CMOs discuss/debate five seismic shifts for B2B in 2024

Exciting and terrifying. Doesn't that just about describe all large scale shifts in how markets work?

The days of AI experimentation are over. 2024 is about driving widespread adoption, integration and scale. Last week's CMO Coffee Talk featured a deep discussion centered on five specific AI-driven changes for businesses in 2024. Thanks to Gary Survis from Insight Partners for bringing data and driving the discussion.

Chat highlights are below. If you are in the CMO Coffee Talk community , don't miss a copy of Gary's full presentation deck in the #swipe-file channel in Slack .

If you are a B2B CMO or head of marketing and want to join a community of 2,800+ of your peers, let me know or click here to learn more and sign up .

“holy shit” feels like an accurate assessment of 2023

Great book on AI… The Next Wave, Mustafa Suleyman

Here's the one that's on the GPT store writing list top 10: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-D2Dqz1XIy-voice-style-tone-ai-prompt-snippet-generator

You give it copy and it writes you a prompt snippet to put in other prompts to tell the AI how to write the same way

Perplexity.ai beats Google SGE all day every day

Hubspot event deets: https://b2b-cmo-roundtable.slack.com/archives/CCVFR389K/p1704379904297419

Are people still googling as much? I think I’m down to 20% of my former usage, with 90% of that being IMDB what other stuff was this actor/ess in ?

I'm with him - about 20% of my previous Google search volume, but know I'm very early. But once people switch they tend to switch fast and fully

What I'm seeing is the habit happens at break neck speed once people realize the difference

This is like an algorithm change on steroids

Yikes.? We need entire teams just to keep up with the changes

you are absolutely right this is a huge moment.? Scary but full of opportunity.

And this doesn’t even reflect change in search behavior. More people beginning to use Perplexity, ChatGPT, DuckDuckGo, etc for search vs traditional Google.

Demand without Brand has never worked though. That’s not new. It’s just more important now

Yes, yet. And we can total rule out Google. They’re not just going to not do anything. Innovator’s dilemma — innovate to cannibalize the search base?

If you can show results and the way that brand builds demand that can be your super power

When you call brand “product marketing” everyone seems OK with it. ??

I am huge on brand - my point is its hard to get investment

so true - we may know it but CFOs and CEOs want 3 month ROI

What does brand look like in GenAi AND How do you effectively forecast?

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK: “B2B customers demand a B2C experience”

Modern Word of Mouth = VOC - Voice of the Community

Its about how you position and sell the investment and show how it makes demand gen more effective

Very important to understand that with Generative AI results, it's not going to say the exact same thing every time to every person, even if they typed in the exact same thing as someone else

?sure - if you have a CEO/CFO who listens to your brilliant arguments. That’s more rare than any of us wants

We use Sybill.ai for that sales summaries which is awesome (if anyone wants a link reach out to me, it may get me and you something)

If you hit refresh on each of those results on your ChatGPT you'll get different results too

We just started using Sybill and I think it’s awesome.

We all live in glass houses

It's very important to understand that it's like me asking you on two different days and times to tell me about something, and you tell me that day from scratch. Some stuff may be the same but what comes to mind may be different each tie

I will take it. Better to know now then have it come up in the board meeting

no one is doing this right at this point.? some are just ahead of others figuring out they need to shift

Influence is the new Inbound

Gotta get super good at product marketing- deep customer insights, target segments, ICP, persona, etc

But people spend still goes down…

The tools that can simultaneously be multi-modal are the most powerful

It’s OK to be an early adopter as long as you’re willing to be an early discarder!

Being able to have a single conversation that switches between all the functions is where the most powerful changes happen

For most tools, I wouldn't even sign a year. I'd do month-to-month. There are a few you can do longer but most a year is way too long

Surprisingly our VCs weren’t asking much this year, but as we showed them what we were doing they asked us to teach their port cos.

We have a company-wide objective for every department to consider where we can use AI to optimize our processes and reduce costs.

