this with Content means the engagement either occurred or did not, but it can be sure only when seen by the right audience. The future demands dynamic content experiences instead of predefined ones to meet the real-time needs of the audience.

So, in terms of this experiment, the B2B content will need to achieve a quantum state where it exists as a ‘wave’ and becomes a ‘particle’ (content experience) only when acknowledged by the ‘observer’ (audience).

  •  Information is the Building Block of Reality / the Conundrum of Content and Data

In recent decades, scientists have mentioned that reality is based on information. This theory is another metaphor when looking at the future of B2B content. In the digital world, Content (knowledge) is the foundation of reality. When observed deeply, the Content acts as data and also creates data. This metadata helps build refined customer experience data models to know what consumers need, want, and do at various touchpoints during the buying lifecycle.

The Content provides so much fuel that organizations cannot optimize the customer experience without it. It becomes obligatory to improve content data and the ways to analyze it significantly.

  • The Multiverse of Content

Quantum mechanics suggests that multiple parallel worlds exist in the exact dimensions of space and time. This concept is known as multiverse and is already very popular in the digital world. This is an intriguing analogy for discussing the future of B2B content activation (using Content to enlighten prospective clients during the sales process to move them down the sales funnel).

To execute the strategy of “right content at the right place and right time,” B2B marketers must go ahead according to the audiences’ needs and their interactions with the Content. As the buyer journey is never linear, there are diverse ways to achieve optimized engagement. Content produced must be backed by skills, technology, and processes that assure it’s interconnected, discoverable, actionable, and adaptive to foster the notion of ‘multiverse’ and become future-ready.

How Far are Organizations/Marketers from becoming Future-Ready?

The path is indeed long.

According to Forrester’s 2022 State of B2B Content Survey –

  • Only 18% of B2B marketers have a universal allocation within marketing
  •   Only 4.5% have a universal allocation across sales, marketing, and product functions
  •   Only 1.5% report having an enterprise-wide universal allocation
  •   29% report that they still do not have any tracking method of content attribution!

If organizations want to be future-ready, they must increase their metadata and classification/allocation ability to promote effective personalization, offer delicate data plus insights to optimize customer experience, and train AI machines for precise, independent decision-making.

Final Take –

To create dynamic content experiences, B2B organizations must extend their content engine levels immensely. Organizations should boost content refinement operations and technology ecosystems to fulfill the promise of real-time personalization.

B2B organizations also need to heighten the role of Content and make it a top priority when transforming digitally. The goal should be to build a future-ready content engine to deliver measurable, relevant content experiences across the touchpoints of the customer buyer journey with the help of evolving technologies and adapt to the upcoming, rapidly emerging content expectations.

Also Read:-How Effective Content Marketing Strengthens B2B Marketing Strategies

Using Mindfulness to Establish Brand Awareness

Using Mindfulness to Establish Brand Awareness

How would it be, if we marketers could just speak straight to a customer’s mind, and cut across all the noise in the highly competitive market?

Just one look, and everyone in the market knows exactly what we offer, and the benefits they can drive from our products.

Some may argue that that’s exactly what B2B advertising does. But this kind of instant brand awareness goes much beyond advertising. The objective is to be present in indirect ways, at unexpected spaces- like a conversation over coffee, like a casual remark at a pub, or just a small observation in a shopping mall- everyone seems to be wearing black nowadays!

Of course, it works slightly differently for B2B brand awareness, takes a little more effort to plant the information bytes, takes a little deeper research to know where!

Psychologists have established that much of our decisions are made in the subconscious mind, through an ‘always-on’  communication stream- much like the mobile devices that are constantly broadcasting and absorbing information – without anyone realizing it! The result of this is that even when there are targeted messages, the decisions are taken on the base of subconscious data collected. So with this continuous absorption of brands’ information, the real crux comes when there is a need to decide for a solution or product. Then all these background data points come into the picture.

Interesting, right?

In this situation, the smart place for brands to stay is in the ‘grey’ zone where the consumers are still undecided, fuzzy between brands, unsure about their differentiators. This is where the siren song of an earlier psychological impact can come into play. It could be anything – something heard somewhere before, something seen they can’t remember where! That’s brand identity- and then the field is open for a great after sales service, a great brand support, a perfect UX etc.

Megan Sangha, Senior Product Marketing Manager, for workflow management company Wrike, in her talk at a recent MarTech conference has an interesting observation. She observes that psychology can be used for cementing a purchase decision through six bias categories:

  • Category heuristics. A picture memory- with a small description of the product, seen even for a very short period of time.
  • Scarcity bias.  The message that it has limited availability- in modern terms- FOMO.
  • Social norms.  Customer reviews, she says, influence 95% of buying decisions.
  • Authority bias. The opinion of an influencer (which is why digital media and social media pay them so handsomely), or an expert, even an impactful research data.
  • The power of free. Freebies! They always, as she says, ‘sweeten the deal’.
  • The power of now. An opportunity missed is lost forever, unavailability of a product lowers its value, and leads to likely discarding it.

These small insights can lead to higher customer satisfaction, lower customer turnover, churn, improve sales process, and of course, better reviews from earlier customers.

