on Weds 21st May 12.30pm – 1.15pm BST – sign up here
Let’s be honest – we’ve all heard it before. Brand and demand need to work together. It’s not a revelation, it’s common sense.
And yet… senior B2B marketers are still stuck trying to prove the value of long-term brand investment. Still battling short-termism. Still explaining – again – why awareness and trust are just as important as leads and pipeline value.
This session isn’t about rehashing what we already know. It’s about how to make it stick—with the board, the wider business, and across your marketing teams.
We’ll explore how agile ways of working help align brand and demand, break down silos, and build a marketing engine that connects to commercial goals.
Join our expert panel of B2B marketing leaders as we dig into:
How to stop the cycle of one-and-done campaigns
Why brand can (and should) drive pipeline
Practical, always-on frameworks that don’t burn out your team
How to connect brand and demand to boost CLTV and revenue
How to break down silos and work towards common commercial goals
If you’re trying to educate the business, prove marketing’s value, and deliver consistent performance across brand and demand – this is your session.
Zoe Merchant is the founder and managing director of Bright, a strategic B2B marketing consultancy that gives marketers the power to do great work and deliver business results. With over 20 years of experience in agile marketing, she helps clients reinvent their marketing operations, align with business goals, and deliver tangible value.
As a leader and innovator in her field, Zoe has been recognised as a top 10 women leader of 2020, a 3x #40overforty advertising and marketing leader, and a #CannesLions70 Creative B2B juror in 2023. She is also a certified Agility in Marketing professional.
Zoe is passionate about investing and reinventing marketing teams, promoting diversity and inclusion, and championing marketing’s role in business transformation.
At the latest Bright B2B Marketing Leaders Dinner, senior marketing leaders gathered to discuss how agile marketing operations are helping teams sharpen focus, drive efficiency, and make smarter decisions in an environment where budgets are tight, AI adoption is accelerating, and commercial impact is under scrutiny.
The discussion reinforced that marketing effectiveness isn’t just about running better campaigns—it’s about operational excellence. Agile methodologies are helping teams prioritise work more effectively, improve cross-functional collaboration, and ensure marketing is driving real business outcomes.
For teams that have fully embraced agile marketing, the biggest benefits have been:
Greater focus on high-impact activities and faster execution
More efficient workflows using sprints, iterative planning, and test-and-learn approaches
Smarter decision-making based on data rather than reactive execution
A key theme was the importance of data-driven prioritisation. Many teams are implementing a tiered KPI framework to align reporting with different audiences:
Leadership KPIs focused on business impact, including revenue contribution, customer lifetime value (CLV), and marketing efficiency gains
Despite progress, many teams struggle with poor data hygiene, fragmented reporting systems, and inconsistent attribution models. This is not just a technical challenge; it’s an operational issue that limits agility.
With reporting being time-intensive, many marketing leaders are turning to agentic AI to streamline data collection, automate insights, and generate reports faster.
Key takeaway: Agile marketing provides the governance and structure needed to improve marketing operations, ensuring teams can optimise resources, refine attribution models, and use data to drive strategic decision-making.
2. The reality of reporting: What’s the point?
Marketing leaders agreed that reporting often feels like a box-ticking exercise rather than a strategic tool for decision-making. The key to simplifying reporting and driving action is:
Defining the right metrics for the right audience – not overwhelming leadership with too much detail
Moving beyond spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks – using storytelling techniques, impact reports, and video sizzle reels to showcase marketing’s contributions
AI is already playing a critical role in improving reporting efficiency, with many teams using AI-powered tools to:
Automate data extraction and analysis – reducing manual reporting time
Generate first drafts of insights and reports following meetings or campaign reviews
Improve attribution accuracy and forecast performance trends
However, marketing leaders noted a challenge: efficiency gains from AI are often met with budget reduction pressures rather than being reinvested into higher-value initiatives.
Key takeaway: Agile marketing and AI are natural partners. Agile methodologies enable teams to rapidly test, deploy, and refine AI-driven workflows, ensuring AI supports strategic decision-making rather than just automating processes.
3. Brand vs Demand: Making the case for long-term investment
A recurring challenge is educating stakeholders on the role of brand marketing. Many leaders reported ongoing friction between brand-building efforts and demand generation priorities – with leadership often prioritising short-term pipeline impact over long-term brand equity.
The most effective marketing teams are:
Integrating brand and performance KPIs – demonstrating how brand awareness contributes to demand efficiency
Educating leadership on why brand investment must be always-on, rather than a discretionary spend
Using data to prove impact – leveraging brand tracking studies and share-of-voice metrics to reinforce marketing’s contribution
Marketing leaders agreed that without brand investment, demand campaigns become less effective over time – yet many still find themselves having to re-justify spend that was already approved.
