After 20 years delivering B2B marketing strategies in the IT industry, Zoe founded Bright to help tech and consulting firms get the most from their marketing investment. Using agile marketing to test, learn and build on success. Zoe leads the team in delivering results through continual and focused improvements in order to support client’s business goals. A huge foodie and committed turophile – Zoe counter balances this with gymming, running and walking.
Not the buzz. Not the endless opinion pieces. But the very real performance divide opening up between B2B marketing teams who are experimenting with AI, and those who are embedding it into how they actually work.
27% of global CMOs admit their teams aren’t really using AI at all (TechMonitor).
Meanwhile, commercial teams are blending AI with customer experience and according to McKinsey are 1.7× more likely to increase market share.
This isn’t just a tech trend. It’s a strategic marketing shift.
The AI accelerators vs. the AI avoiders
Let’s be honest: every leadership team says AI is on their radar. But in practice, we’re seeing two camps emerge:
1. The Experimenters
Curious, but cautious. Teams dipping their toe in with the odd content assistant or AI generated image. But no strategic fit. No real integration and still asking ‘where does this actually belong and add value?’
2. The Accelerators
They’ve moved past pilots. They’ve embedded AI into campaign planning, content operations, and optimisation processes. They’ve built confidence and they’re gaining ground fast.
In fact, Deloitte found that 42% of top-performing B2B firms say AI is “critical” to their future competitiveness.
What’s holding others back?
From our work across fintech, SaaS, publishing, and industrial sectors, we’re seeing four big blockers that keep organisations stuck in experimentation limbo:
Skills and confidence gaps – across the whole team, not just senior leadership
Governance paralysis– fear of “getting it wrong” overrides the need to try
Unclear use cases– too many tools, not enough strategic focus
Scepticism on ROI – because we’ve all seen the martech hype fall flat
What the high-performers do differently
The B2B teams making AI work aren’t just tool-savvy, they’ve rethought how they operate. Three things stand out:
Cross-functional AI squads– blending marketing, ops, data, compliance and legal. No more innovation stuck in silos
Meaningful investment in AI literacy– not just a one off webinar. Structured training that includes prompt engineering, model interpretation and even ethical training for campaign planning
Agile ways of working– the real differentiator. Agile gives teams the framework and guardrails to test tools in live campaigns, measure what works, and scale quickly without the faff.
From theory to traction
Real world examples we’re seeing working right now:
A global publishing firm using agentic AI to build a new persona and create highly tailored content for a new market segment.
A global payroll and HCM solution provider integrating video AI tools to halve production time (and cost) for their quarterly internal marketing show reel production
A global industrial machinery firm is using generative AI tools to translate complex product specs into customer-friendly content at speed – to improve ad campaign performance and unlock localisation that used to take weeks.
These aren’t vanity projects. They’re operational advantages being built sprint by sprint.
This is a leadership moment
Marketing leaders have a choice to make.
Treat AI as a side project for “when we’ve got time” or we can treat it as what it really is – a lever for improving performance, agility and team effectiveness right now.
At Bright, we help teams bridge the gap. Not just by adopting and integrating the right tools, but by reshaping how marketing works, so AI becomes part of the engine.
That means:
Mapping your current AI maturity (and be honest about it!)
Identifying the workflows where AI can actually drive value and measure it
Giving your team the skills, space, and support to experiment with purpose.
Because in this era of B2B marketing, experimentation isn’t the goal. Transformation is.
What about your team?
What’s the reality in your team right now – are you experimenting or accelerating? What would help you move faster, with more confidence?
Want to get more value from Agentic AI?
If you want to Make AI work for you B2B marketing team and not just add more tools to your tech stack, download our AI Activation Framework.
We talk a lot about doing the right thing with AI.
But in B2B marketing, knowing what’s the right thing isn’t enough. We need to build it into how we work.
Because if we want to earn trust in the AI era, we can’t treat ethics and governance like a one-off workshop or a slide in a risk pack. They have to show up in our workflows, in our stand-ups, the sprints and the day-to-day decisions.
That’s where brand trust is built or broken.
Don’t bolt governance on. Build it in.
As AI use ramps up across marketing, we’re seeing the risks rise too – biased outputs, non-compliant targeting, hallucinated content.
Not because marketers are careless or reckless. But because processes haven’t kept up with the tools.
A recent Salesforce report showed that 68% of consumers say AI makes it more important than ever for companies to be trustworthy. Thanks to the EU AI Act, trust is no longer just a brand promise, it’s part of your compliance checklist.”
But governance doesn’t mean slowing down. In fact, done right it helps you move faster, with fewer (nasty) surprises, clearer decision making and more confident launches.
Use retrospectives not just for performance reviews, but for ethical checks. → Did any AI outputs raise red flags? → Was customer data used appropriately? → Were any decisions made by AI that need a second look?
2. Transparent user stories
When scoping AI tasks in your backlog, make the ethical implications explicit. → “As a campaign manager, I want to use AI to personalise content without profiling based on sensitive characteristics.”
3. Bias checks = part of QA
Don’t leave it to the data team. Embed basic fairness checks into your review process across your teams. → Spot gendered language in AI copy. → Challenge assumptions in segmentation or recommendations.
4. Approval flows for AI outputs
Fast doesn’t mean free-for-all. Define what must get human sign-off – whether that’s automated campaign triggers, AI-generated images or model-driven pricing decisions.
5. Governance rituals
Just like stand-ups and planning meetings, set recurring checkpoints for AI ethics. Create a shared scorecard or checklist. Use it regularly, not reactively.
Agile governance = scalable trust
At Bright, we help teams work in ways that support ethical marketing best practice.
We don’t run one off ethics audits. We help you turn governance into repeatable processes. That’s how agile marketing works best as an enabler not bolted on.
