Pod Insights MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth It's not AI vs. humans, it's Automation vs. Infrastructure About this episode B2B buyers now use AI for 60% of software evaluations, fundamentally changing sales dynamics. Blue Bowen, Research Principal at G2, explains how AI is reshaping buyer behavior and what sales teams must adapt to succeed. The discussion covers shifting from SEO to answer engine optimization for LLM visibility, using AI for account prioritization and signal detection, and automating activity capture to improve data quality for better sales forecasting. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.
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0:53 Speaker 00 Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.
1:15 Speaker 04 60%. Six out of 10 B2B buyers rely on AI in their software evaluation process. Sure, AI helps the sales process. Sales teams are using AI to build more targeted lists to send more personalized outreach. But what about the buyers? AI has vastly changed how they research and evaluate and buy software. If your GTM motion assumes yesterday's buyers will be the same as today, you're ignoring that buyers are searching faster and deeper without a trace. So how do you redesign your GTM when the rules have totally changed? I'm Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Blue Bowen, the Research Principal at G2, the world's largest software marketplace where companies build reputation and drive growth.
1:58 Speaker 04 And today, Blue will share how AI is rewriting B2B buyer behavior and what sales leaders must do to adapt. Blue, welcome to the Martech Podcast.
2:08 Speaker 05 Hey, Ben. Thanks so much for having me.
2:10 Speaker 04 Excited to have you here. So, so many sales leaders are stuck on legacy go-to-market models. When AI has changed the buyer journey, why are we having a hard time thinking about the new way go-to-market should function?
2:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's a great question. I think, you know, people have seen success with old model. And, you know, every day in this world of AI, at the speed of AI, everything's changing so rapidly. So it's really hard to kind of wrap your head around not only what to do, but also how to do it. Especially with a plethora of AI tools out there, it's kind of constantly changing. So I think people are sometimes falling back to that old playbook.
2:48 Speaker 04 I feel like we're kind of using the Titanic as a metaphor here. We're all sort of in these gigantic boats, mostly sort of the enterprise go to market models, where we're trying to steer these large ships, but icebergs are showing up all over the place. Talk to me a little bit about what are the parts of go to market that specifically are breaking? What's falling down and what kind of remains true?
3:14 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think the number one thing that's breaking is the old adage of kind of predictable revenue. Adding more sales reps equals more meetings, more pipeline and more revenue. That's not necessarily the case. We're seeing a lot of kind of AI startups with, you know, 10 total employees reaching levels of revenue that we wouldn't think was possible before. So a lot of how we're orchestrating the pipeline development is changing, as well as how we're enabling the sales reps with training and so on and so forth. So kind of a lot of things are kind of being flipped on its head. But where I'm seeing the most impact and the most utilization of AI in sales right now is more on that pipeline development side of the house.
3:58 Speaker 04 So you published the report on how AI is reshaping go to market and the sales process. Which buyer behaviors matter the most when you're updating your go to market strategy?
4:10 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think the one that's most revealing and that is most transformative is buyers aren't going to your website as much. They're going to LLMs to kind of one shot a solution. What's the best CRM as an example? So that's really having downstream effects on your SEO. They're trying to shift from SEO, search engine optimization. To AEO, Answer Engine Optimization. So you really have to ensure that you have, you know, user-generated content that can be seen by LLMs, such as G2 reviews, and answer the questions that the buyers are asking. So really trying to be like a trusted and valuable resource when you're kind of creating content,
4:53 Speaker 05 rather than solely optimizing just for SEO and clicks.
4:57 Speaker 04 Here's a problem that I have with the difference between SEO and GEO. They're both reliant on having wealth of detailed content, right? And people aren't going to Google and clicking on 10 links. They're going to Gemini or, you know, OpenAI, Anthropic, and they're getting one answer. And maybe there's some citations that eventually link them off to a website. So the click volume is down. But fundamentally, we're still reliant on this great body of content. So why does that change anything? It's still about what content you have published, and there's still some sort of a bot that's crawling your content to find it. How is the SEO versus AEO or GEO or whatever we're calling,
5:40 Speaker 04 getting into LLMs actually making go-to-market any different?
5:44 Speaker 05 I think it's changing. There's less visibility. There's less metrics to be able to showcase, yes, this piece of content, this blog did exceptionally well, because they may not click on those citations that you mentioned. They may, you know, have an over-reliance and over-confidence on the LLMs to produce the right answer, and they're not going to those links. So you aren't getting necessarily attribution for the great content that you produce, and that was well-received by the buyer. So I think that's part of the reason why it's kind of changing a lot, is kind of a lack of visibility there. And so that would be kind of my, one of my things that I would say is how it's changing.
6:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's interesting. It seems like the problem isn't necessarily that first impression to get people to understand your brand's principles and, you know, sort of extract value and understanding from your content. It's the tack on effects. It's the you didn't land on the website, so I can't follow up with you, so I can't enrich your profile, so I can't extract your emails, so I can't send you our newsletter. It's all the sort of supplemental marketing activities, the nurture things that seem like they're struggling, not that top of funnel understanding of who you are. How does this change the the go to market strategy? Are people leaning more into content? Are they trying to find buyers in different strategies? What's the the right process for going?