Key takeaway: Agile marketing can help bridge the gap by embedding brand and demand within iterative planning cycles, ensuring both are continuously optimised and aligned with commercial outcomes.
4. Budgeting battles: More agility, Less justification
Budgeting continues to be a major frustration for marketing leaders, with teams facing pressure to deliver more with less while constantly justifying spend.
Key challenges include:
Incremental budget approvals – even when performance is on track, marketing leaders often need to re-justify their spend
Lack of budget autonomy – teams are slowed down by needing approval for even minor adjustments
Rigid annual budget cycles – preventing marketing from shifting investment based on real-time performance insights
To address these challenges, marketing leaders are advocating for:
Agile budgeting cycles – where financial planning is reviewed quarterly rather than locked in annually
Incremental budget releases – aligning spending with performance milestones rather than requiring constant approvals
More flexibility in spend allocation – enabling marketing teams to shift investment based on data rather than fixed plans
Key takeaway: Applying agile methodologies to budgeting ensures that financial resources are allocated dynamically, based on measurable business impact rather than arbitrary planning cycles.
5. The one change marketing leaders would make tomorrow
When asked what single change would have the greatest impact, responses highlighted three major frustrations:
Marketing should be recognised as a strategic function, not just a cost centre. Many teams still spend too much time justifying their existence rather than being trusted as a commercial growth driver.
Breaking down silos is essential. Too often, marketing leaders still fight for a seat at the table, rather than being included in strategic discussions from the outset.
More budget autonomy would unlock impact. Having to secure approvals for small spend adjustments slows down execution and limits agility.
Key takeaway: Agile marketing is not just about process – it is a strategic enabler that allows marketing teams to lead business transformation, drive AI adoption, and operate as a core commercial function.
Final thoughts: The future of marketing ops in B2B
The discussions reinforced that agile marketing is not just a methodology – it is an operational model that enables marketing teams to drive efficiency, improve alignment, and deliver measurable business impact.
As organisations continue to explore AI-driven transformation, the next frontier for marketing leaders is ensuring AI adoption is integrated using agile frameworks, balancing automation with strategic oversight.
Our next Marketing Leaders Dinner will explore Agentic AI in B2B Marketing, focusing on how AI can support autonomous decision-making and dynamic marketing execution.
B2B publishers and media firms are juggling events, content, subscriptions, and communities to grow audiences and keep them engaged year-round. But what’s actually driving results — and what’s just making more noise?
In this panel, senior marketing leaders who’ve been in the thick of it share real-world insights on what’s working (and what’s not). No fluffy theory — just practical strategies for building connected audience experiences across events and media.
We explore:
Connecting events, content, and digital products to keep audiences coming back for more
How to cut through the noise with compelling narratives and storytelling that turn audiences into engaged communities
What works (and what doesn’t) and how to craft content that actually resonates
Practical ways to test, learn, and adapt faster (without burning out your team)
How leading B2B publishers are transforming unknown audiences into loyal, engaged communities
There’s candid, experience-backed insights — plus actionable ideas you can implement right away to sharpen your audience strategy and make your marketing more effective.
Check out the reading list:
Download your Reframe cards:
Meet the panel
Chelsey Lang
Head of Brand, Content & Community Marketing Informa Markets, Dubai, UAE
Chelsey is passionate about the way storytelling and data work together to drive action and craft profitable user journeys. She specialises in bringing content marketing into the events marketing sphere, leading on brand building, audience growth and community development across global event portfolios.
Dasha Dollar-Smirnova
Founder, Frog Talk
Dasha Dollar-Smirnova is a seasoned storyteller and the founder of Frog Talk, a communication and public speaking training company, where she empowers individuals to harness the power of their narratives for greater confidence and impact.
She has developed a unique methodology that blends her background in performing arts as an actress, years in the advertising industry, and her Master of Science in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health.
Having shaped brand communications across multiple channels and markets for global giants like Apple, Nike, and Starbucks, she understands how to craft messages that cut through and connect.
Now, she applies this expertise to coaching, helping individuals and teams communicate with authenticity, clarity, and influence.
Zoë Merchant
Managing Director, Bright
Zoe Merchant is the founder and managing director of Bright, a strategic B2B marketing consultancy that gives marketers the power to do great work and deliver business results. With over 20 years of experience in agile marketing, she helps clients reinvent their marketing operations, align with business goals, and deliver tangible value.
As a leader and innovator in her field, Zoe has been recognised as a top 10 women leader of 2020, a 3x #40overforty advertising and marketing leader, and a #CannesLions70 Creative B2B juror in 2023. She is also a certified Agility in Marketing professional.
Zoe is passionate about investing and reinventing marketing teams, promoting diversity and inclusion, and championing marketing’s role in business transformation.
Why it’s useful: This podcast provides practical insights into how media brands and event organisers can build, engage, and monetise their audiences effectively. It explores strategies for increasing audience retention, leveraging data, and adapting to changing content consumption habits.