Because agile marketing isn’t just about pace—it’s about make confident, data driven decisions That you’re doing the right thing and that your team can move fast andbuild trust in your brand – not break it.
How we help:
Embed AI governance into sprint planning, reviews and retros
Define agile-friendly usage policies for AI and automation tools
Co-create internal ethics scorecards to use in QA and approvals
Train teams to spot risks early and manage them.
We’ve seen this work across publishing and events companies using AI to generate insight-led content, to manufacturing marketers localising technical content at scale. The common thread? Strong, agile marketing foundations that turn ethics from theory into a habit.
Over to you. How are you building AI governance into your team’s way of working?
If you’re just starting or already deep into it, let’s compare notes. Because governance is only a blocker if it sit outside your processes and workflows.
Want to get more value from Agentic AI?
If you want to Make AI work for you B2B marketing team and not just add more tools to your tech stack, download our AI Activation Framework.
As B2B marketers, we’re deep into the next phase of AI. The focus has shifted from experimentation to activation – from tools to transformation. At our latest Bright Marketing Leaders Dinner, we brought together a brilliant group of marketing and business leaders to explore what it really takes to embed generative and agentic AI in marketing, and, crucially, to prove the value.
We were also joined by Max Gabriel CEO at Augmented AI who provided an expert perspective on where Agentic AI is going and how marketers can start to operationalise it so that agents take care of the repetitive stuff and marketers can shift focus to what really matters: strategy, creativity and meaningful engagement.
Held at Noble Rot in Mayfair, the evening centred on three practical questions:
Where is AI delivering value right now?
How are we measuring its impact?
What’s standing in the way of scaling it?
Here’s what came out of the discussion – grounded insight from leaders in the thick of it. One thing was clear: agentic AI is still in its infancy, with most teams only experimenting with application-based AI or single-purpose agents in isolated use cases, but there’s a shared ambition to understand, operationalise, and scale its role across marketing as quickly as possible.
Agentic AI: From automation to intelligent collaboration
There was strong consensus around the table: we’re past the point of automation for automation’s sake. The conversation has shifted to how AI, specifically agentic AI, can act as a collaborator, not just a tool. These agents don’t just complete tasks; they make decisions, respond to context, and work in concert with other systems and tools.
The promise? Marketers can move away from repetitive, manual work and focus on higher-value thinking. That shift changes the skill profile too – less emphasis on specialism, more on critical thinking, data literacy, stakeholder management, and the ability to interrogate and improve AI-driven outputs.
A standout theme was the concept of ‘agent crews’, sets of AI agents working in coordination across a campaign or marketing operation. Imagine one agent curating content, another analysing performance, and another adjusting messaging based on real-time engagement data. Each has a role, they talk to each other, and they evolve as the work unfolds. Everyone agreed this was an area to develop but no-one was close to this concept yet.
But that future raises important questions: How do we manage and maintain these agents? Who’s responsible for prompt optimisation, drift correction, or performance tuning? There was talk of creating an “agent ops” function – a new capability that acts like a team coach and tech lead rolled into one, overseeing agent quality and relevance just like you would with any team member.
It also became clear that as AI agents become more embedded, we can’t afford to import poor processes or bad habits into automated workflows. This moment requires unlearning – rethinking how we collaborate with machines and investing in training that teaches teams not just how to prompt, but how to think with AI.
Some teams are already going AI-first in their planning – starting with the question: “Where can AI add value here?” They’re building test-and-learn loops directly into campaign workflows, from strategy through to execution, with a view to scale what works.
Leaders have a critical role here. It’s not just about giving access to tools – it’s about creating the conditions where teams feel confident to explore, experiment and work with AI as a partner. It also means shifting the narrative: using AI isn’t ‘cheating’ – it’s a core skill for modern marketers.
Already, we’re seeing teams spin up synthetic focus groups to test and refine propositions, fast-track market research, and explore gaps in buyer journeys. Done well, it’s a route to faster go-to-market and more predictable performance.
When it comes to AI in marketing, too much of the conversation is still focused on cost-cutting and headcount reduction. But this mindset is both premature and limiting. AI, especially in its agentic form, isn’t yet capable of running operations end-to-end. In fact, according to Gartner1, agentic AI can currently handle only around 15% of day-to-day work decisions without human intervention, with the rest still requiring input for strategy, interpretation, refinement, escalation and governance.
As the technology matures, that percentage will grow – but for now, marketers need to focus less on replacement, and more on redesigning work to get the best from both people and agents. So rather than asking, “How much cost can we cut?”, the better question is, “How do we redesign work so that humans and agents operate better together to drive grow and revenue?” The reality is we’ll have to find ways to achieve both.
This reframing is crucial. If we don’t rethink the human-agent relationship, we risk simply layering new tools onto old workflows – increasing complexity, not value. Many attendees raised concerns about creating more operational overhead if AI isn’t integrated in a deliberate, structured way.
That’s where agile marketing models are already proving their worth – offering clear workflows, transparent metrics, and sprint-based feedback loops that make it easier to embed AI into day-to-day activity, test and iterate, and track time-to-market gains and efficiency improvements.
At the same time, there’s a need to focus on where AI can drive growth, not just save costs. Agentic and application-based AI are already:
Accelerating content creation and testing, shortening lead times
Improving campaign segmentation and personalisation, increasing relevance
Generating insights from synthetic audiences, helping shape better propositions
The shift in search behaviour is another wake-up call. Traditional SEO performance is declining as more traffic comes via chat-based search and conversational interfaces. This opens up new questions: how do we optimise for AI-driven discovery? What does success look like when your audience is no longer clicking through, but getting summaries and recommendations from agents?
