In today’s digital world, the landscape of B2B marketing is rapidly evolving. As we navigate through this transformation, it’s crucial to remember that at the heart of every business interaction is a human connection. With this in mind I wanted to explore how B2B marketers can champion human marketing while leveraging tools and AI to enhance, rather than replace, the authentic and personal touch.
The Shift to Human-Centric Marketing
We all are fully aware that the modern buyer is more informed and empowered than ever before. Traditional outbound methods like cold calling and email blasts are becoming less effective as buyers seek personalised and relevant content that meets their specific needs and pain points. This shift necessitates a move towards human-centric marketing, where the focus is on building genuine relationships and offering real value. For me this is key as we now are so time poor, we have so many distractions, so if you want to gain attention, if you want to resonate with your audience, if you want to engage with them and build a relationship then you need to take the time to understand them.
Understanding Your Audience
As I mentioned above to truly connect with your audience, you must invest time in understanding them on a human level. This goes beyond creating fictional buyer personas; it’s about listening to their challenges, needs, and preferences. Social listening tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social can be invaluable here, helping you gather insights into what your audience is talking about and what matters most to them. For an AI powered tool, Brand24 has the ability to provide deeper insights in real time using sentiment analysis features. Pulsar is another good AI powered tool which helps massively when it comes to audience intelligence and refining messaging strategies.
Creating Authentic Content
Content is king, but not just any content. It needs to be authentic, personalised, and valuable. Whether it’s through blogs, videos, webinars, or social media posts, your content should resonate with your audience by addressing their pain points and offering solutions. Remember, it’s not about selling; it’s about adding value and building trust. By using some of the tools mentioned above you should be able to identify and understand a lot about your audience. This in return should give you the insight and form the basis for you to start to create your content. It’s important to remember, create it for them. Do not create what you think they want, use the tools and insight you have available to you and start to create it, see what resonates and refine from there.
Leveraging AI and Tools Without Losing the Human Touch
While AI and automation tools can significantly enhance your marketing efforts, it’s essential to use them in a way that complements your human-centric approach. AI can help personalise content, automate repetitive tasks, and provide valuable insights, but it should never replace the human element. Here are some ways to integrate AI while maintaining authenticity:
- Personalised Content Recommendations: Use AI to analyse user behavior and preferences, then tailor content recommendations that align with their interests. Why not upload a copy of your buyer personas to co-pilot (other AI platforms available) and ask it “what content would resonate to this buyer persona?”, “Does my brand proposition resonate?”, “Where can I find more of these personas?”, “What content format do they prefer?” etc.
- Automated Outreach: Automate initial outreach efforts to ensure timely and relevant communication, but follow up with personalised, human interactions. For instance you can use a tool like SmartLead to automate your prospecting across email, linkedin and sms whilst generating customised email subject lines. Clever right? Or how about Apollo.io, a great tool that allows you to automate your emails and linkedin outreach, but it will show you the highly engaged leads via its intent data so you can focus on the right leads at the right time.
- Data-Driven Insights: Leverage AI to gather and analyse data, helping you understand your audience better and create more targeted campaigns. Microsoft Power BI uses AI to analyse large amounts of data so that you can understand it, extract the insights and articulate it to others in an easy to digest and visual manner.
The Importance of Emotional Connection
Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in human marketing. Decisions are often made at an emotional level, so it’s important to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Share stories, show empathy, and be genuine in your communications. This will help build stronger relationships and foster loyalty. How about a tool that can detect emotional reactions during calls? Surely every sales team would love this as it would allow them to tailor the conversation and adjust their approach in real time. Emotion AI by Affectiva offers this and much more as it uses AI to analyse voice tone, text sentiment and facial expressions so you can tailor your responses accordingly.
Building Trust Through Consistency
Consistency is key in human marketing. Regularly engage with your audience through meaningful interactions, whether it’s responding to comments on social media, sending personalised messages, or sharing valuable content. This consistent effort will help reinforce your brand’s authenticity and reliability. You can use so many great AI powered tools here like HubSpot and Hootsuite to ensure all of your content is scheduled, chat bots to ensure your audience are engaged and receive authentic communication to get notifications so you can respond in realtime to any audience engagement. For this is key, yes build the consistency, gain the trust but also don’t be afraid to engage. Talk to your audience. In the B2B world you can be a voice too, not just a static logo. Show them the human side of your business and brand.
Conclusion
In the digital age, B2B marketing must evolve to meet the expectations of the modern buyer. By championing human marketing and leveraging AI and tools in a complementary manner, you can create a powerful, authentic connection with your audience. Remember, it’s not about replacing the human touch with technology; it’s about enhancing it to provide a better, more personalised experience.
