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Ai Content Marketing Tools: A Super Suit for Modern Marketers

AI Content Marketing Tools: A Supersuit for Modern Marketers

May 31, 2023/in B2B Marketing Blog, Content Marketing /by Alexis Ford
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B2B marketers hold divergent views on the recent advancements in AI-based content marketing tools. On the one hand, some marketers embrace these tools as a way to accelerate the creative process. For these marketers, these AI-based tools act as a content creation super suit that helps them in various aspects of their job, such as:

  • Brainstorming topics for blogs.
  • Synthesizing information for background research.
  • Finding alternative ways to paraphrase statements for taglines and other short-form copy.
  • Refining their tone in accordance with brand guidelines.
  • Creating unique imagery that stands out from the bad stock images that plague most of today’s content.

Other marketers are reluctant to use these tools because they blur the line between whether a human or a machine owns the creative output. They see these tools as an artificial shortcut to creativity. In some sense, they’re right. AI cannot replace a human marketer’s capacity for storytelling and creativity. At the same time, the resistance generated by these marketers ultimately limits their ability to perform at their highest potential.

To illustrate this last point, let’s consider a hypothetical longitudinal study of two B2B marketers. The first is an early adopter of various AI-based content marketing tools since 2010, starting with Grammarly. The second ignores, or at least disparages, every AI tool that comes to market.

Before diving into their journeys, however, let’s first take a look at the history of AI tools that impact the creative process, as this impact goes farther back than 2023.

A Brief History of AI Writing Tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence” (Oxford English Dictionary). AI, as we know it today, is relatively new, but it has existed in some less sophisticated forms for decades. And it’s been helping to shape the creative process that entire time.

 

The Impact of AI Tools: A Tale of Two Marketers

To understand the impact of embracing or ignoring AI on a B2B marketer career progression and skill development, let’s look at two hypothetical individuals: AI Allie and Laggard Larry.
Both Allie and Larry graduated in 2005 and entered the field of digital marketing. However, their approaches diverged significantly. Allie embraced a super-suit powered by AI-based technologies, while Larry chose to rely solely on his own knowledge and skills.

Marketer 1: AI Allie

In 2005, Allie began her career as a marketer. Her role consisted predominantly of creating email and website copy. At the time, she used the latest tools available from Word and other similar word processors. Rudimentary AI-based tools like spell checkers and autocorrect made her confident in her ability to create clean, error-free content.

Fast forward to 2010, Allie joined a new company with a tech-forward CMO. He introduced the team to Grammarly to help them produce cleaner, more concise content. Allie was initially skeptical, worried that Grammarly might take away from her writing style. However, Allie discovered when using Grammarly that she received fewer edits from her team lead on what she wrote, reducing the time spent on revisions.

At the same time, Allie’s team was trying to improve organic search rankings. They started using tools like Google Analytics to gain insights into visitor behavior on their website. These insights helped educate the marketing team as to how they could optimize the website. When Google and SEMrush released AI enhancements for SEO analysis in 2017 and 2018, Allie’s team was already immersed in these types of tools and quickly began to use them to their advantage.

Google’s “Analytics Intelligence” enabled Allie’s team to track individual visitor behavior and use predictive analytics. Predictive analytics let the team segment audiences more effectively, identify new audiences based on their similarities with current audiences, and create more targeted, personalized content to appeal to any target audience.

Allie’s team also used SEMrush’s AI capabilities to enhance their SEO efforts. By leveraging SEMrush, the team was able to target more relevant keywords and that led to increased and more relevant website traffic.
In 2022, Allie explored how AI content assistants like Jasper and Copy AI could help increase the team’s productivity. While initially skeptical about the promise of creating a blog from an idea in seconds, Allie realized their potential for generating “seed” content that her team could shape into something greater. So, while these tools couldn’t quite yet deliver fully on the promise they pushed, they could accelerate the team’s content creation efforts in a few foundational ways.

Today, as a seasoned digital content marketer with over 15 years of experience, Allie is adept at leveraging data and insights to drive impactful marketing strategies. She has consistently embraced technology throughout her career, equipping herself and her team with tools that accelerate their efforts.

Marketer 2: Laggard Larry

Now, let’s turn our attention to Larry. When Larry started his first job in 2005, he, like Allie, took advantage of spell check and autocorrect features in Microsoft Word to create clean email and website copy.