While advertising via AI interfaces is still in its infancy, leaders are watching closely. It’s early days, but brand influence may become a critical lever – how your brand is presented, mentioned, or prioritised by generative models could impact awareness and consideration. Brand metrics like share of synthetic voice, AI-indexed reputation, or visibility in curated responses may soon be standard indicators.
Meanwhile, we’re also seeing a move by larger corporates to recentralise marketing operations – pulling back from distributed field teams to create more standardised, scalable models that are AI-ready. This is partly driven by cost pressures, but also a recognition that data, tools, and processes need to be integrated and governed centrally to support AI-led execution.
But here’s the tension: pressure from the boardroom to cut costs fast, or slash headcount prematurely risks destabilising current marketing models. These agents are still nascent. We’re still working out what good looks like. There’s broad agreement that marketing needs to reinvent itself – and agentic AI will play a key role – but this requires investment in capability, operating model, and culture.
That means shifting how we measure success – not just by cost savings, but by the value created at every step of the workflow. That includes speed, accuracy, creativity, personalisation, and business outcomes like pipeline, engagement quality, and revenue contribution.
Scaling AI means scaling capability – not just tech
The ambition to scale AI was clear – but so were the blockers. Two major themes emerged: capability and confidence.
Many teams still lack the skills or structures to use AI in a way that feels safe, effective and measurable. From prompt engineering to critical thinking alongside AI, the capability gap is real. As one guest put it: “Some people are brilliant prompt engineers. Others need more structure, frameworks, examples – and permission to experiment.”
But capability isn’t just about individual skills – it’s about building confidence at the team level, and fostering a culture where experimentation is expected, not exceptional. That means leaders must shift their focus from performance oversight to enabling their teams to work in new ways, encouraging group learning and creating space to try, test and refine how AI is used.
There was also healthy debate around organisational readiness. It’s one thing to introduce new tools – it’s another to adapt your operating model to make them work. Agile marketing was seen as a crucial enabler here – not just as a methodology, but as a mindset. Agile ways of working support AI adoption through sprint-based testing, prioritised backlogs, and visibility of outcomes, giving teams the structure to embed AI iteratively, without overhauling everything at once.
And then there’s governance. With agents acting semi-independently, how do we ensure risk is managed and brand integrity maintained? There’s growing recognition that AI governance needs to be proactive, not reactive. Leaders shared early examples of building guardrails and escalation paths, defining what AI agents can and can’t do, and how to intervene when things go off track.
Underpinning all of this is a bigger shift in how we think about work: we must start asking higher-level questions, such as “What’s the best resource – human, agent, or hybrid – to deliver this outcome?” That means rethinking workflows, roles, and decision-making frameworks – and being clear about where AI adds the most value, and how to measure it.
Scaling AI isn’t just a technical rollout – it’s a transformation programme. The most successful marketing teams will be those that invest in capability, reimagine how their teams operate, and embed agentic AI in a way that’s strategic, not just opportunistic.
Final word: the winners will be those who change how they work
If there was one shared takeaway from the night, it was this: the value of AI in marketing doesn’t come from the tools – it comes from how we work and the data that underpins them.
The marketers who will win in this new era, aren’t those with the most tools. They’re the ones who rewire their ways of working to be more responsive, experimental, data-led and human-centred. They’re enabling their teams, building the right culture, and proving impact where it matters most.
This dinner wasn’t just a great conversation. It was a clear signal of where the smartest B2B teams are heading next.
Interested in joining our next dinner?
We’re curating the next conversation now. Drop us a message to register interest and join a growing community of marketing leaders navigating the AI shift with purpose.
There’s a gap opening up in B2B marketing, and it’s not just about tech. It’s about fluency.
AI is moving fast. And while tools grab the headlines, it’s how we use them and how we organise around them that will separate the leaders from the laggards.
Let’s be clear: you don’t need to become a machine learning expert. But you do need to understand how AI can shift how your team works, what you prioritise, and where you place your bets.
57% of UK B2B marketers now rank AI understanding as the most important skill for future success – above data analytics and collaboration (Marketing Week).
McKinsey found organisations with AI-literate marketing leaders are significantly more likely to see ROI from their investments.
And the EU AI Act puts responsibility firmly on business users, not just developers, to ensure AI is used safely, ethically, and effectively.
That means marketing leadership must understand how, where and why to adopt these tools and scale them across their marketing operations.
The role of marketing leadership
We need to build a growth culture focused on establishing the value of the tools available to us or that we want to test. We need to ask better questions, set smarter, measurable expectations, and create space for our teams to experiment without fear of failure.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Working within test-and-learn frameworks grounded in clear hypotheses
Equipping teams with the training and guardrails to operate and maintain tools confidently and correctly
Building prompting best practice
Understanding the biases and blind spots in models
Creating an AI adoption roadmap tied to your commercial priorities
And developing the instinct to spot vendor nonsense a mile off
But here’s the catch: AI only delivers value if your ways of working are actually built for it.
Agile ways of working are crucial
It’s hard to get value from AI if your processes are broken.
If your team is stuck in long planning cycles, siloed roles and perfection paralysis, AI won’t help you, it’ll confuse the hell out of them!
Agile marketing unlocks the value. It gives teams the frameworks needed to successfully test and learn. It’s data driven and customer centric, so it can help leaders spot what’s working and scale it quickly. It reduces risk while speeding up results.
Being agile allows you to use:
• Short sprints to test value
• Early indicators of success (or failure)
• Data to scale what works, fast
• The confidence to stop what doesn’t.
It’s not about moving faster. It’s about moving smarter and proving value as you go.
A brighter approach
At Bright, we believe this is another challenge for marketing leaders and the importance of reshaping how we work so we can lead confidently in an AI-enabled world
We’re not AI evangelists. We’re practical optimists. We help teams:
Cut through the hype and find where AI can genuinely add value to their marketing
Build business cases that stand up in the boardroom
Use agile ways of working to integrate new tools, data and tech in a systematic and scalable way.