Add these tricks to your basket of strategies- mind games never lose!

Content Marketing Strategy

How Effective Content Marketing Strengthens B2B Marketing Strategies

Content marketing in recent years has become one of the most effective modes of marketing. Implementing a good content strategy is at the epicenter of a good marketing plan.

A good content strategy has a proven track record of generating traffic which over time has resulted in lead generation. Businesses today employ the power of content to engage with their target audience. Content’s primary role is to enable decision-makers to make informed purchase decisions with respect to enterprise solutions.

Businesses today focus more on a problem statement before investing in any technology or enterprise solution. Hence, it is of utmost importance for decision-makers to know how a solution could help them streamline things. And solution providers deploy various types of content, namely case studies, white papers, etc. to illustrate how their solution has helped businesses address their concerns.

Content’s role in lead generation

Content marketing can prove to be an effective tool to generate leads for businesses. Businesses can curate high-quality content in the form of a white paper, or a case study as a part of their overall campaign strategy.

Content Marketing’s role in organic growth

Content marketing is crucial for a good SEO Strategy. Search engines today give preference to high-quality content and it plays an important role in SERP. SEO strategies must focus on the use of content; and the creation of content should be consistent to gain results.

Content marketing might seem cost-centric to businesses in the beginning. However, over time, it has been proven to be more effective than paid campaigns, and other inorganic forms of marketing.

Planning a content marketing strategy

Content marketing whilst it may seem easy to do, it involves several complexities. A good content strategy employs different modes of communication so that it is propagated to the right target audience. A plan that is inclusive of email marketing like sending newsletters to your subscribers, and sharing content on social media to increase its reach. Engaging with other similar content, etc.

Marketers today include content as a key ingredient in their overall marketing plan. Providing key decision-makers with the right information is of primary focus for businesses and the best way to do that is by having a great content marketing strategy.

BANT Framework – The Recipe To Acquire Highly Qualified Leads

BANT Framework – The Recipe To Acquire Highly Qualified Leads

To delve deep into the customers’ buying persona, there are certain key bits of information that are absolutely critical to their buying decision. If these data points are clear from the start, it becomes much easier to plan for confirmed leads in the sales outreach. BANT Framework (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) is one of the pivotal B2B sales processes for lead generation as it helps to qualify leads during the prospect discovery call.

Using these points to collate customer data in the very first conversation, cuts short the time taken for client insights recording by the sales team.

What is BANT?

BANT is a sales qualification methodology through which the representatives determine whether a prospect is an ideal fit based on their budget  range, stakeholder’s influence, need for the product/service, and buying timeline.

How to Use BANT Sales Framework Efficiently

  • Understanding the budget beyond dollars: 

    Currently, businesses offer various subscription models, therefore the price factor is not much of an issue. For example, a business can ask about the prospect’s expected ROI to understand the price budget that the prospect has in mind, and if the ROI aligns with the price, then it’s a good reason to qualify the prospect on the budget step.

  • Pinpointing the decision-making authorities:

    The number of decision-makers can be one or more so it’s essential to map them first. Knowing the stakeholder’s job title, role, and priorities while finding ways to connect with them helps a lot. The more contacts, the fewer chances of this lead slipping through the hands

  • Deciding the criticality of a problem:

    Before knowing how crucial a problem from the prospect’s point of view is, it’s essential to get answers to these questions –

  1. Is the prospect fully motivated to solve the problem?
  2. What if the problem is not a priority now but later on it might become one?

The prospect can mention a need that might be valid but the priorities of a team and executive leadership may differ in most cases. This difference will inevitably cause hurdles in the BANT sales process down the road. It is necessary to unveil the needs of prospects, teams, and leaders as early in the journey as possible.

  • Preparing the timeline for the sales process:

    With the details of budget, authorities, and needs, the only thing left to know is the buying timeline of the prospect. Identifying whether it’s a process comprising months of email threads and approvals or a simple yes-no type of deal, will help to plan the pipeline and close the account.

Staying notified through multiple channels

Even though this step doesn’t explicitly come under the BANT sales process, it’s an important one that helps in staying ahead of any delays, concerns, or objections that the prospect has. To uncover new needs of the prospects and to know more about them, here is a checklist –

  • Following their social media
  • Signing up for their newsletter
  • Attending the publicly open events of the enterprise-market prospects
  • Keeping a tab on the deals in the pipeline

These steps may also help discover additional stakeholders, who can be contacted later in the BANT sales process. Staying in the loop informally strengthens the chances of acquiring a BANT-qualified lead, and provides a holistic picture of the prospect’s needs.

Using digital tools to track progress

Digital tools that keep track of the sales pipeline and help in managing customer relationships better, prove helpful while implementing the BANT framework. With the help of these tools, one can balance multiple prospects simultaneously and it becomes easier to precisely determine the last conversation pick-up point with each client. The tools also help to know how much more effort is required to close the deal.

The BANT sales process drives the generation of highly qualified leads and amplifies the chances of conversion.

At OnDot Media, we carefully implement different sales frameworks including BANT to generate highly qualified leads. If you are looking for a B2B lead generation and demand generation company to help you globally, look no further.