(Yeah, this is another blog post about (sort of) ABM, AI, and personalization; at Sköna we are pretty excited about the opportunities this next marketing step offers B2B.)

As we say in the homeland (Sweden), ”A beloved child has many different names.” Predictive analytics, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning – it’s all AI. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s AI, and at Sköna, we see a whole industry changing for the better.

Now, finally, we’ll be able to have real-time interactions with our audiences and really personalize the content we send them. Sure, it’s exciting that businesses can use AI to identify what accounts (ABM) and leads are worth going after, but to be able to engage with the customers on a very personal level excites me even more.

With the help of AI, we will be able to better provide relevant content for our clients and prospects as opposed to following what our theoretical persona-mapping is telling us to do. With AI, we can get really personal (and that’s a good thing!). For years we have built personas pretty bluntly. We have painted them in broad strokes, creating content for them, mapping out their journeys; but imagine that instead of, for example, four broad personas, we can now have an indefinite number – a persona for each person.

As Peter Isaacson, CMO at Demandbase, said at Revenue Summit, “…instead of tightening the bond with the audience, the digital revolution has meant the opposite. We have replaced intimacy with volume…” Basically, we throw a lot of stuff to our prospects in the hope that something sticks.

So, in some ways, the digital revolution has moved us further from delivering the right message to the right people. If you compare it to back in the days when a business call was a real meeting, one on one with people. It’s not that hard to deliver the right message when you have the person in front of you. Or as Peter Isaacson said, “while playing a round of golf.”

AI will give us the insight into who our customers are, what they need, what they might do next and their challenges. With AI you will have intimacy at scale, a 1:1 relationship between you and your prospective client. You will be able to engage your audience in a more insightful and human way, creating meaningful experiences and eventually driving stronger brand loyalty.

So, we are moving from one persona to a million. Does that scare us? No, at Sköna we are looking forward to creating content for billion.

Want to learn more? Check out this book: