🌍 Did you know that 40% of Millennials and GenZ B2B buyers want a direct and personalized purchase experience much earlier in the process? According to Forrester, the buyers want the offerings specifically tailored to their needs. In talking with a CX expert about personalization, I believe AI provides a unique opportunity for us to disrupt how B2B Product Marketing and Product Management work when it comes to product discovery and go-to-market (GTM). If we don’t use AI to disrupt, firms will quickly lose customers during the pre-sales and renewal process.
🤖 Personalization is the new table stakes for these B2B buyers, requiring Product Marketing to move beyond industry and personas tied to job titles because AI will own this.
Instead, Product Marketing will need to be more strategic:
🗺️ Defining the customer journey early in the discovery process is crucial. Product Marketing must build the customer journey map and deeply understand the customer at the same time as the Product Management team is conducting product discovery. Why? Waiting for the product to be completely defined before building out the go-to-market will put Product Marketing and the company behind the curve in understanding the customer’s emotional touchpoints and language throughout the customer journey.
💗 Customer emotions are becoming a key factor for B2B. According to Salesforce, 86% of customers are more likely to buy, but they feel only 59% of Sales understand what their goals are. Recognizing the underlying emotional goals, the roadblocks, and the language customers use throughout the customer journey will affect how Sales and Marketing personalize the conversation. The blurring of consumer and business experiences for Millennial and GenZ buyers will become the deciding factor for whether firms win or lose the customer, creating greater expectations for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success.
💰 Personalization is strategic and profitable. Tighter integration between Product Management and Product Marketing teams puts the focus on identifying unexpected gaps to close or opportunities to pursue sooner in the GTM process. Product Marketing can harness AI to customize and test new messaging and offerings in the hands of Sales and Marketing sooner. This allows the firm to strategically differentiate itself from the competition, drive sales and retention, meet the customers where they are, build trust, and deliver profitable outcomes.
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