However, in 2010 when more sophisticated content editors, such as Grammarly, became popular, Larry shunned them. He felt uncomfortable with a non-human editor telling him how to improve his content. Instead, Larry and his team continued using their internal editing process, where the team lead would review his writing and redline it with edits. Despite going through multiple rounds of edits, Larry and his managers were happy with the style and personality of his finalized pieces.

However, Larry’s team realized that despite their best efforts, what they wrote wasn’t ranking well in Google, prompting them to start doing keyword research. Instead of investing in a tool to guide them, Larry’s manager initiated a time-consuming project where they compared their messaging with competitors’, identified gaps, and enlisted the sales teams to better understand customer search preferences. It was an arduous process that took months. But they finally ended up with a spreadsheet of more than two hundred key phrases they needed to target.

Then, they began optimizing their content and website for these keywords, resulting in some growth in website traffic and leads. However, the outcome fell short of their expectations, considering the effort spent gathering and organizing the information.

In 2022, Larry assumed leadership of the marketing team. During a team meeting, the topic of ChatGPT and LLM enabled tools arose. One of the marketers joked that the AI takeover in marketing had begun. Larry dismissed the remark, asserting that AI tools cannot replace human ingenuity and flair.

Today Larry, like Allie, is a veteran digital content marketer. Yet, after 15 years, his processes and mindset haven’t changed much. He spends hours each week:

  • Manually sifting through spreadsheets trying to divine what customers might search for regarding his company’s products and services.
  • Reviewing and editing grammar, phrasing, and trying to condense content.
  • Managing a content review process that involves only humans, and many layers of review.

The AI Difference

Throughout his career, Laggard Larry missed many opportunities to empower himself and his team with tools that could make them more effective at their jobs. In fact, nearly 20 years into his career, he’s still primarily guessing at what will work to attract and convert leads.

By contrast, AI Allie’s super suit makes it easy for her to both outpace and outperform Larry, at every step.

Suit Up: Boost Your B2B Marketing Using AI

Here are just a few of the ways Allie uses her super suit to create meaningful marketing efforts.

Idea Generation

Crafting exceptional content starts with a brilliant idea. Generating great ideas can be challenging, particularly in niches where new or unique ideas are scarce. Even when that isn’t the case, sometimes you just don’t have the mental energy to conjure up an exciting idea. Call it a symptom of the human condition, that sometimes even a Redbull or double espresso can’t fix.

Fortunately, AI-powered content tools can help you find unique topics that resonate with your audience. Moreover, tools like ChatGPT can effortlessly steer you towards intriguing content creation paths, providing valuable guidance along the way.

For example:

ChatGPT Title Generator

Research

Once you have a compelling idea and perspective, the next step is to find credible sources of information that substantiate your unique viewpoint.

For example, ChatGPT allowed me to quickly develop a comprehensive timeline of AI-enabled tools, and it do so far quicker than stitching together results from various Google searches.

When I needed more detail on specific tools, I asked follow-up questions, which provided me with detailed answers. Even after fact-checking the information via Google searches, ChatGPT significantly reduced the amount of time I needed to to invest in the research process.

ChatGPT Research

Outline/First Drafts

But can these tools expedite the process of transforming an idea to a first draft?

Indeed, many AI-based tools released in the last few months streamline the process of going from outline to rough draft in a few clicks. Some even allow you to start with a title for your piece, leaving the tool to handle the rest.

An excellent example of a tool that supports these types of workflows is Copy.ai. Their blog wizard enables you to swiftly progress from idea to outlining to crafting the initial draft in a very short timeframe.

Finally, even if the initial output generated by a tool like Copy.ai isn’t precisely what you want, you can always refine the results by fine-tuning inputs and parameters to reach a more ideal state.

Copy.ai outline

Don’t Trip Over Your Cape

A super suit is an accessory, not a superhero. But even so, super heroes who know how to use their super suit well, like Batman, Buzz Lightyear, and IronMan, tend to accomplish great things.

Hence, AI-based tools still need humans to drive them. Hopefully that human is a great marketer who already has the right skills and just hopes to reach a new level of achievement.

Yet, a super-suit can create challenges. For example, the first time IronMan put on his suit, things didn’t go as planned.

Here are just a few of those challenges.

