A year ago, I wrote an article What Happens When B2B Buyers Start Using ChatGPT? That ship has sailed. The 2024 State of Business Buying report from Forrester finds that 89% are currently using AI in at least one area of their purchase process. And even more buyers anticipate using GenAI to support their decision and purchase process in the next 12 months.
You all know ChatGPT search became available to all GPT users last month. Perplexity has been around for 2 years.
The good news is that search results include relevant links. Hopefully, to your content.
The opportunity for B2B marketers is to make sure the context, relevance, and intent of your content aligns with the AI search queries from buyers.
Here’s a thought: What if we help our buyers learn how to use AI to make better buying decisions?
Stay with me…
I know your first response may be, why would we do that? What if the LLM suggests everyone but us? Or even thinking that’s like giving them the list of all our competitors…even if it includes us.
What? You don’t think they have that already? Or, if not, that they’ll soon have that list provided by the GenAI of their choice?
Here’s what I’m suggesting: Create a prompt guide to buying evaluation for [solution category].
But not just a list of questions. They can get that.
What they may not know is what answers they should be looking for or why they’re important to the bigger-picture outcomes they’re trying to achieve in answer to their company’s business objectives.
I’m still a strong believer that we need to validate what the LLMs tell us. Depending on how buyers write prompts, it’s very possible that the answers won’t speak directly to what your buyers need to know.
If you’ve used ChatGPT much, you already know that a subtle difference in how you ask it a question can return completely different results. Something as simple as punctuation can change how it answers, for example.
Now think about the 13 – 20 people on the buying committee who could be on an LLM asking their own versions of questions and coming back to the conversation with conflicting information.
Can you imagine the heavy lift that will make for gaining consensus on a shortlist… Ugh.
B2B buyers want buying to be easier. Yet technology and markets are changing so quickly that—even if they’ve bought a solution in the category before—things have changed. Dramatically.
Your buyers may not know what they don’t know they don’t know. Therefore, they have blind spots they may not uncover during their research and evaluation process.
Why not step up to be the mentor they need by helping them ace their use of AI?
Create a prompt guide that provides questions, the rationale for asking them and insight for how to evaluate the answers or even additional prompts to help refine their answers.
Yes, it’s a bold move. But let’s look at why it could be valuable for both you—and your buyers.
Positive Outcomes from Helping B2B Buyers Use AI Better
Creating a comprehensive prompt guide for buyers helps improve your marketing’s impact by:
- Showing you know and understand your buyers and customers.
- Displaying your expertise strengthens your brand awareness and credibility.
- Helping to ease the frustration most buyers experience improves how they feel about the experience of buying—which comes back to you.
- The guide you create produces a content storyline you can flesh out with content assets – thereby increasing your chances of being in the LLMs answers to the prompts.
- Your buyers’ confidence grows as they have a way to confirm the LLMs answers.
Caveats to Consider
For marketers who think the sun rises and sets around their products, you’ll need some restraint. Maybe a lot.
The only way this approach will work is to make the guide agnostic. Any noticeable bias will render the guide as marketing fluff or a sales pitch.
You’ll also need a depth of relevant, current buyer insights (ideally from well-built buyer personas) to build the guide. And you’ll need to include questions that match the context of buying group members.
So, it’s not a piece of cake…but here’s the beauty…
On the upside, you’ll get to:
- Display the knowledge you have of your buyers and what they care about.
- Take a thought leadership approach to your content (which buyers value)
- Share why you built the product the way you did – to solve sticky problems.
- Show them how your expertise will contribute to getting the outcomes they want.
- Drop links to the content you developed from the storyline your guide provided to help them learn more about you—if they want to. (Remember, they’re driving the experience)
In a world where B2B buyers use AI to inform their buying process, you can either get onboard and make that work in your favor, or you can hope you show up in the LLM’s answers.
Which way seems more likely to impact your chances of getting on more buyers’ Day 1 lists when they come in market?
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