Q&A with Peter Weinberg, Co-Founder of Evidenza.ai

Sonia David Could you share the pivotal experiences or insights from your career journey particularly during your time at LinkedInamp8217s B2B Institute that inspired or influenced your decision to found EvidenzaaiPeter Weinberg Jon Lombardo and I spent 10 years at LinkedIn researching B2B marketing effectiveness with the worldamp8217s leading experts We learned which marketing decisions generate the best financial performance and we partnered with forwardthinking CMOs to put those principles into practice It was an incredible job But then one rainy day in New York City we started experimenting with AI and we discovered something that shocked us One month later we quit our jobs to start Evidenzaai Weamp8217re still in stealth mode so I will leave it at that but all will be revealed at the ANA Conference in JuneDavid Are B2B buyer behaviors changing and if so how must B2B marketers adaptWeinberg I donamp8217t believe that B2B buying behavior has fundamentally changed in the past 100 years or that it will change in the next 100 years At the end of the day B2B buyers are humans who will always default to easy decisions They will buy brands that come easily to mind and are easy to purchase ie those with mental and physical availability The mechanics of how marketers build mental and physical availability may change but buying behavior wonamp8217tDavid In your experience what are some common misconceptions that marketers have about B2B buyers and how can a deeper understanding of these buyers lead to more effective marketing strategiesWeinberg The biggest misconception in B2B is something we call the amp8220product delusionamp8221 Itamp8217s the idea that companies compete on product superiority and that itamp8217s the job of the B2B marketer to prove that his or her company offers the best product In reality B2B buyers rarely buy the best product or spend much time searching for the best possible solution Instead buyers amp8220satisficeamp8221 and choose the brands that come most easily to mind on Day 1 of the purchase process The most effective B2B marketers ensure the brand gets on that list by running broadly targeted emotional creative But few do that in B2BDavid Given the increasing sizes and complexity of buying groups what strategies do you recommend for marketers to effectively engage and influence these diverse stakeholders throughout the purchasing processWeinberg When it comes to segmentation B2B marketers love to focus on the differences between buying groups Theyamp8217ll create 100 different campaigns that target 100 different personas or amp8220ICPsamp8221 Instead we need to search for similarities What are the common needs of every account and every decision maker Running one big message to one big segment is a much simpler strategy than running 100 messages to 100 segments and simpler strategies are much easier to executive Complex segmentation increases your costs and research shows it doesnamp8217t improve your performance B2B buying may be complicated but B2B marketing should be simpleDavid As AI becomes more prevalent in B2B marketing what considerations do you believe marketers should keep in mind when using AIdriven tools and algorithms to analyze data and automate decisionmaking processesWeinberg I think B2B marketers will quickly discover that AI can do just about anything The question will then become what should marketers ask AI to do For example weamp8217ve learned that AI is extremely good at segmentation AI can split a universe of buyers into 20 discrete segments OR AI can aggregate 20 discrete segments into a single universe of buyers Most marketers will ask AI to do the former but we should be asking AI to do the latter AI can generate creative but should it generate rational productcentric creative or emotional needcentric creative Again most B2B marketers will ask for the former when we should be asking for the latter Marketing departments need to have a clear amp8220Way Of Marketingamp8221 before we can have an amp8220AI Way Of Marketingamp8221Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

Q&A with Peter Weinberg, Co-Founder of Evidenza.ai

Author

Publish date

Channel

John Wolfe

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

Q&A with Peter Weinberg, Co-Founder of Evidenza.ai

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

John Wolfe

TAGS:

Cookies