Generic Language/Lack of Creativity – Even the most capable AI-based content tool tends to write copy that is grammatically correct, but it tends to lack the creative finesse that a human touch can bring. These tools aren’t as adept at leveraging analogies or metaphors as well as a human might.

Inaccuracies – By definition, tools such as ChatGPT, and GenML are only as good as the data they are given to leverage. Given everything on the internet isn’t true, this can create what the OpenAI team calls “hallucinations” whereby tools like ChatGPT provide false or misleading information. Given you don’t want your writing based on hallucinations (typically), you’ll need to be on the lookout for these types of AI daydreams.

Lacking Source Citations – AI-based tools don’t tend to cite their sources. Even if the generated content is valid, the absence of source citations hinders its credibility. If an AI-based tool says that 65 percent of marketers are using AI tools to boost their content pipeline but doesn’t cite where that information originated from, it’s crucial that you source that fact. This ensures that your inclusion of that data point is valid and credible.

Put on Your Marketing Super Suit

AI-based content assistants are continuing to evolve, and a marketer who fails to get used to wearing a super-suit will be left behind. Worse yet, while you’re falling behind personally, your team, company, clients, or partners will feel the pain as well.

Instead of falling behind, we suggest that you embrace tools like Google Bard, ChatGPT, Copy.AI, Jasper.AI, and many, many others. Not blindly, but wisely. For those who do, their work will be easier, more well rounded, powerful, and completed quickly.

And to us that’s a fair trade, even if it means working with a partner that isn’t quite – well let’s say – human.

B2B Thought Leadership Content

B2B Thought Leadership Content: How to Back up Your Opinion With Facts

July 15, 2021/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Thought Leadership, Blog Posts, Content Marketing, Marketing Enablement /by Raeann Bilow
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Thought leadership is one of the most effective types of content that a B2B marketer can deliver. When done right, B2B thought leadership content offers readers new and relevant information and helps them to make smarter decisions.

Successfully creating an effective thought leadership piece is no easy feat, however. Data and research findings need to be presented in a way that is transparent, credible, and trustworthy. The data then needs to be woven into an engaging narrative. Finally, this narrative has to drive the prospect to take action.

What is B2B Thought Leadership Content?

As the term “thought leadership” has grown in prevalence and popularity over the years, marketers have gradually taken on their own interpretations of what it means and how it can work for them. Worse yet, many marketers have started to call any content thought leadership, regardless of whether it includes an independent and data-backed viewpoint.

Given the existing confusion about thought leadership efforts, it’s important to take a second to formally define what thought leadership content is.

The 2020 Annual Report on B2B Thought Leadership describes thought leadership content as “free deliverables that organizations can produce on a topic they know a lot about and feel that others can benefit from having their perspective on.” Such deliverables can include:

  • Whitepapers.
  • Blog posts.
  • Website copy.
  • Conference or webinar decks.

Creating this type of content allows companies to position themselves as the go-to resource on a particular subject. It elevates their brand awareness and improves the overall perception of the company.

Developing thought leadership content is a long-term strategy that takes significant time and effort to successfully establish. Once it’s set in place, however, companies can begin to see substantial business benefits.

B2B Thought Leadership Creates Big Business Benefits – But Only If Done Well

B2B buyers love to be educated. Because the solutions B2B buyers purchase are complex and expensive, these buyers are also risk-averse. These same characteristics lead these buyers to distrust typical marketing and instead turn to thought leadership content, which is inherently less biased (when done correctly).

For example, almost half of B2B decision-makers spend at least an hour consuming thought leadership content per week, according to the 2020 Annual Report on B2B Thought Leadership.

Additionally, about half of B2B decision-makers say thought leadership content influences their purchasing decisions. These decision-makers say that strong thought leadership content not only strengthens a company’s reputation, but also “positively impacts RFP invitations, wins, pricing and cross-selling that occurs post-sale.”

These same decision-makers report that there is very little high-quality thought leadership content that is actually being produced. In fact, only 17% of B2B decision-makers rate the quality of most of the thought leadership they read as very good or excellent. This poorly-executed thought leadership content can actually lead decision-makers to remove a potential vendor or partner from consideration.

Clearly, there is a substantial discrepancy between the amount of time that B2B buyers spend consuming thought leadership content vs. the amount of high-quality thought leadership content they feel is available. This discrepancy creates an opportunity for companies to become truth tellers simply by producing thought leadership content that is centered on real-world research.

