What Recent Data Shows About The Rising Importance of Human Touch-Points in B2B Marketing
By Lane Ellis
Are the human touch-points we use everyday as B2B marketers taking on greater importance in the face of record levels of digital content touched only by artificial intelligence (AI)?
Facing increasing automation from ChatGPT and other AI-infused tools, B2B marketers are taking a closer look at our truly human touch-points to differentiate in the unique year that 2023 is shaping up to be.
While savvy B2B marketers are sparingly using the power of AI to do more with less, some less sophisticated strategies have turned solely to AI-generated content, making differentiation between human and AI service more important than ever.
Let’s take a look at what recently-published data from industry reports and surveys can tell us about the rising importance of human touch-points in B2B marketing.
[bctt tweet=”“Facing increasing automation from ChatGPT and other AI-infused tools, B2B marketers are taking a closer look at our truly human touch-points to differentiate in the unique year that 2023 is shaping up to be.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis” username=”toprank”]
Touch-Point 1 — Growing B2B Influence
During 2022 some $27.51 billion was spent on online influencer activities, which was a 20.4 percent increase year-over-year, while influencer advertising represented an impressive 4.1 percent of total digital advertising spending during 2022 — a rise of 4.6 percent year-over-year — with 71 percent of brands having said that they expect influencers to play a bigger role in 2023, according to newly-released data from Meltwater’s annual Digital 2023 Global Overview Report.
Increasing focus on influence was listed as one of the top four digital marketing trends in the new 465-page report, which forecast a sizable shift to brands using nano-influencer with smaller niche followings, along with a resurgence of utilizing the digital communities of these influencers to increase ambassadorship.
To learn more about the growing power of B2B influence in the face of both economic headwinds and increased use of exclusively AI-created content, check out our comprehensive free 59-page B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, rich with survey insights, case studies from B2B brands, predictions from top B2B marketing experts, a list of 20 top influencer marketing practitioners from major B2B brands, and much more.
Touch-Point 2 — Standing Out From B2B Chatbots
According to Hootsuite’s most recent annual Social Media Trends 2023 report, some 26 percent of organizations surveyed said that they used chatbots on social and messaging apps, with 53 percent of those who do having implemented the technology during the pandemic.
Hootsuite’s report points out that businesses focusing on digital customer service hold an advantage over those that don’t, however in the B2B sector in particular — with longer buying cycles and generally more touch-points than in the B2C world — brands can also run the risk of relying too heavily on chatbots and other AI …read more
Source:: Top Rank Blog