Because if we don’t, we risk falling into the same trap that’s caught us many before: investing in the latest tech, without the strategy, mindset or muscle to show it adds value.
Let’s not sugar-coat it: This year is a pressure cooker for B2B marketers.
Budgets are under strain. Teams are stretched. The ask? Deliver more commercial impact with fewer resources. And no, you can’t hire.
But the best CMOs aren’t flinching, they’re pivoting. They’re treating constraint as a catalyst. Getting lean. Getting sharp. And crucially, getting agile.
Here’s how high-performing marketing teams are turning challenge into competitive advantage:
Ruthless prioritisation, not polite compromises
Top marketing leaders aren’t hedging their bets across 10 campaigns, they’re backing three that actually drive results. That means trimming the fluff, shelving the vanity projects, and focusing on what aligns with commercial strategy.
Agile isn’t a theory, it’s a working style
Agile ways of working aren’t new, but they’re becoming non-negotiable. The teams leading the pack have baked in agile rhythms: sprint planning, backlog prioritisation, iterative testing, and regular retros.
They’re not just reacting faster, they’re learning faster, and delivering faster.
It’s not about doing more work. It’s about doing the right work. In the right order. With the right people in the room.
Collaboration over control
Marketing doesn’t sit in a silo anymore (and if it does in your org — fix that). Smart CMOs are forging stronger ties across sales, product and finance, aligning on outcomes, not just outputs.
It’s a team sport now. And marketers are the ones keeping the scoreboard.
Data is your proof point and your power play
Marketing has to justify its seat at the revenue table. That means mastering the numbers such as CLV, CAC, pipeline velocity, engagement-to-conversion rates, and using them to steer investment.
Gut feel isn’t good enough. Real-time insight is how you earn (and defend) your budget.
Content that cuts through (not just fills the funnel)
Paid is plateauing. Content is climbing. But the bar is higher. Mediocre messaging gets ignored, especially in a market flooded with AI-generated ‘meh’.
It’s not about more content. It’s about braver content. Useful, opinionated, and properly distributed.
Fractional, flexible, and faster to value
Permanent headcount is harder to come by, so leaders are tapping into a more elastic talent model such as outsourced experts, fractional CMOs, freelance specialists, to fill gaps fast and keep momentum high.
It’s smart. It’s scalable. And it’s how high-growth teams are staying agile without overloading their core.
This is agile leadership in practice
Constraint doesn’t kill marketing. Complacency does. The CMOs thriving in 2025 are the ones embracing agile principles, making bold decisions, and embedding experimentation deep into their team’s DNA.
Where are you doubling down this year?
How are you embedding agility into your strategy and operations?
Our panel discussion with industry leaders uncovered six actionable ways marketing ops teams can deliver efficient, effective, and engaging campaigns
Driving operational efficiency while creating marketing that engages your audiences is no small feat. Marketing operations are the backbone of high-performing teams that drive efficiency, improve workflows, and boost effectiveness. Agile marketing is now crucial in transforming marketing operations, helping teams streamline processes, and enabling a culture of continuous improvement.
In our recent panel discussion hosted by Zoe Merchant, MD of Bright and agile marketing expert, Amanda Green, Marketing Operations Director at Stenn, and Lisa Sutton, CRO and marketing ops specialist, we focused on how agile marketing is transforming marketing operations. We’ve summarised the six key drivers for success here in this briefing note.
Remove operational bottlenecks: Quick wins
To tackle bottlenecks Amanda, Lisa and Zoe recommended remaining agile and adaptable by establishing consistent and repeatable workflows and templates including:
Briefing templates: Standardise templates to ensure all necessary information is available at the start of a project, helping avoid delays and miscommunication.
Approval workflows: Simplify approval processes and use workflow management tools like Monday.com, Jira or Asana to automate and track them
Kanban boards: Visual tools like Trello, Miro or Microsoft Planner can help manage and prioritise tasks, providing a clear view of tasks in progress and those needing attention.
Build a culture focused on growth and experimentation
For agile marketing to thrive, a culture that encourages experimentation is vital.
Education on experimentation: Zoe stressed the importance of educating teams on the benefits of experimentation to reduce fear of failure
Data-driven decisions: Without data and insights, experimentation is ineffective. Setting clear hypothesis, KPI and investing in reporting and tracking tools is essential to robustly test and learn from experiments, allowing your teams to iterate to drive continual improvement
Risk-managed experimentation: Zoe emphasised using experimentation frameworks to manage risk effectively and ensure experiments are valuable without exposing the organisation to unnecessary risks.
Effective metrics for high-performing marketing ops
Data-driven decisions hinge on choosing the right metrics. Amanda and Lisa suggested focusing on:
Efficiency gains: Measure productivity improvements in marketing workflows and campaign delivery
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Understanding CLV in B2B marketing is key and tracking CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) can help marketing operations teams make informed decisions that drive long-term value
Data quality: Accurate and reliable data is the backbone of successful marketing operations, as it ensures other metrics are dependable.
Fostering collaboration and breaking down silos
Clear, open communication and cross-functional collaboration is essential in breaking down silos that hinder marketing effectiveness.
Regular cross-functional meetings: Amanda recommended clinics, forums, and collaborative meetings to facilitate better communication and understanding between teams
Knowledge hubs: Lisa suggested creating accessible knowledge hubs with key information, enabling teams to self-serve and access essential data without formal meetings. Bright frequently help clients establish centres of excellence to facilitate knowledge sharing to underpin marketing effectiveness.
Reward and recognition: Celebrating cross-functional successes can build trust and foster teamwork, breaking down organisational silos.