5 Ways to Boost Your B2B Thought Leadership Content Credibility

Creating high-quality thought leadership content that is both compelling and credible can be a delicate balancing act. First, you must be able to share your opinion in an engaging way that captures people’s attention.

At the same time, you must also present any research findings in a way that is ethical, transparent, and credible. Maintaining such credibility is critical to establishing your company as a legitimate thought leader within any industry.

Here are five suggestions to help maintain this balance throughout a thought leadership piece:

1. Clearly delineate between your opinion and a market fact.

Your opinion and actual truths about the market are different. Readers always know when you are trying to turn an opinion into a fact. It signals to them you may have ulterior motives: to simply convince them to agree with your opinion, rather than to be presented with interesting and relevant research. Your attempt to twist an opinion into a fact undermines your trustworthiness, negating any benefit that could come from publishing thought leadership.

For example, you may believe that product managers would benefit from utilizing a particular software tool. Stating that opinion as a fact, without any data to support it, can come across as untrustworthy.

Obviously, opinions aren’t a bad thing to have. You may have a unique perspective on the market that is experience-based. Just don’t confuse that opinion with a fact. If you do, readers will make you pay for that mistake with fewer clicks, conversions, and leads.

2. Only draw conclusions from numbers that are significant.

Readers understand which percentages are significant and which are not. They can tell if you are drawing strong conclusions based on a number that really just doesn’t justify your claims.

For example, if 19% of people indicate that they’d like to see a particular solution come to market, that’s not a substantial enough percentage to state that there is a need to bring such a solution to market.

Additionally, it is important to draw conclusions only from an audience that is actually relevant to the findings. For example, if 80% of people want a solution to come to market, but none of those surveyed are buyers with purchasing power, then that would not be a reliable indicator of a solution that the market is demanding.

Although you may be looking for certain data to back your opinion or hypothesis, don’t try to force it if the data simply isn’t showing it. Hiding behind a weak number or the wrong audience, and hoping the reader won’t notice, will only result in lost credibility.

One other way that this plays out is when companies use what some call “weasel words.” These are words that seem to imply that something is true, when it might not be.

Here are just a few examples to look out for in your own content:

  • Many organizations feel that a CRM platform is crucial to their sales team’s success.
    What is “many” in this context? Is it 50.5%, 75%, or 90%?
  • A number of buyers told us that an easy to use API is important to them.
    How many is a “a number of buyers?” Was it the majority?
  • Relatively few organizations look for alternatives to XYZ after the 1st year.
    What does “relatively” mean? Does it imply a specific percentage, the majority, the minority, or something else entirely?

3. Opinions from customers > Opinions from you.

Letting the world see real customer insights is one of the most captivating parts of a B2B thought leadership study. The thoughts of your leadership team are simply not as intriguing to readers as the thoughts of your customers, prospects, and competitor customers. For that reason, including quotes from prospective, current customers, and competitor customers are some of the most valuable pieces of insight you can include in a thought leadership study.

For example, a client of ours recently had a hypothesis that workers would prefer a hybrid model (working partially from home and partially in the office). Our research confirmed this hypothesis. Specifically, we found 79% of respondents reported a hybrid work model was important to them.

Since we conducted a number of in-depth interviews in addition to our survey, we were also able to include powerful quotes to reinforce the statistic. Interviewees not only shared that they would prefer this type of work model, but also why they liked it, how it benefited them personally, and other opinions on hybrid models. These quotes gave life to the paper, resulting in a more engaging final piece.

4. Keep the respondent’s intent in mind.

When creating and asking questions, never twist those questions around in a certain way to get the responses that you want. Questions should be asked fairly with minimal bias or leading on your part. Similarly, when participants answer the questions, their responses should never be taken out of context so that it is no longer an accurate reflection of what the person actually meant.

Understand your respondent’s intent and where they are coming from when they are making a point. Their claim should never be skewed to the point of no longer conveying their true intention.

5. Does your opinion span beyond conventional wisdom?

Oftentimes, we hear clients deliver what they believe to be a differentiated opinion. In actuality, this opinion is somewhat of a generally accepted belief. As such, it wouldn’t be worthwhile to build a thought leadership piece around a concept that potential readers would already consider to be common knowledge.