7:13 Speaker 04 And it seems like there's small teams that have mastered this. Who's working and what works?
7:18 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think it's really about being where your buyers are. So whether that's diversifying where you're producing content. Video is kind of rapidly surging as as a great piece of content form, kind of following, you know, traditionally B two B follows B two C. So we're seeing a lot of infusion of video, multimedia content. But also, it's almost getting back to the basics a little bit. In the report that I published, we saw that vendor responsiveness and support was the third highest factor influencing a final decision of a software purchase, only behind security and pricing, which, you know, as you can imagine.
7:57 Speaker 05 So it's really, you know, when the when the buyer finally does get to your site, when you are able to engage with them, it's streamlining that process through the use of AI potentially. And, you know, communicating efficiently and effectively, not having them jump on calls and jump through hoops and loops just so you can qualify them, perhaps, you know, even just on technographic data. So it's really kind of streamlining that because buyers prefer, and it shows in all of our research year over year, that they prefer to be contacted later in their journey. That means that they're spending the beginning part of their journey, educating themselves, becoming aware of the issues they have, possible solutions to solve that. So when you do finally get
8:39 Speaker 05 A response or a reception or an inbound lead. It's really important to provide an optimal experience for that buyer. So they don't go elsewhere to somebody who responded and followed up immediately.
8:53 Speaker 04 All right, so you've mentioned a couple of different things there. Obviously, price, security, but then responsiveness is one of the most important factors to buyers. Earlier, you said that we're seeing these upstart companies, small teams that are kind of mastering the new wave of go to market. And so there's a disconnect for me of you've got these large organizations with tons of content and tons of resources. You think with tons of content would mean the L L Ms favor them because there's more information about them. Maybe that's not true, but you know, in theory, they've got existing content. So that should help L L Ms understand who they are and prioritize their responses. But we're seeing this sort of rebalancing where small teams can have these great go to markets.
9:37 Speaker 04 Is it that somebody sitting there at a small team just waiting for people to like come to their website and quickly responding to them? There's a disconnect. Why are the small teams so effective with limited resources and limited content?
9:52 Speaker 05 Well, you know, you would think more content equals more visibility is also, you know, the sense of trust and kind of reputation. So it's not necessarily more equals more visibility. So there's some sense there. Also, in terms of, you know, how these AI native companies are growing so rapidly, I think it's allowing buyers or users, similar to like the PLG motions that, you know, we saw with Slack to help them grow so quickly, allowing them to experience the product, maybe not focusing on monetization first, but focusing on proving value earlier on. So having a hands on feel as well as like incorporating. User feedback. I recently read something that like OpenAI,
10:35 Speaker 05 when they were first developing it and now continue to do so like X or Twitter, whatever it's called today, changes so constantly. They are so in tune with what people are saying, whether it's on Reddit, whether it's on X and Twitter, that they're incorporating that and using that as almost like a feedback loop. So all of that user-generated content is being analyzed, listened to, and then kind of acted upon. Rather than a quarterly, you know, feedback session or an annual win-loss analysis. They're doing it much more live rather than, you know, the annual plan or the strategic plan.
11:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, it seems like the the product iteration is actually part of the go-to-market, that you're listening to consumers' feedback, you're developing the right solution. And if you're creating something new, in theory, the LLMs could pick that up in real time and then prioritize your responses. It seems like there's a way to sort of tilt the scales as well, right? The buyers are using AI to do their research and understand which vendors they're most likely going to want to have a relationship with. How are the sellers, the the opposite side of the spectrum, using AI to enhance what they're doing to maximize the return when somebody actually does engage with them?
11:58 Speaker 05 Great question. I think right now we're seeing the most common use cases, as I mentioned earlier, all about pipeline development. So whether that's AI SDRs, whether that's account, like using tools for account selection and account prioritization. So understanding when is the right time to reach out to an account. Perhaps they had some signals out there in the ether, whether that's a funding round, whether that's technographic data being talked about, whether that's an earnings report, a 10K. So kind of using real-time information to prioritize which accounts to reach out to. That may have a higher propensity to buy, maybe showing their willingness that they're in market to buy. So kind of using AI as an assistant to.
12:45 Speaker 05 Alert you as to when is the best time, rather than saying I have a book of business of 100 accounts. I have them in a sequence. It's time for me to follow up with them with kind of generic messaging that, you know, only speaks to your features, not to the prospects, pain points, unique to their business.
13:03 Speaker 04 It seems like there's a level of sophistication with not just targeting and we've got the sort of intense signals that everybody's been looking at for years, but there's also this idea of showing value upfront, being able to deliver. My friend Jordan Crawford is always on the circuit talking about the permissionless value prop. How are marketers basically showing value upfront? Are they able to use AI, be more personalized, but also understand more technical pain points a brand might have?