Key takeaways: Expert discussions on audience development, data-driven marketing, and sustainable engagement strategies.
Why it’s useful: AI is transforming how publishers and event organisers understand and connect with their audiences. This report explores how AI-driven tools can enhance content personalisation, automate audience interactions, and improve loyalty metrics—critical for businesses looking to sustain engagement in a competitive digital landscape.
Key takeaways: AI can improve audience retention by offering personalised content recommendations, predicting user behaviour, and automating engagement processes.
Why it’s useful: The event industry is rapidly evolving, and virtual and hybrid events have become an essential part of audience engagement strategies. This resource explains how agile marketing methods help teams quickly adapt their event strategies, optimise performance in real-time, and drive higher engagement.
Key takeaways: Agile marketing enables continuous testing and iteration, improving virtual event outcomes through data-driven decision-making and audience responsiveness.
Why it’s useful: With the rise of digital events and online content saturation, it’s harder than ever to capture audience attention. This episode shares actionable strategies for event marketers to craft compelling campaigns, differentiate their events, and ensure their messaging stands out.
Key takeaways: Effective event marketing requires clear messaging, differentiated positioning, and strategic use of digital channels to maximise audience engagement.
Why it’s useful: Understanding emerging trends in B2B events is crucial for staying competitive. This report highlights data-backed insights on how event formats, attendee expectations, and marketing strategies are shifting, helping businesses refine their event planning and investment decisions.
Key takeaways: Hybrid event strategies, personalisation, and ROI measurement are central to the future of B2B events, shaping how companies allocate budgets and resources.
Why it’s useful: This case study demonstrates how agile marketing can drive significant business impact, making it particularly relevant for event marketers looking to improve efficiency, audience engagement, and commercial outcomes. It provides a real-world example of how agile methodologies can be applied to enhance marketing performance for large-scale events.
Key takeaways: Agile marketing helped the Informa Pharma team rapidly test and refine their event strategy, leading to a 123% year-on-year revenue increase. The approach focused on continuous learning, real-time adjustments, and cross-team collaboration.
Download your cards to re–frame conversations and spark fresh perspectives.
Reframe Cards are an easy-to-use tool intended to stimulate conversations within teams, encouraging them to reconsider strategies and tactics by prompting thought-provoking discussions.
This edition, created especially for marketing teams working in publishing, media and events, are designed to challenge thinking and uncover key learnings, to help refine strategies, optimise performance, and drive audience development for greater engagement and business impact.
They aim to foster transparency and collaboration by prompting team members to share their thoughts and ideas openly, and can be used in various settings such as team meetings, workshops, or planning sessions to focus on goal-oriented actions and results.
The cards can infuse creativity and agile thinking into team communication, aiming to drive discussions towards actionable solutions.
Complete the form below to download the Reframe cards
Markets shift. Budgets tighten. Stakeholder expectations change overnight. And just when you think you’ve nailed your strategy, something new disrupts your plan. Sound familiar?
For B2B senior marketing leaders with good sized teams, the challenge isn’t just about keeping up; it’s about staying ahead. The ability to pivot quickly, effectively, and with minimal waste is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a commercial imperative. And that’s where agile marketing skills make all the difference.
Why traditional marketing models fail under pressure
The problem with traditional marketing approaches is that they rely on long-term planning, rigid execution, and an often-siloed structure. That’s fine when the world is predictable. But in today’s climate? Not so much. When a competitor makes an unexpected move, a customer need shifts, or a campaign underperforms, legacy processes don’t allow for quick shifts without major disruption.
Agile marketing: your built-in pivot system
Agile marketing flips the script. It’s not about having a set plan and sticking to it no matter what. It’s about creating a framework that allows your team to move fast, test ideas, and adapt based on data and insights.
Here’s how agile marketing enables your team to pivot effectively and efficiently:
Sprints keep the team focused and adaptable – Instead of rigid annual plans, agile teams work in short cycles (sprints) with clear goals. If a market shift happens mid-sprint, you assess, adjust, and course-correct without derailing everything.
Data-driven decision-making – No more ‘gut feel’ marketing. Agile marketing prioritises experimentation, with continuous A/B testing, real-time performance tracking, and data-informed tweaks that help teams respond to what’s actually working (or not).
Collaboration breaks down silos – When cross-functional teams work together in agile marketing hubs, communication improves, and pivots happen smoothly. No waiting for a ‘sign-off process’ that takes weeks. The right people are in the room, making decisions in real-time.
Fail fast, learn faster – One of the biggest mindset shifts with agile marketing is that failure isn’t the enemy—stagnation is. By rapidly testing small-scale experiments, teams get insights quickly, double down on what works, and ditch what doesn’t before major budget is wasted.
