Intelligent, AI-Driven Content and Automation is the Future of B2B Digital Marketing
With a substantial investment from Vertu Capital, PathFactory is accelerating and growing its category-leading B2B Intelligent Content Platform.
Yesterday we announced an exciting new chapter in PathFactory’s journey, with a significant new investment from private equity firm, Vertu Capital, that will accelerate our goal of becoming the world’s leading Intelligent Content Platform.
The timing could not be better. We are in the midst of a transformative change in B2B buying, accelerated by the pandemic and enabled by new artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, that are fundamentally changing B2B digital marketing to provide for more self-service and education at every stage in the buying journey.
What are those changes?
A secular shift from in-person to online sales
The pandemic forced sales to move from relying on face-to-face meetings and trade shows to generate business through all digital channels. And that trend is expected to continue. According to Gartner, online procurement of B2B solutions is expected to increase from 49% to 59% by 2023, with website sales surpassing salespeople as the leading source of revenue.
B2B buyers want a B2C experience
We’ve all gotten used to the curated Netflix or Amazon experience of serving up personalized, data-driven content on demand. B2B buyers are no different. They want to take their own content journey, one that anticipates their needs and delivers real-time, relevant information across multiple channels.
An imperative to directly connect marketing dollars to measurable sales outcomes
With digital commerce moving from marketing niche to an enterprise-wide strategic priority, there are heightened expectations to demonstrate how digital content is delivering concrete results in terms of sales conversions and enterprise value.
What does this mean?
Intelligent, AI-driven content and automation is the future of B2B digital marketing
Traditional ‘batch and blast’ or manually curated content can’t meet the needs of increasingly dynamic and complex omni-channel customer journeys. With the average purchaser consuming 13 pieces of content (including five from third-parties), according to FocusVision, multiplied by buying committees of 100+ people, only an intelligent platform can deliver hyper-personalized content, at the right time, at the scale required.
Never has there been a better time to demonstrate the value of marketing
With the increased uptake in digital, the traditional boundaries between marketing and revenue generation are dissolving, according to Forrester, and consolidating into “unified revenue marketing teams that embrace the entire customer life cycle.” Content intelligence helps bring it all together: we are seeing three times (3X) more content consumed per session and six times (6X) the length of sessions when visitors engage with our AI-driven recommendation engine vs those that bounce quickly. These are astronomical and can accelerate the buying process. It also helps sellers understand who to focus on and address them accordingly.
In short, it’s a dynamic and exciting time with significant potential to materially enhance the value of B2B digital marketing to the overall enterprise through intelligent content. We are only at the beginning of this journey, and we look forward to what we can achieve together.