First time I have seen AI in a head of marketing JD: Highly knowledgeable and experienced in using the latest AI tools to deliver marketing outcomes.

So much of the generative built into tools is soooooooo bad because the people building it don't know how to prompt well, so they degrade the models vs. doing outside your platform tools

most of the built in "AI features" are awful when you're looking through the lens we have as power users of models where we control the output

It’s true. There has never been a better time to be a marketer!

A true breakthrough moment. Grab it and go.

I am excited about the opportunity this presents!

Just over here in the corner, crying! Tears of excitement, anxiety, and fear! ??

we've started slow - changing process of content creation, added tools for sales, and over time we've added more capabilities. Sometime not saying it is AI, just showing the capabilities provide the understanding of the value without the scare

agree that marketo and salesforce are no longer the center of gravity day-to-day.

I won’t buy a MAP, I’ll build email tech into my existing stack quite easily

real-time data: All 3 of my fractional CMO roles are eliminating Outreach

We’re doing the same baby steps!

Has anyone changed org structure? In which ways?

I didn't necessarily change the org, but changed how things are done in the different functions

Logo creator: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-gFt1ghYJl-logo-creator

I think within the next 3 to 6 months I’ll stop using ChatGPT on a daily basis, because I’ll have an open source LLM running on my local machine 24/7 perpetually working without me continually prompting the next thing.

Then how do we track changes in AI perspectives on our brand over time? This seems like nailing jello to a wall.

Hypothesis: momentum was growing behind community building. Then - SQUIRREL! - GenAI came on the scene and sucked up all that focus and bandwidth. Thoughts?

Not coincidental that so many people’s best channel are dinners and lunches. Face-to-face can’t compensate for any Gen AI solution!

Community is more important than ever. Authentic human voices.

What are realistic goals for integrating genAI in marketing efforts?? what outcomes should one expect after committing for a quarter or 6 months? Trying to get past the “cool tools” phase…

The entrepreneur in me is just very excited about the new realm . Because it’s getting a lot more complicated to do marketing is a lot more fun

Here is Liza's strategic AI workflow spreadsheet: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/lizaadams_strategicplanning-aiworkflows-responsibleai-activity-7151324402775691264-INSb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Is anyone you know working on influencing General AI (SEO 2.0) or is that not worth doing and it is better to focus on doing marketing differently?

Also, if you have at least the $20 chatgpt subscription, here’s a gpt that helps determine if your market position is defensible long-term. Use if helpful. https://chat.openai.com/g/g-91b7gp5jK-competitive-defensibility-analyzer

Another great template to use for use cases that complements Liza's well is the Marketing AI Institute's Use Case Workbook.? Highly recommend for prioritizing what you work on.

Very true-get rid of marketing jargon in these talks.

Marketing budget usually is tied to pipeline / lead gen. Unit economics.

Marketing budgeting is a math problem.

Linked In says in B2B : 36% Lead Gen , 30% Brand Building & Awareness, 20% demand gen, 15% Account based Marketing

And the board either buys the math or they don’t and if they don’t it’s easier to manager the shortcoming when they can see the math doesn’t add up.

I spoke at a Revenue Kickoff yesterday and only 12% of people had played with AI?!?!

Just read Fortune Term Sheet every day - every single company getting funding says they’re an AI something...

Paid prices might go up unless the definition of paid changes to include the Google AI-drive results, which seem like another space Google will monetize.

Hard to get Brand spend dollars right now - interesting take on why we need to invest.

Invest more in Brand: blog? https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/brand-building-meets-performance-marketing-dynamic-duo-kerman-kasad/

From 6Sense…nearly 90% of your B2B prospects are not in a purchase cycle ;).? So Brand is always essential.

This seems like a long term problem for search engines relying on ChatGPT and similar.? Are people going to tolerate everything being filtered to this degree by a third party?