13:40 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think it's really tricky. I think one of the ways that we're seeing success of those companies is from the very start, from where they're marketing to one that's a signed customer up to renewal, one common story. So rather than, you know, marketing leveraging or speaking solely to the value of X part of the product or platform, and then perhaps as an underutilized value, or perhaps that's not really aligned with the product roadmap in terms of how they're enhancing the product to be more full spectrum. So we're seeing kind of more synergy across go to market, and that does include product. That's part of my report as well as, you know, products shouldn't be a distant neighbor. They should be really integral in the, in the go to market organization.
14:25 Speaker 05 And then also providing kind of firsthand experiences. Gone are the days of you have to be in 10 meetings to get qualified, to explain your pain points, to go through the, the sales reps methodology, not the buyer's methodology, right? Just to be able to get that first demo, be able to see the product, to be able to see the UX, UI. We're shifting that a lot earlier in the process and, you know, enabling buyers to play with the product, you know, before even jumping on a call, whether that's on a product tour on your website if they get there, whether that's embedded in email campaigns and things of those natures.
14:59 Speaker 04 My takeaway from what you're saying is there's a couple of different shifts that are happening. There's the top of the marketing funnel, which is where most of our traffic was coming from, whether it was inbound or organic. We're seeing a shift away from blue links towards GEO or AEO, or whatever we're calling LLM search, which is affecting how we nurture our campaigns, right? We're not getting people to our websites or retargeting campaigns are effective, right? And so we're shifting our mindset in terms of how we attract buyers. But we're able to be more personalized when we are doing our outreach, try to figure out who's in pain, who's looking for our solutions.
15:41 Speaker 04 And so our push mechanisms are a little bit more targeted and effective. We also have a better job of social listening and understanding. When you think about the conversion rate in the sales process, is there anything that has changed with, okay, I've got a fish on the line. How do I reel it in? Are there any go-to-market solutions when you have an interested buyers that are helping the B2B buyers actually improve conversion rates?
16:09 Speaker 05 I think, you know, part of the conversion rate and how that's improving is kind of aim small, miss small. So rather than casting messages to your whole total addressable market, being more pinpointed. So maybe you're not going to try to engage in spam accounts that are showing no interest or no signals. And that kind of helps with conversion rates. So being able to be more deliberate in your outreach, being more tailored to their business problems and how your solutions are going to, you know, solve those is how conversion rates can can help increase. So, you know, the more targeted you are, the more honed in on the account you are, the more account research and contacts you have and engagement across the buying committee,
16:53 Speaker 05 as it's also not, you know, a one-man shop in terms of who's purchasing the software, can all help kind of trickle down the funnel in terms of closed loan revenue.
17:03 Speaker 04 It makes sense that the AI-forward companies are more effective as the go-to-market strategies are moving towards being AI-first. For the companies that are making the migration from being, I don't know what to call them, a traditional company as opposed to an AI-first company, what are the things that you're seeing break first when they try to integrate AI into their go-to-market and sales process?
17:29 Speaker 05 The number one challenge that we've seen with companies trying to use AI in sales, it didn't come as a surprise to me, but I was great to see that the data kind of supported it, is data quality and availability. You know, it's a kind of a chain reaction. If you have bad data in your CRM that you're trying to train your AI to learn on, it's gonna have a bad output. So really, kind of the quality of the data that you have in all of your siloed systems are having a compound effect and kind of undermining the potential that AI has.
18:07 Speaker 04 It makes sense that garbage in is garbage out, right? And if you're starting to think about how to use AI and your house is a mess, guess what, your AI strategy is gonna be a mess. In your report, did people talk about any sort of struggle as they're changing their go-to-market? Tell me a little bit about more what was in the report and how marketers and our sales execs can think about making this migration to be sales AI-led first?
18:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think, you know, one of the main things is kind of an over-reliance on manual data entry still. In our report, we asked, you know, what are the top use cases for how you use AI? Forty, roughly 40% are using it for sales forecasting, revenue forecasting. But an underwhelming amount, in my opinion, are using it for activity capture or data automation, right? So relying on sales reps to log every activity with accounts to be able to forecast if this is viable to commit, if it's gonna close, et cetera. So really, kind of the basis point is reducing that rep friction in the process and having, you know, systems in place.
19:19 Speaker 05 A lot of these companies are already using systems and tools that have that capability. They're just not using it to its full potential. So really, kind of automating the activity capture and the data entry in order to ensure that there's, you know, better garbage in, as you said.
19:33 Speaker 04 This might be a dated reference, but I'm going to quote Office Space here. "Nobody likes filling out their TPS reports," and I think I'm paraphrasing here, not quoting, "but artificial intelligence still hasn't changed the fact that sales reps don't like manual behaviors. And so if you can automate that, you're going to get better quality data with a better output." All right, that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Blue Bowen, the research principal at G2 for joining us. If you'd like to contact Blue, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com, or you could visit his website, which is G2.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or follow us on
20:18 Speaker 04 YouTube and we'll be back in your feed every week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.
20:51 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iHearEverything.com.
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