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Verdi’s AI Content Journey: On using ChatGPT, Bing ChatGPT, and Google Bard AI to create B2B content.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Verdi will be experimenting with AI chat to generate content. Next: ChatGPT-generated blog posts on Account Based Marketing topics.

We will be posting our results on our blog, VerdiVision, on social media, and on our website for the benefit of our clients who are curious to evaluate this exciting new technology.

Spoiler alert: The early conclusion is that Generative AI can be a huge timesaver for B2B content generation. It will not replace strategic thought/leadership content, but with creative guidance that agencies like Verdi can offer, it can generate an enhanced content package—at a fraction of the previous cost. The keys are a well-organized drive calendar, an experienced editor, and access to appropriate SMEs as a sanity check prior to publication.

Programs that are content heavy—like Account Based Marketing (ABM) initiatives—can typically require a content calendar with periodic content slated for four to six job roles at three to four stages of the buyer’s journey, refreshed (at least) quarterly, and versioned for various media. This can easily add up to nearly one hundred separate pieces of content—a daunting task. But with the help of AI and an experienced editor, the creative effort needed to generate this content can be substantially reduced, and the cost to develop it can also be dramatically reduced.

The best news of all may also be the time savings. With a single editor/creator in charge of the project, one hundred pieces of content can be created in a couple of weeks, at the outset of your program, so you can load the content into your marketing automation program and schedule it to go off throughout the year!

And now, for our first AI-assisted blog post, we asked Bing Chat (GPT) to address this question in a blog post:

“Write a blog post about the difference between Google Bard and Bing ChatGPT.”

Here are the (unedited) results:

Google Bard and Bing Chatgpt are two AI chatbots that can answer questions, generate content, and help users with various tasks. They both use large language models (LLMs) to understand natural language and produce responses based on probability and creativity. However, they also have some key differences that make them unique and useful in different ways.

One of the main differences between Google Bard and Bing Chatgpt is their access to the internet. Google Bard can use Google’s search engine to find relevant information from the web and cite its sources[^1^][4]. This means that it can provide more up-to-date and accurate answers to factual questions, as well as more diverse and interesting content. For example, if you ask Google Bard to write a quiz about pop music trivia, it will use the latest news and trends to create relevant questions[^1^][4]. Read More →

Telemarketing: How to double your results from B2B demand generation.

By Ian Heslop – Account Director, The Verdi Group, Inc.

B2B telemarketing is almost always an effective way to generate leads. In more than two decades of involvement in telemarketing programs—as an agent, as a team manager, as a program manager, on the agency side as a production manager, and currently as an account director at The Verdi Group—I have rarely seen a telemarketing program that did not produce qualified B2B leads.

But the programs that really pay off in terms of ROI (for very different businesses)—programs that are continually funded and refunded because of their success—have a number of things in common that contribute to their results.

Successful programs always start with a program brief.
The brief states the goals, the quantitative objectives, and the conditions for success; includes a specific definition of a lead; and articulates how the program will be measured.  The brief sets expectations and identifies potential obstacles.

The brief may be quite extensive or take up only a few paragraphs on a single page, but it will identify:

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What’s the most important factor in B2B lead generation? TIMING!!

You’ve worked out your B2B strategy to generate prospects for your very ambitious sales quota. You have worked with your sales team to identify the ideal candidates for your company’s products and services. You’ve researched the key buying decision-makers and influencers on the buying committee. There was a time when the next step would clearly have been to spend half your marketing budget on a few key shows for your industry—with pre-show mail, email, booth design and tchotchkes to beg, cajole, and entice these juicy potential buyers to visit your show booth, meet with your sales teams, and engage with your show microsites. Timing was a given. Prospects were at the show to shop, and your team was there to sell. And the power of those face-to-face encounters vaulted over several steps in the sales process of converting a prospect to a warm lead. That was then.

This is now. 2021. Almost post-COVID. This year has changed almost everything about the sales process in business-to-business. Prospecting – and its timing – is particularly challenging, without chance meetings at trade shows, networking events and introductions to your customer’s teammates from other departments when you’re on site for a sales or service call. Now we have “virtual” shows, with “virtual prospects” attending, and salespeople are having Zoom conversations with “virtual opportunities” that often never emerge from the shadow world to become real. So what now?

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Post-COVID lead generation: What has changed? Everything!

It would be a mistake to ignore the new reality: The world has gone through an ordeal that has included a serious health threat, personal isolation, business on pause, new government regulation, cash infusion from the government, the close-down of trade shows, close-down and slow start-up of restaurants, and by the way—when we do meet prospects in person, we’re all wearing masks. So yes, life has changed. And of course that has an impact on B2B lead generation, as well.
Prospects are doing more on their own, but they also welcome human contact.
During the worst of COVID, we all feared for our loved ones and learned to work in isolation using our home resources. Coming up to speed with Zoom/Microsoft Teams/Google Hangouts, we realized that our information sources have changed. This is true of marketing and sales departments, but it is also true of your prospects. Prospects were used to looking over a cubicle wall to talk to a coworker or share an opinion about products and services under consideration. Over a cup of coffee they could ask their colleagues about vendors with whom they had positive or negative experiences. This kind of important communication has been missing from the past few months. Meanwhile, they have relied more than ever on visits to websites, web reviews, and emails from people they know.
Salespeople need to start a new conversation with their prospects.
And they may need new tools to do it. Some prospects are still good prospects, ready to pick up where they left off two months ago. Others are in a different place. Their budgets have been reallocated. Their priorities have shifted. Their needs have changed. Your salespeople need to understand where their prospects are today, so they can address the new needs and priorities. As marketers, we need to support this need with data collection, lead requalification, lead nurturing, and tighter integration between sales and marketing. As marketers, we need to develop new content that is relevant to our prospects so we can track (by the content they consume) where they are in the buying continuum.
When priorities shift, opportunities emerge!
Some prospects will want to put the purchase of your product or service on the back burner. Others will see it as more important and more urgent than ever. You need to understand how your lead funnel has changed. And you don’t have to do it alone: Ask your marketing agency to help.
Talk to an agency (like Verdi). From lead requalification to content development and lead nurture, we can help. For marketing automation that allows you to re-score and re-prioritize your old leads, identify new leads, build awareness at the top of the funnel and lead qualification at the spout, your marketing agency can help. If you’d like to understand how we think an agency should assist you in this post-COVID world, perhaps you need a 10-minute conversation with a Verdi representative who is hungry for human contact. Learn more.
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