Flexibility without chaos – Some worry that agility equals disorder. In reality, agile marketing operates within a structured framework of prioritisation, backlog refinement, and sprint planning. This means you can pivot without panic and adapt without losing sight of business goals.
The commercial impact of agility
For senior marketers leading teams in complex B2B organisations, agile marketing isn’t just about ‘working differently’—it’s about delivering better business outcomes. When done right, it results in:
Faster go-to-market – Marketing teams get campaigns out the door in weeks, not months.
Higher ROI – More frequent testing means budget is spent where it has the most impact.
Stronger alignment with sales & product teams – Agile structures foster collaboration between marketing, sales, and product, ensuring alignment on commercial priorities.
Increased team engagement – Marketers feel empowered and energised, with clearer visibility of impact.
Are you ready to pivot?
If your team still operates with lengthy campaign cycles, rigid plans, and a fear of failure, it’s time to rethink your approach. Agile marketing gives you the tools to navigate uncertainty with confidence—and drive better results while doing it.
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.
Marketing operations are the powerhouse behind every successful marketing strategy. Our dynamic panel discussion features experts Lisa Sutton, CRO and marketing operations specialist and Amanda Green, experienced marketing operations leader.
During the session we explored how agile marketing drives operational improvement, creates a culture of continual learning, and boosts overall marketing effectiveness.
Watch the vide to gain insights and advice on:
Boosting effectiveness: Real examples of how a test-and-learn mindset drives results
Agile marketing in action: Quick wins to boost operational flow and remove bottlenecks
Measure what matters: The key metrics driving high-performance marketing ops
Culture hacks: Break silos and get your team collaborating and adapting to change
Future-proof ops: AI, automation, and adopting what’s next in marketing innovation.
Lisa is an experienced leader with a proven track record in growing businesses across multiple industries. She always focuses on a customer-centric approach and has a talent for identifying opportunities, removing barriers, and leading teams with strong adaptability and resilience.
Amanda Green
Director of Marketing Operations and Analytics, Stenn
Accomplished Operations senior leader with 22 years’ experience working with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Finance, legal and IT teams cross Media, SaaS and Event industries.
Zoë Merchant
Managing Director, Bright
Zoë is an agile marketing aficionado — a passionate believer in staying ahead of the competition with resilience, adaptability, and pace. After 20 years of delivering B2B marketing strategies. Using agile marketing to test, learn and build on success. Zoë leads the team in delivering results through continual and focused improvements to support clients’ business goals.
Welcome to a curated collection of inspiring and insightful reads and podcasts to help you boost the effectiveness of the marketing operations within your organisation.
Why it is useful: Emphasises the value of small, incremental changes that compound over time. It is ideal for those looking to build high-performing teams by embedding productive, habit-based routines into daily workflows. Key Takeaways: Readers will learn how to foster a culture of continuous improvement through habit formation, helping their teams to stay consistent, disciplined, and focused on meaningful goals that support sustained growth.
Why it is useful: Perfect for marketers focused on data-driven strategies, this book dives into growth hacking, a method of rapid experimentation across marketing channels. It is ideal for companies wanting to drive quick, scalable growth through continuous testing. Key Takeaways: Readers will learn how to implement growth hacking tactics within their marketing teams, focusing on optimisation, customer acquisition, and scaling results.
Why it is useful: This book offers offers a new way of thinking that accommodates the many nuances in B2B buyer behaviour. It provides a step-by-step guide to mapping the buyer journey, aligning channels, metrics and tactics according to their needs at each stage.The framework shows how to get more value out of brand investments, choosing and using technology and how to gauge return on investment. It also shows how to develop marketing as a real lever for business growth and how to reengineer marketing’s relationship with sales.
Why it is useful: This book provides a roadmap for integrating AI into marketing operations, including how to use AI to streamline workflows and personalise marketing efforts at scale.
This resource discusses how data can be leveraged to make marketing strategies more effective. It explains how businesses can gather insights from customer behaviour, optimise campaigns, and continuously improve performance through data-driven decisions.
Why it is useful: In an age of big data, this guide is essential for businesses looking to make informed marketing decisions that directly impact ROI.
The Future of Marketing Automation by Smart Insights – Link
Why it is useful: Discusses emerging trends in marketing automation and how businesses can leverage AI and machine learning to create more efficient and future-proof marketing strategies.
Why it is useful:This podcast dives into various agile marketing tactics, including practical steps that can remove roadblocks and improve efficiency. It is a go-to for marketing professionals seeking quick wins.
Building High-Performing Teams by The Modern Manager Podcast
Why it is useful: This episode discusses strategies to build cross-functional teams that collaborate effectively, breaking silos and improving marketing operations in the process.
Why it is useful: This video explains how AI is being used to personalize marketing efforts, automate workflows, and predict customer behaviour, making it crucial for businesses looking to future-proof their operations.
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.
