5 Ways AI Revolutionizes B2B Lead Generation and Nurturing

Run a Google search and you’ll find endless companies that exist for the sole purpose of lead generation.

Some of them sell lists of email addresses and companies. Others claim to have secret formulas worked out to generate leads if you hand over big bucks.

The truth is, you only need a few key tools to earn more leads: relevant content marketing and AI for lead generation.

Why is AI So Important for B2B Lead Generation?

Artificial intelligence creates the experience your leads and prospects expect. In our increasingly digital world, experience matters: 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is just as important as the product or service itself.

It’s no surprise then that 70% of high-performing marketing teams have a fully defined AI strategy. Across the board, AI use has surged from just 28% of marketers using it in 2018 to 84% in 2020.

Salesforce

We’re only in the infancy stages of adopting AI, too. Imagine what marketing will look like in another 10 or 20 years.

For now, try to concentrate your use of AI where it’s needed most. Don’t adopt new martech just for the sake of saying you have it.

1. AI in Lead Generation Reduces the Headache of Scoring

Lead scoring is typically a tedious and drawn-out process. Every marketing analyst has their own set of criteria.

You simply can’t analyze every little detail as you score leads. At some point, information overload takes hold and you’re forced to pick and choose the most important factors like link clicks or email opens.

Artificial intelligence never gets overloaded or tired. It can sort through massive datasets 24/7 without trouble. Plus, AI gets better at its job the longer it goes at it, thanks to machine learning.

AI tools for scoring often pick up on finer details most humans would overlook. As a result, AI-driven lead scoring is far more accurate, and you can use the data to target future leads.

2. It Reduces Your Website Bounce Rate and Increases Engagement

What does your website bounce rate look like?

If you’re like most, probably not too great. Average bounce rates vary widely by industry. However, if you rely on social media for most of your traffic, your bounce rate might be over 50%.

A low bounce rate matters because it shows people are interested in your content, products, and company.

High engagement produces lower bounce rates. The longer someone stays on your website, the more likely they are to convert into a lead and self-nurture.

Most leads won’t give you an email address or contact your sales team until they’re sure you’re a good fit. They want to research on their own.

An AI engine uses your content to create an experience that mimics that of Amazon, Spotify, or Netflix. Several algorithms work on top of each other to study the behavior of every visitor and offer personalized content recommendations.

Plus, the AI system is designed to recommend content assets that guide leads down the sales funnel – before they ever hand over an email address or speak to anyone on your sales team.

Not only will visitors stay on your page longer, but they’ll also self-nurture because they’ll consume more content each session.

3. Artificial Intelligence Lets You Collect Better Information on Leads

Most B2Bs have more data than they could ever sort through in a lifetime. For others, valuable data is stuck in siloes.

Artificial intelligence helps you pool your data from several sources. Plus, it draws better insights from your data so you can learn more about your leads, visitors, and customers.

You can focus less time on generating new leads and more time identifying possible customer churn before it happens. AI in lead generation is nice, but it’s always better to increase a single client’s CLV instead of acquiring a new lead.

4. AI Creates a Hyper-Personalized Experience for B2B Lead Generation

Personalization isn’t a top-of-the-line feature reserved for Fortune 500s anymore. Today’s young B2B buyers expect a hyper-personalized experience everywhere they go online – including your B2B lead generation website.

AI provides several tools for you to generate and nurture leads not with just a segmented or somewhat personalized experience, but also a 100% personalized experience for every visitor.

Here are a few ways you can use AI to improve your lead generation:

  • Adaptive content hubs: This is like a shot of steroids for your blog. Instead of scrolling through a catalog of blogs organized by data, you can organize by any vertical or pain point you choose. Once someone starts browsing, the algorithms take over, studying their behavior and offering personalized suggestions.
  • Self-nurturing landing pages: The average buyer consumes at least 13 pieces of content from a single vendor before making their decision. Self-nurturing landing pages let your visitors binge relevant content until they’re ready to hand over their email address.
  • Exit-intent popups: Instead of asking visitors to submit their email addresses as they try to leave, remind them of why they visited your website in the first place with personalized content suggestions.

Hushly

5. AI Keeps Your Data Clean

Most organizations – 80% – are expected to abandon their personalization strategies by 2025 due to poor ROI. The culprit? Bad data.

In fact, every piece of incorrect data in your system costs $100.

Segmenting prospects, scoring leads, and developing content all require high-quality data. When your intel is incorrect, missing fields, or outdated, it impacts all your marketing objectives.

Artificial intelligence ensures you only collect accurate data from the beginning. When a lead enters your system, AI scans public sources, like LinkedIn, to verify their company, job role, and contact information.

You never have to worry about bad data again.

Implement an AI Engine and Watch Lead Conversions Skyrocket by 51%

Adding an AI engine to your site lets you take advantage of high-level personalization to generate leads, nurture leads, and build customer loyalty.

Tech-driven tools like adaptive content hubs, exit-intent popups, and self-nurturing landing pages organize your incredible content and put it to smart use.