AI and automation in marketing operations
The role of AI in marketing is growing, but it’s essential to approach it with clarity, including:
Targeted use cases: Rather than viewing AI as a catch-all solution, focus on specific use cases, such as data insights, campaign personalisation, and process automation and set out small scale tests to understand the value, before scaling
AI as an enabler: Lisa emphasised the importance of understanding the value AI can add rather than introducing it as just another tool and expecting marketers to figure out how to make best use of it
The AI sandwich approach: Zoe introduced the concept of the “AI Sandwich,” where the process begins and ends with human input (the bread!), ensuring that the AI outputs (the filling!) are curated, relevant and accurate.
Preparing for future technologies in marketing operations
To make the most of new technologies, Lisa and Amanda advised:
Starting small: Implement small, low-risk pilot programs, using a tool such as the Bright AI activation framework to allow teams to familiarise themselves with new technology without disrupting operations
Stealth AI adoption: Both leaders acknowledged the need to manage “stealth AI” (AI tools adopted by individuals without formal approval) by setting guardrails, creating guidelines and offering training to maximise adoption benefits.
Ready to transform your marketing operations?
Agile marketing isn’t just a process—it’s a mindset that drives efficiency, collaboration, and customer-focused results. Start by fostering a growth mindset, tackling one workflow bottleneck, and piloting a small agile initiative.
With data-driven insights, collaboration, and smart use of AI, your marketing ops can thrive in today’s fast-changing environment.
The Bright B2B Marketing Leaders Dinner served as a platform for senior marketing professionals to explore AI adoption in complex B2B environments. Discussions took place under Chatham House Rules, fostering open dialogue about the opportunities and challenges AI presents to agile marketing teams. This briefing summarises the core themes from the event.
Key themes and insights:
Embedding AI into agile marketing and ways of working
AI adoption in B2B marketing requires more than just technology; it must be woven into the organisation’s agile marketing processes and ways of working. Marketing teams with agile frameworks are better positioned to test, learn, and adapt AI tools quickly, allowing them to unlock the full potential of AI in their strategies. Successful AI adoption hinges on integrating it into competency frameworks, success metrics, and daily operations. Agile methodologies provide the flexibility required to experiment and scale AI across marketing functions.
Key takeaway: AI should be seen as a tool that provides opportunities across the function to help deliver marketing outcomes. From in-depth data analysis and insights, to developing strategic plans and creative campaigns, the role of AI in marketing will grow exponentially in the coming years. And, while currently most marketers are just dabbling with AI for content creation, having a robust process for AI tool selection, testing and implementation is what will set apart the AI innovators from the laggards.
Testing, guardrails, and demonstrating value
While AI offers exciting possibilities, it’s crucial to establish clear frameworks and guardrails for responsible experimentation. Marketing teams need the freedom to test AI tools, but with safeguards to mitigate risks and ensure that AI applications align with business goals. KPIs should be built into testing processes to measure the tangible impact of AI on marketing operations. Demonstrating early results will help build a business case for wider AI adoption across the organisation.
Key takeaway: Structured testing and clear metrics are essential to showcase AI’s value and ensure responsible usage in marketing campaigns.
Creativity and efficiency gains: Unlocking potential
AI has the potential to free up creativity within marketing teams by automating routine tasks like design resizing, video production, and data analysis. This shift allows marketers to focus on high-value, strategic activities, such as campaign innovation and targeting. However, efficiency gains have been limited to specific tasks rather than widespread across all operations. Time saved through AI automation is often redirected to other critical areas, reflecting the workload complexity typical of B2B marketing.
Key takeaway: AI can enhance creativity and optimise certain tasks, but its broader impact on efficiency will take time to materialise as B2B teams explore more use cases.
Prioritising AI use cases for maximum impact
To ensure the most effective AI adoption, there needs to be top – down consideration of company-wide objectives around areas such as efficiency, productivity, improving customer experience etc as well as marketing teams prioritising use cases based on key criteria such as impact, scalability, and alignment with the business wide objectives. AI tools should be deployed where they can deliver the greatest value to marketing efforts, especially in areas like campaign optimisation and data analysis. Scoring use cases can help determine where to focus resources and ensure maximum return on investment.
Key takeaway: Focusing on high-impact, scalable AI use cases will enable B2B marketing teams to derive more value from their AI investments.
Addressing leadership expectations and adoption challenges
A common challenge is the misconception from senior leadership that AI will immediately reduce headcount or replace marketing teams. In reality, AI in B2B marketing is still in its early stages, and the focus should be on enhancing capabilities rather than replacing staff. It’s important to manage expectations and communicate the strategic benefits of AI, particularly in driving smarter automation and providing actionable insights. Bring transparent with AI experimentation and its results will help those at all levels understand the role of AI in the business, and it can also help to reduce ‘Shadow AI’, the unsanctioned use of AI with an organisations.
Key takeaway: Leaders must focus on AI’s potential to enhance marketing efforts rather than seeing it as a tool for reducing workforce costs.
Training and skills development for marketing teams
AI adoption requires not only the right tools but also consideration of training to equip marketing teams with the skills needed to maximise AI’s potential. Attendees discussed the need for formal training programmes to ensure that teams can fully leverage AI tools and integrate them into their agile marketing workflows. Teams should be encouraged to take a test and learn approach and use experimentation to try things out openly and share the result, this would also reduce the risk of shadow AI use.
Key takeaway: Structured training is essential to ensure marketing teams have the skills to harness AI effectively within agile marketing environments.
Data analysis as a key AI use case
AI’s ability to streamline data analysis was highlighted as one of the most promising use cases in B2B marketing. Tools like Copilot allow marketers to efficiently interrogate complex datasets, providing insights that can drive more informed decisions and targeted campaigns. This enables marketing teams to focus on higher-level strategic analysis rather than manual data handling.
