What Zooma's been reading this month ??

It's November, the dark nights are drawing in, and it's time for a new edition of our monthly newsletter. Here's a quick roundup of the links, reports, news and stories that have grabbed our attention and started office discussions in the last month. Enjoy!

AI chat doesn't stop with ChatGPT ??

Yes, there's more AI news in this newsletter, we know – but there's so much interesting and relevant stuff happening in AI that it's hard to avoid. Like this example of bespoke GPT chatbots, tailored for a specific purpose and audience. Stellan sent us all a link to this video recently, and at four minutes long, it's well worth a watch:

You've probably tried ChatGPT by now, and you've maybe even used it to roleplay. If you start off a session with "Pretend that you’re X…", ChatGPT will respond as your chosen 'character'. This can be really useful for finding common buyer objections to your products and solutions, or getting a quick brainstormed list of typical customer challenges that you can work to address.

OpenAI's new custom GPT tool allows you to create ready-made versions of these roleplaying chatbots that you can publish and share with the world. Just like ChatGPT, they harvest input from the web, but there's also a possibility to 'train' them with your own knowledge. For example, if you've got a user's handbook that dives deep into the details of your product, or a transcription of a recent presentation about your upcoming launch, you can upload them to your GPT and it'll make use of them in its answers and interactions.

The video shows OpenAI CRO Sam Altman creating a GPT to mentor and advise startup founders in just a few minutes, using general information mined from the internet and a transcription of one of his recent keynotes. But the possibilities are much broader – OpenAI gives a few examples, including a 'Game Time' GPT that can explain the rules of board games through chat, or a 'Tech Advisor' GPT that can troubleshoot and solve common tech problems.

The obvious application here for B2B companies is in customer service. Support chatbots have always been frustrating to use, but when enhanced with the power of AI and built on your existing product knowledge, they might actually become useful – image if a customer could write to your GPT chatbot about an obscure product problem and get a fix instantly, at any time of day.

Someone has to be the first – so take a look at the announcement on OpenAI's site and get thinking about what your next GPT will do.

HubSpot's new TikTok integration ??

HubSpot announced its new TikTok integration at the end of October, which Lisa let us know about. It's been possible to connect your LinkedIn, X and Meta accounts to HubSpot for a long time, and now TikTok is joining in.

Soon, HubSpot users will be able to use HubSpot's native reporting tools to get insights on their TikTok performance and launch and manage lead-generating TikTok ads through the HubSpot platform. Obviously, there will also be a real-time sync as TikTok-converting contacts drop into the HubSpot CRM.

B2B hasn't really embraced TikTok yet (and Zooma certainly hasn't), but maybe the added convenience of an integration will encourage more HubSpot-using B2B companies to try it out.

Gartner's view on B2B online purchasing ??

This report isn't brand new, but there are plenty of good insights in there, which Anders shared with us recently. The report was published earlier this year and is based on a 2022 survey of hundreds of B2B buyers that Gartner conducted.

Here are the main takeaways that are relevant to you (and us):

Online purchasing is more popular than traditional sales – but not necessarily better

75% of the people in B2B buying roles who responded to the survey said they preferred a self-service, sales rep-free purchase process.

However, the results showed that the purchases they made were better when a sales rep was involved – 43% of respondents said they had experienced 'high purchase regret' after a self-service purchase, compared to only 26% after a traditional sales rep-led purchase.

Combining the best of both worlds creates the ideal outcome

Clearly, full digitalisation of the sales process isn't always the best option. However, these results don't mean you should keep doing what you've always done. The facts show that purchases made in a rep-assisted digital sales process led to the lowest levels of 'high purchase regret' – only 21%.

Gartner gives some examples of how these two approaches can complement each other. For example, self-service digital selling gives the buyer full control – but a sales rep can fill in the gaps and provide assistance when needed. Similarly, a customer in a digital sales situation has a huge amount of information at their fingertips about the product they're buying and the alternatives – but a human rep can always help with the contextual judgement that comes from experience.

You can get access to the full report here – we won't rob Gartner of a valuable conversion by linking you straight to the PDF.

Getting tangible results from content ??

A quick one to finish up, from a study Stellan saw on Marketing Charts – according to a study from July this year, 58% of North American B2B marketers had succeeded in generating sales or revenue from content marketing in the last 12 months.

The vast majority said they had succeeded in using content to generate brand awareness and leads as well, but it's good to see such a large number have also managed to overcome the challenge of converting those leads to paying customers.

One more thing ??

HubSpot's endless redesigns can sometimes come unexpectedly, but this one was an even bigger surprise than usual.

This interface is a recipe for neck pain – fortunately, it looks like it's been fixed now.

That's all for this month – thanks for reading, and don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter to get notified when we publish the next one.