What would you do with an AI engine on your site? See it in action now for inspiration.

6 Effective Ways to Use AI in B2B Marketing

hushly blog

Artificial intelligence isn’t the “next big thing” in B2B. It’s already here!

Top companies in every industry are already using AI in B2B marketing to learn about their audiences, segment visitors, and create personalized content.

Sure, there are still a few kinks to work out, but the results speak for themselves.

As of 2017, nearly a quarter of B2Bs had already incorporated AI into their marketing strategy, and that figure has only grown considering 83% also said AI was a top priority.

The question isn’t whether you’ll use AI in B2B for sales or lead generation, but how.

AI B2B marketing

How to Use AI in B2B Marketing for Lead Generation and Sales

AI can feel intimidating. You’re taking control out of the hands of humans and putting it in computers and code.

What if the software is wrong? What if your predictions fail or if you lose money?

Start small with easy solutions to automate, such as email and content recommendations. AI in B2B marketing makes humans work faster and more efficiently when done right.

Automated Email Marketing

Email marketing might be the easiest place to incorporate AI into your B2B marketing strategy.

First, email service providers make it easy to set up automated campaigns. For B2B nurturing, this is awesome. You can design personalized welcome emails, onboarding, and even newsletters to deliver super-relevant content to your subscribers.

41% of B2B buyers say email is their favorite channel to communicate with brands. Meanwhile, 75% of marketers say email is their favorite personalization channel.

Email also makes it easy to segment your audience because data is so organized and plentiful. You can also combine data from your CRM software and other sources to build detailed profiles on your leads for hyper-personalized email campaigns.

These personalization features make email an awesome tool for account-based marketing strategies as well.

Account-Based Marketing Segmentation

92% of companies see account-based marketing as valuable. Some even call it a must-have!

But ABM is tricky. If your intelligence is off, it can render your entire content strategy moot.

ABM

Source: Smart Insights

Sadly, statistics show that most businesses aren’t working with accurate data to guide their marketing decisions. 62% of brands rely on data that is up to 40% incorrect to build their strategies. It’s no surprise that 40% of initiatives fail due to bad intel.

AI in B2B marketing removes bad data from the equation because much of the data collection, interpretation, and content recommendations happen in real-time.

Not only can AI offer personalized ABM recommendations, but it can also help you segment your list by company. Instead of collecting data on your leads through clunky forms, AI scans publicly available information on sources like LinkedIn to piece together a broad range of firmographics.

Personalized Content Recommendations

AI in B2B marketing is perhaps most impactful for offering personalized content recommendations to every visitor – whether known or unknown.

When you activate an AI engine on your website, it monitors the behavior of every visitor, taking a record of everything they read, how long they read each post, what they navigate to next, and other factors.

From there, the AI system can build complex profiles and make recommendations for future visitors based on their behavior and the behavior of past visitors.

AI is especially effective for nurturing because the buying process is so fluid. An average of seven team members are involved in each sales decision, and company needs change. AI can take data and offer a personalized experience in real-time.

Humans, on the other hand, must work retroactively sorting through old datasets and following up with personalized content for lead nurturing.

Effective Exit-Intent Strategies

Exit-intent popups are effective but sadly, most brands get them wrong.

How many times have you visited an interesting blog today only to have a lead form thrown at you as soon as you tried to navigate away from the tab?

No one likes to fill out forms – especially on mobile devices.

Well, Think with Google estimates that 70% of all B2B searches happen on mobile devices, and buyers spend up to three hours each day researching from their mobile devices.

Instead of confronting your visitors with a form, AI lets you offer them personalized content recommendations. Not only does this leave a better taste in their mouth, but it also helps leads self-nurture instead of leaving your page.

Chatbots for AI in Lead Generation and Nurturing

Chatbots are another easy place to play with AI in your B2B marketing strategy.

The AI used in chatbots has improved over the past few years tremendously, and it gets better the longer you use it on your own site as well.

No one is sure how much of the buying process B2Bs complete online without speaking to anyone at a company. However, we do know that the figure ranges from 57% to 90%.

That means you control less than half – or much less.

Chatbots make it easy for buyers to ask quick questions about your product and get answers instantly without committing to anything.

Netflix-Style Content Bingeing for AI in B2B Marketing

Think your buyers don’t want to binge content on your B2B site? Think again.

Buyers and decision-makers are young and they want to research content at their own pace. Research shows that 42% of millennials working at B2B companies are in managerial-level positions while another 21% are in C-suite roles.

Younger generations expect personalized content everywhere online, so B2Bs need to keep up. They know these algorithms exist and they expect professional sites to use them.

Content bingeing powered by AI can help them find the information they want in less time. Plus, personalized recommendations are designed to guide buyers along the sales cycle, depending on the stage they’re at.

Incorporate AI in B2B Marketing and Watch Leads Skyrocket

By incorporating Hushly AI into your website, you can skyrocket lead conversions by 51%. Hushly’s system uses data you’re already collecting to provide real-time content recommendations and guide visitors down the nurturing process – whether known or unknown.

AI B2B marketing