Key takeaway: AI-driven data analysis is a critical area where AI can deliver immediate value to B2B marketing teams by simplifying complex tasks and enabling data-driven decisions.
The importance of the “human AI” sandwich
Near misses, like incorrect translations or missing key details in technical content, show the importance of a “human-AI-human” sandwich approach. First, human input guides the process, setting the context. Then, AI works to quickly create and process the content. Finally, a human checks the output to catch any subtle errors or missed nuances. This layered approach ensures both speed and accuracy, especially when dealing with complex topics where AI might miss the finer details.
Key takeaway: A human-AI-human workflow combines the best of both worlds, ensuring efficient and accurate results.
Conclusion
Mark Breslin, AI expert and dinner guest shares his thoughts…
“Humans are creatures of habit and changing working practices is hard. To help drive sustained adoption of AI inside an organisation, once you’ve landed on high impact use cases that you’ve got the data for and you can measure, think through how the workflows need to change, and make it as seamless as possible.
For example, you want to avoid having colleagues copying and pasting in and out of ChatGPT into multiple tools, you want GenAI integrated with your tooling and your company’s data because that’s how you will achieve ROI. Foster a culture of innovation and experimentation, define the guardrails so controlled failure is okay”.
It is clear that agile ways of working are foundational and provide a framework that allows for the adoption and scaling of AI within marketing and beyond. This dinner revealed valuable insights into how AI can be integrated into B2B marketing by adopting agile marketing, prioritising high-impact use cases, and ensuring that teams are well-trained. As AI continues to evolve, agile marketing environments will enable B2B marketers to experiment, learn, and scale AI initiatives effectively. While efficiency gains are still developing, the potential for AI to drive creativity, enhance data analysis, and support smarter marketing operations is clear.
In the dynamic landscape of B2B marketing, securing investment from the C-suite hinges on effectively communicating the value of marketing efforts. Senior marketers in mid to large firms must demonstrate a balance between short-term demand generation and long-term brand building while showcasing resilience and adaptability.
The balanced approach: Brand building and demand generation
To gain C-suite buy-in, illustrate a strategy that balances immediate needs with sustainable growth. Short-term demand generation drives sales and meets targets, whereas brand building enhances market positioning and fosters customer loyalty. This dual approach is akin to a balanced diet: quick fixes might offer immediate energy, but long-term vitality requires a sustainable approach.
Effective communication strategies
To communicate marketing value effectively, marketers should:
Align with business objectives: Ensure marketing strategies are directly linked to business goals. This alignment helps the C-suite see how marketing initiatives drive company success.
Utilise data-driven insights: Present concrete data that highlights the impact of marketing campaigns on lead generation, conversion rates, and ROI. Data-driven insights lend credibility and demonstrate tangible benefits.
Showcase success stories: Highlight real-life examples where marketing efforts have led to significant business outcomes. These success stories resonate with executives and illustrate practical benefits.
Focus on KPI: Track and present key performance indicators (KPIs) that demonstrate both short-term and long-term value. These include customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), brand awareness, and engagement rates.
Understanding stakeholder needs
Different stakeholders in the C-suite have varying requirements and priorities. Tailor your communication to address these needs effectively:
Chief Financial Officer (CFO): The CFO is focused on financial efficiency and return on investment. Highlight metrics like CAC, ROI, and LTV to demonstrate the financial impact of marketing activities. Show how marketing investments contribute to cost savings and revenue growth and establish agile budgeting to allow for adaptability.
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO): The CRO prioritises revenue generation and sales performance. Emphasise metrics such as lead quality, conversion rates, and sales pipeline growth. Take a RevOps approach and showcase how marketing efforts drive high-quality leads and support the sales team’s objectives.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO): The CEO looks at the overall strategic vision and long-term growth. Present a balanced view of short-term results and long-term brand building. Highlight how marketing aligns with the company’s strategic goals and supports sustainable growth.
Demonstrating value over time
Understanding and tracking the right KPIs is essential for demonstrating marketing value over time. Essential KPIs include:
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. A lower CAC indicates more efficient marketing.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): Estimates the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account. A higher LTV signifies greater long-term value and is influenced by retention and expansion metrics.
Brand awareness: Metrics such as brand recognition, and social media engagement gauge the effectiveness of brand-building activities.
Funnel metrics: Track performance at each stage of the buyer journey: a) Awareness stage: Impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and engagement rates. b) Consideration stage: Lead generation, cost per lead (CPL), and lead quality scores. c) Decision stage: Conversion rates, sales-qualified leads (SQLs), and win rates and value.
Retention and expansion metrics: Key for understanding customer loyalty and growth potential: a) Retention rate: Measures the percentage of customers retained over a period. b) Churn rate: Indicates the percentage of customers lost over a period. c) Customer expansion: Tracks upsell and cross-sell success rates. d) Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer satisfaction and loyalty, reflecting the long-term impact of brand-building efforts.
6. Avoiding vanity metrics: Vanity metrics, such as social media likes and website traffic, can be misleading as they do not necessarily correlate with business growth. Focus on actionable metrics that provide insights into customer behaviour and business impact.
Addressing budget cuts and resource reduction
Budget cuts and headcount reductions can significantly impact marketing effectiveness. To manage these challenges:
Show consequences with data: Use data to project the business impact of budget cuts, illustrating how reductions might lead to fewer high-quality leads, lower brand engagement, and ultimately affect revenue.
Leverage agile budgeting: Adopt agile budgeting practices that allow for rapid scaling up or down based on market conditions. This approach ensures flexibility without compromising long-term goals.
Avoid tactical short-termism: Balance short-term needs with long-term brand-building activities to avoid focusing solely on immediate results.
