The pace of change in the world of B2B is famously rapid, which makes the task of generating impactful strategies difficult: no sooner have you settled on and refined your plan of action going forward than you realize a competitor is achieving results with a technique or tactic you’d never even heard of, let alone mastered. The increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence makes this unavoidable to a degree, but the best thing you can do is cover all bases, frequently refresh your knowledge of the emerging technologies, and commit wholeheartedly to your own tailored, data-driven processes.

Strategic planning and budgeting are essential for companies of all shapes and sizes, whatever business model is favored. But in an increasingly noisy space, it can be a struggle to know what you should be devoting your time and attention to. If you’re a resource-strapped, time-constrained B2B marketer, you might consider using the following innovative approaches to smash your revenue targets in 2019.

Embrace AI to meet customer expectations

None of us can predict the future, but if we learn to better anticipate what prospects and customers want to hear from us, we will achieve better results (and waste less money trying to figure out their expectations). Tech-savvy organizations have already begun to leverage AI and machine learning, using platforms like Genesys Altocloud to drive sales by identifying intent signals and driving segmentation for marketing programs. That intent data can then be passed to sales team and act as the lifeblood of their strategy and interactions. Being able to better predict what buyers are interested in also informs content topic selection, helping you get ahead in search by crafting impactful, query-solving blog posts and how-to videos. With artificial intelligence continuing its meteoric ascent, and predictive analytics improving day by day, the opportunities to incorporate it into your marketing – for lead generation, predictive sales, up-selling and encouraging collaboration – are virtually limitless.

Tomas Gorny is the CEO of Nextiva, a business communications platform which integrates features such as CRM, cloud communication and business intelligence software. Gorny believes that companies must think outside the box to put information customers provide to better use: “To be successful in today’s environment, businesses need to focus less on how customers contact them and more on how the information those consumers provide at every touch point is collected and used. The value for modern businesses lies in providing real-time and actionable information to everyone in their organizations, from front-line employees all the way up to the CEO.”