Congrats to Nicole Leffer - who’s contributed so much to this group - her AI Prompt Snippet Generator ranks in the top-10 GPT Writing tools in the newly launched GPT store. ?? https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/nicoleleffer

Modern word of mouth = VOC - Voice of the Community which includes Customers

Most people are lazy - let’s be real here. How many want to do the extra work for the Truth!!!

And how will they really know if what they are getting is the truth or not?

The importance and influence of authentic voices (not the company's only) is something that we have been talking about and experiencing for some time now. To me it seems we are going to see an acceleration and amplification of that impact due to how search is changing.

I think he is saying that the market will have some voice in how Search + AI will prove useful.

Great point - PLG strategies need to shift from Voice of Customer to Voice of Community

I love this - I think the void btw how we buy tech in b2b and b2c is merging

Exciting times - we've been through digital, social etc - this feels as exciting and bigger

Don’t worry. You don’t have to do ALL of this better than competition but just a few consistently over time. ;)

In the battle of AI noise…. Authentic content and characters (customers, employees, influencers) are going to be core in this new world

I think it would be less terrifying if everyone else in the business also understood how much is changing for marketing

Feels like a seismic shift… back to fundamental marketing principles

The big leadership responsibility: how do you move your team toward this future? Do you have the right people in the right seats on the bus.

You have to model and mentor GenAI skills and curiosity.

Ironically the younger people on my team are AI resistant! I’m the heavy user.

Q: is this being taught in marketing / business programs yet? Meaning, are the new (fresh!) grads going to know this and be second nature to them? … like when I see a 3 year old using an iPad??

You still have to have the leader drive the ship

How I’ve been explaining marketing to people lately “everything is broken” — hopefully, it will be sorted out at some point

Folks, dont forget that all those business folks jobs are also about to experience tectonic shifts as well

Had an interesting conversation with my 15 yr tech son. He said “why are you using ChatGPT. Doesn’t that tool just makes stuff up?” His generation is not yet all in on the tech. Perhaps also because they guard against using it in high school.

Passion is the driver of adoption

Everyone should be doing generative in their role rather than developing specialists

“Change management of Generative AI”

I think GEN AI is not a “department”… it will be woven throughout all we do

https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/podcast-showcase

Just created my first GPT yesterday, after prodding that I should try to. Much easier than I imagined.

We found success using generative to create our strategies and tactics for our tiered campaigns… but when it comes to execution and action… that’s where we roll up our sleeves.

Exactly… we should not think about this as we did the web “in the old days” as all of digital and put it in a silo

Please remember the hype cycle slide. Our emotions are tracking perfectly against it!

We? kicked off show and tell project across all of marketing last year. Each member of mkt was asked to try it out, be it ChatGPT or AI features in tools they were using, do something with it and come back in our Monday meetings and do show and tell. Everyone has at least a little understanding and some are using it a lot.

We did a 2 day hackathon focused on AI — across the business. Was a catalyst to get people to start experimenting.

All of the people not using GenAI are pulling us into the trough of disillusionment

Rant: mkt tools vendors need to to stop pushing AI messages when they don’t really have AI features that actually work

https://www.bvp.com/atlas/the-rule-of-x

Modern Buyer Era now… Maybe it’s not a fear of AI but maybe the lack of tracking attribution from the Dark Funnel...

Just call it invest in “top of funnel.” Don’t use the B word.

Brand and demand are so related… how they are related would be a great future session…

Brand is a code word for need more revenue.? CEOs who don’t understand GTM ask for that

I have taken all brand spend into Community building. This has resonated with the company.

I was hired to do brand and CX work, and have been pushed into becoming fully demand focused.? I’m capable of doing it, but it’s sucking the life out of me. ??

I'll be dreaming about this stuff tonight!!! Should be interesting.

Let’s tear down all the idols!

Appreciate the provocation and insights!

Have a great weekend all, this session was a blast!

Great session. Nicely uncomfortable.

Awesome — if frightening — session today.