Building resilience in marketing teams
In today’s ever-changing business environment, resilience is key. Resilient marketing teams adapt to shifts and support evolving objectives, reflecting positively in performance. Strategies include:
Embrace change: Foster a culture open to change and quick to adapt. Agile marketing practices, such as regular sprint reviews and iterative planning, help teams stay flexible and responsive.
Invest in your team: Continuous professional development ensures your team has the skills needed to navigate new challenges and leverage emerging opportunities.
Foster collaboration: Promote cross-functional teamwork to drive more effective and innovative marketing solutions.
Agile marketing practices
Embed agile marketing practices that are data-driven and focused on continuous improvement because the way your teams work underpins the results you achieve:
Experimentation and learning: Implement a test-and-learn approach to discover what works best and iterate based on findings.
Data-driven decision making: Use data from experiments to refine strategies and demonstrate business impact.
Collaborative cuts: Work with the C-suite to make informed, collaborative decisions about budget cuts, ensuring they are strategic and support long-term goals.
And finally, lead by example
Demonstrate a growth mindset, take the feedback given and work with it. B2B marketers must adopt a strategic approach to effectively communicate their value to the C-suite. By aligning marketing initiatives with business objectives, leveraging data-driven insights, focusing on meaningful KPIs, and adopting agile practices, marketers can secure the necessary investment for success. Understanding the specific needs of different stakeholders, avoiding vanity metrics, and demonstrating the tangible impact of marketing activities will ensure the C-suite recognises marketing as a critical driver of business growth.
For more insights and agile marketing strategies, explore Bright’s Bright Ideas. By showcasing the strategic value of marketing, senior marketers can elevate their role and drive enduring success.
The age-old struggle for alignment between marketing and sales is a well-worn path. Marketing creates fantastic content and engaging campaigns but sales don’t use or support the initiatives. Sales feels relevant sales enablement resources are lacking, while marketing struggles to understand their needs. This disconnect hinders revenue growth; and this is the key point, we’re all in it together, and creates a frustrating experience for everyone involved.
The answer lies in a powerful combination: agile marketing, a robust sales enablement strategy, and the strategic integration of Revenue Operations (RevOps). RevOps takes a holistic approach, aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams across the entire customer lifecycle.
Building the foundation: communication & alignment
It all starts with open communication and clear alignment. Here’s what you need to establish a solid foundation through RevOps:
Shared objectives & metrics (OKRs/KPIs):RevOps facilitates the creation of common goals for marketing and sales, ensuring both teams understand and work towards the same business and revenue objectives. This fosters collaboration and a sense of shared responsibility.
Cross-functional collaboration:Talk to your sales colleagues, create trust and a closed feedback loop so you can continually improve things, together. RevOps ensures all departments are working together towards a common goal. This includes marketing, sales, customer service, and product development. By breaking down silos and encouraging communication between departments, RevOps can help to create a more cohesive and efficient organisation.
Change enablement communications:Establishing a robust internal communication strategy is essential to ensure employees will engage with changes within the organisations, ensuring anything from the introduction of new technology to a change in strategic direction, is successfully and sustainably implemented.
Consistent communication:Use internal channels (Teams, email, sales meetings) for short, regular updates. Organise events, virtual or actual, where you can mix and mingle and have open dialogue. Highlight content releases, showcase its value, and keep all teams informed on progress towards shared goals.
Data-driven decisions:RevOps champions data-driven decision making. Analyse content performance with marketing automation tools to see what resonates with buyers. Use this data to refine messages and content formats in collaboration with both sales and marketing teams.
Empowering your sales force: The sales enablement arsenal
Agile marketing allows you to adapt and create content that directly addresses sales needs. Here are some key weapons in your sales enablement arsenal:
Competitor battlecards: create one-page summaries that compare your offering against competitors. This empowers sales to confidently address customer concerns and is readily available to sales reps through the CRM or a centralised content library.
Content for buyer roadblocks: Collaborate with sales to identify specific barriers in the sales process and validate through customer feedback. Create content (videos, infographics, interactive tools) that tackles these issues head-on (e.g., how your product streamlines ERP implementation).
Customer advocacy & case studies: Showcase success stories and customer insights. Develop short-form content for emails highlighting the importance of specific topics to your audience, the benefits of working with you, and quantifiable ROI.
Feedback loops: Continuous improvement for sales success
Don’t let content become a one-way street. Utilise feedback loops to gather insights and improve the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts. Here are a few ways to do this:
Post-demo surveys: Design and deploy post-demo surveys to capture feedback from prospects. This feedback helps understand if the demo addressed their needs and what additional information they require. Sales reps can then use this information for further engagement.
Seller kits: Create pre-made social media posts, messaging templates for outreach, and CRM snippets for easy content integration in the sales workflows. These seller kits ensure consistency and empower sales reps to leverage effective sales enablement content.
Personalisation & nurturing: Tailoring the buyer journey
For high-value accounts, go beyond generic content. Implement Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies:
Personalised Web Pages: Create landing pages with the prospect’s branding or logo and highlight relevant client success stories in reports or ebooks. This personalisation fosters a stronger connection with the prospect.
Nurture Flows: Develop multi-channel nurture campaigns with at least seven touchpoints to stay top-of-mind and guide prospects through the buyer journey. Ensure accurate CRM data for effective nurturing and automate much of the nurture process. Regularly review and optimise nurture flows with marketing to maximise their impact.
Optimising personas & filling buyer journey gaps
Analyse your buyer journey to identify areas of underperformance in volume, velocity, and deal value. Here’s how to optimise:
Refine buyer personas: Conduct market research and analyse customer data to ensure your buyer personas are accurate and address the specific needs and challenges of your ideal customers.
Test & nudge: Experiment with different marketing tactics (e.g., email campaigns, social media efforts) to see how they impact prospect conversion.
Embrace experimentation: Start small and utilise an agile approach. Test different strategies and continuously iterate based on data and feedback. These article on experimentation in marketingand the experimentation framework offers valuable insights on building your experimentation strategy .