For example, AWS isn’t delivering thought leadership pieces about how the cloud is replacing on-premises. That’s something that’s been known for over a decade now. This problem can affect startups as well. Startups often broadcast that they are doing something “no one has ever done before,” sometimes screamed in all caps on their site. Yet, that usually isn’t true.

In sum, the point of view you are trying to convey in a B2B thought leadership piece should be truly differentiated and unique in order to establish yourself as a thought leader in your space.

Find the Right Guide for Your B2B Thought Leadership Effort

Sometimes you need to consult an expert outside of your organization to guide your thought leadership effort. This guide should be able to ground your thought leadership in research, providing credibility and relevance with real-world insights. Additionally, they should know how to mobilize it in an effective marketing campaign to engage your target buyers.

An ideal guide can help you:

  • Understand upfront which topics would be most relevant and beneficial to research for your thought leadership piece, based on what is trending in your industry.
  • Design research questions around specific pain points that your company’s solution is well-positioned to help solve. Additionally, the right guide can focus questions around key takeaways that can produce headline-grabbing research findings.
  • Deliver a final thought leadership piece that reports on the research findings in a compelling and engaging way, while integrating your company’s point of view throughout.

Facts are Stubborn Things

John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Your buyers want you to be stubborn in the pursuit of the truth. They want you to be stubborn in the pursuit of the facts. And they want you to be clear about what is opinion and what is fact in everything you write.

So, here’s a homework assignment: take a look at the B2B thought leadership content on your site. How much is opinion, and how much is fact? Is it full of weasel words like “possibly” or “more”? How often is an insight bent so far that it no longer quite resembles the truth anymore?

Once you’re done, give yourself an honest grade. And if it isn’t passing, give us a call. We can help get you an A.


Cascade Insights is a hybrid market research and marketing firm that specializes in the B2B tech sector. We conduct powerful research that can be used to develop compelling B2B thought leadership content. For more information on thought leadership, visit What Is Thought Leadership.

Special thanks to Cascade Insights Co-Founder & CEO Sean Campbell and Chief of Staff Philippe Boutros for advising on this piece.

B2B Thought Leadership: How To Use Data Effectively

B2B Thought Leadership: How To Use Data Effectively

January 1, 2021/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Thought Leadership, Blog Posts, Content Marketing, Marketing Enablement /by Isabel Gautschi
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B2B Thought Leadership Research is a tried and tested go-to for marketers who want to increase their brand’s reputation and authority in the B2B technology sector. But, in all honesty, B2B Thought Leadership is very hard to get right. Too often, thought leadership initiatives either fail to capture interest, trust, or both.

While we agree that leveraging research to create powerful marketing assets is a smart move, we often see the marketing angle overpowering the quality of the research. Or, good research presented poorly.

With unfortunate frequency, data is leveraged sloppily or unethically to make an obviously biased claim or thinly-veiled sales pitch. This undermines credibility and the thought leadership initiative.

Even the more ethically-minded can struggle with effective thought leadership when they fail to synthesize a compelling storyline out of a pile of data.

From a firm that specializes in market research and messaging for B2B tech marketers, here are some guidelines to make sure your next B2B thought leadership initiative is successful.
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B2B Messaging Framework

People-Pleasing Is Not a Good Messaging Strategy

November 19, 2019/in B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Messaging, Blog Posts, Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy /by Sean Campbell
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To develop a solid B2B messaging framework, you need to make some tough decisions. You also need to disappoint some people while delighting others. Sadly, too few companies do this. In all cases, this inability to commit leads to poor messaging and poor marketing. 

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B2B Content Strategy

“I Have No Idea What Your Product Does”: A Cautionary Tale of Marketing Buzzwords

November 19, 2019/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Messaging, Blog Posts, Content Marketing, Message Testing Research /by Isabel Gautschi
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Yes, yes, I see that your solution will enhance my ROI and accelerate something or other while also optimizing and transforming my business. But, um, what does it do?  If your B2B content strategy doesn’t include the prohibition of buzzwords, you may want to rethink your messaging. Read more

Does it Sell? Content Marketing Tips

Does It Sell? Content Marketing Tips

June 5, 2017/in B2B Customer Journey Mapping, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Content Marketing /by Sean Campbell
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How successfully does your content sell your product or service? Do you know how to evaluate that success? We’ve got some content marketing tips for how to effectively measure the efficacy of your efforts.

Read more

Written by

Sean Campbell
Sean Campbell
Isa Gautschi
Isabel Gautschi

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