EverString and Heinz Marketing Explore The State of Artificial Intelligence

Sudipto Ghosh

July 2, 2018

Latest Heinz Marketing and EverString Study Finds that Most Marketers are Currently Using AI to Explore Future Opportunities and Identify Customers Based on ICPs

AI continues to rock the boat for B2B marketing and sales teams. With the growing maturity of AI and machine learning in marketing technologies, marketing and sales intelligence software powered by automated data science is turning into the most reliable business platform. AI is becoming a core component of marketing technology solutions; the promise of AI is not far from the next ‘Big Bang’ in the B2B marketing industry. To ensure marketers have a fair idea of how deep AI runs in the industry, EverString and Heinz Marketing have fielded a joint survey to understand how B2B marketers view AI today and envision using it in the near future.

While the talk of AI is pervasive, B2B Marketers are still just learning about the broad expectations for how AI will help achieve business goals, and are, for the most part, confused about the potential impact on their marketing strategy and overall business performance.

According to Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing, “These findings will help marketers understand how they compare to peers in viewing AI applications and future expectations to create value.”

Setting the Bar Higher: Expectations from AI

On the Current State of AI

59% expect AI to help identify prospective customers.
71% are interested in using AI for personalization and 58% for customization.
Almost 53% say it will improve marketing effectiveness in driving revenue.
About 40% say it will help identify macro market trends and opportunities and make marketing tasks easier.
Over 30% say it will provide more detailed analysis of campaigns.

The Data Quality Problem

21% are very confident in achieving their goals with their current marketing data.

Success: It’s All About Revenue

86% measure success with KPIs tied to pipeline or revenue.

According to Matt Amundson, VP of Marketing, EverString, “Marketers are increasingly measured on their impact and success of revenue generation. Marketing technology that enables revenue performance and customer engagement is more valuable than ever for B2B marketers to hit their goals.”

Matt added, “Once the practical value of AI-powered marketing technologies overtakes the theoretical, we expect the mystery and confusion will dissipate.”

EverString and Heinz Marketing conducted the first-ever survey to understand how B2B marketers view artificial intelligence currently and how they envision using AI as a strategic tool to help meet their goals and objectives. Responses came from over 300 B2B marketing and sales professionals spanning a variety of organizations and industries.