Tailoring the approach: Recognising team variations
Acknowledge that different teams may have varying needs in terms of content consumption and support:
Less experienced sales reps: May require more social selling support and easy-to-use digital tools. Create targeted training modules and readily accessible social media content templates.
Experienced sales leaders : May benefit more from ABM-focused content and strategies. Ensure they have the right tools and resources for personalised outreach to high-value accounts.
Conduct surveys, focus groups, or interviews regularly and during any discovery phase for campaigns to understand your sales team’s maturity and capabilities. Collaborate with existing sales operations initiatives (e.g., regular sales force surveys) to gather valuable data. Streamline these processes and ensure insights are shared effectively with both marketing and sales teams.
An empowered and united team
By adopting an agile marketing approach, building a robust sales enablement strategy, and leveraging the power of RevOps, you can transform the relationship between your marketing and sales teams.
This fosters collaboration, empowers sales to close deals more effectively, and ultimately drives revenue growth. Remember, it’s not about creating content or campaigns in a silo; it’s about creating a collaborative and aligned approach where marketing, sales, customer success, product and other revenue generating teams work together in perfect harmony to achieve a common goal: exceptional customer experiences and sustainable business growth.
Times are tough, changeable and high pressured for most senior B2B marketers and CMOs. Aligning to business goals and demonstrably driving business growth is more important than ever.
Over the last few years working with senior marketers to deliver greater marketing effectiveness and agility I’ve learnt about and applied the ideas of Revenue Operations (RevOps) with the principles of agile marketing. Agile marketing, the foundation of Bright’s ethos to help marketers demonstrate value through delivering great work; champions adaptability, customer centricity, and efficient collaboration. The introduction of RevOps expands these benefits across all revenue-generating functions, through improved alignment, efficiencies and effectiveness, and quantifiable growth against shared goals.
Before diving into the relationship between agile marketing and RevOps, I’ve identified common indicators that signal the need for a RevOps framework in B2B organisations:
Misalignment between revenue generating functions: – including Sales, Marketing, Partner & Alliances, Product and Customer Success: Operating in silos indicates the need for the unified strategy that RevOps provides
Inefficient use of data: If leveraging data across customer touchpoints is challenging, RevOps’ integrated data analytics approach offer a cohesive view for informed decision-making
Inconsistent customer experiences: Disparate customer experiences suggest a coordination gap, which RevOps addresses by harmonising interactions
Operational inefficiencies: Manual processes or redundancy point towards the process automation and efficiency enhancements facilitated by RevOps
Difficulty in measuring Marketing ROI: The inability to directly link marketing efforts to revenue outcomes underscores the need for RevOps’ accountability and clarity.
Lots of firms have these challenges many of them are perpetuated through the organisational culture, the ways of working as well as team and departmental silos. As I share how the integration of agile marketing principles with RevOps, the emphasis on collaboration with the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), cross-functional teamwork, and a cultural shift towards alignment and collective goal pursuit becomes increasingly significant. These are critical success factors for marketers committed to making an impactful contribution to revenue growth.
Collaborate with the CRO
We all know that a productive partnership between marketing leaders and the CRO is critical for sales and marketing alignment and forms the bedrock of RevOps success. For example, when one of our software client’s CMO and CRO began holding regular strategic sessions, they achieved a unified view of the customer journey, enhancing cross-sell opportunities by 10% within six months. This partnership ensures every initiative is directly linked to revenue, creating a united approach to growth.
The power of cross-functional collaboration
Cross-functional collaboration is a key principle of agile marketing and underpins the success of a RevOps approach, reducing and removing (where you can) silos to create greater cross functional collaboration to continually improve the customer experience. An example from our work at Bright is a project with a global HCM software marketing team that focused on improving cross-functional collaboration to improve efficiencies and formed cross functional agile squads/hubs including their sales stakeholders and product Subject Matter Experts (SME), which led to a 20% reduction in lead follow up times and improved conversion rates by >5%. This collaborative approach and culture ensure all departments are working towards common business goals.
Cultivating a culture of alignment and collective goals
RevOps necessitates a shift towards an alignment and collective goal pursuit are prioritised. Everyone moves in sync and are focused on KPI and OKR that are shared and aligned to the business goals. A Bright client – a continual improvement product and services firm – implemented agile marketing and activated RevOps to define, agree and set common goals and metrics as well as ensuring there was data & reporting to support this approach. This included the CRO, CMO and CFO as well as cascading across the sales and marketing teams. This culture of alignment enabled the organisation to adapt to changing internal and external market factors effectively and meet strategic objectives with greater cohesion.
How to get started
Implementing a RevOps model is a strategic shift that focuses on aligning cross-functional teams and cultivating a culture of shared goals and objectives. For B2B marketing leaders, establishing common goals and KPIs is the first step. This ensures alignment across all teams contributing to revenue generation.
Quick-start Agile Marketing & RevOPs checklist:
Align on objectives and KPIs: Ensure revenue generating teams such as marketing, sales, and customer success teams agree and share common goals
Review current processes: Identify gaps in collaboration and alignment
Establish regular cross-functional communication: Keep all teams informed and engaged
Implement shared reporting: Use dashboards for transparency and to track collective progress
Pilot small agile marketing projects: Demonstrate the benefits of agile marketing and RevOps approaches by starting with manageable initiatives such as a pilot customer acquisition or retention campaign.
This approach offers a clear framework for beginning with RevOps, guiding organisations through the early stages of adopting a more aligned and efficient revenue generation strategy.
Integrating agile marketing principles with a RevOps framework is an effective strategy for not only elevating the role of marketing in revenue generation but creating alignment and strategic focus to propel your businesses forward towards its objectives.
