February 2023 - Page 3 of 3 - Maven Collective Marketing

What the Rise of ChatGPT Means for B2B Marketers

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes

Intended Audience: Microsoft Partners, B2B Marketers, B2B Business Owners

The use of artificial intelligence has been a hot topic in recent years as businesses focus on enhancing customer experience and providing stellar customer support, all while reducing operating costs. In fact, the number of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that companies are currently employing has doubled since 2018, and more companies are expected to begin incorporating AI as an integral part of their B2B marketing strategy.

One such AI tool is ChatGPT, a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. ChatGPT has quickly taken over the internet and garnered attention for its detailed responses and knowledge across many areas. Let’s dive deeper into what ChatGPT is and how you can utilize it in your marketing efforts.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a powerful chatbot that demonstrates just how sophisticated AI can be. When asked a question, ChatGPT uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence technology to provide quick and accurate responses that sound natural. With its ability to handle a wide range of queries and provide answers to users in real-time, ChatGPT is a valuable AI tool that can help businesses elevate their customer experience.

While artificial intelligence has been on the market for a while, ChatGPT rose to popularity soon after its release and has even been labeled the best AI chatbot ever released to the public. ChatGPT can be used by businesses for a variety of applications, some of which we’ll discuss below.

Can you Leverage ChatGPT for your B2B Marketing Efforts?

Businesses can utilize ChatGPT for their marketing efforts in a variety of ways, including:

Customer experience (CX): ChatGPT can improve customer satisfaction by providing detailed responses to customer inquiries in real-time and thus saving businesses time and effort to tend to more complex tasks.
Content curation: ChatGPT can help businesses with content curation by providing a variety of informative resources and quick summaries on many topics to help optimize campaign efforts.
Market research: ChatGPT can streamline your market research efforts by quickly telling you about the key players in your industry and providing audience insights to help guide your marketing efforts.
Social media engagement: ChatGPT can help write content for social media, as well as brainstorm titles or descriptions for content to be used elsewhere.
Data analysis: ChatGPT can analyze large volumes of text-based data to help you identify trends and patterns in audience engagement, which can help steer your marketing campaigns.

Why You Still Need a B2B Marketing Agency

While ChatGPT is a solid AI tool, it does have its limitations. Everything that it writes or creates is based on the information it processes from pre-existing data or content. It isn’t capable of its own original thoughts, which means that while companies may be able to use it to create advertising copy, marketing emails, and social media posts, it won’t be as innovative as if a creative human wrote it.

ChatGPT is definitely ‘smart’, but it can’t replace the personal touch that humans can bring to marketing. A marketing agency or department can strategize complex campaigns and come up with holistic ideas for marketing campaigns that align with set business goals, something that ChatGPT just can’t do. In addition to this, the content generated by ChatGPT still needs a human touch to verify everything that is written for accuracy and consistency with brand messaging, value proposition and promise.

ChatGPT is intended to complement your marketing efforts, as it cannot replace human expertise and thought. So, the best way to use it is in conjunction with your own tools and techniques. It is certainly a powerful tool that can help you with market research, content marketing, and social media, but it can’t provide you with the distinctness that a B2B strategic marketing agency brings to enable you to define your category of one away from the crowd.

Elevate Your Marketing Efforts with the Mavens

Ai is certainly revolutionizing the field of marketing, but the need to differentiate your voice in an oversaturated marketplace can only be fulfilled by strategic human intervention and craftsmanship. Let the Mavens help you craft a holistic marketing strategy that incorporates the best of both to elevate your brand and make you stand out in the sea of sameness.

How Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP) Can Elevate Your Business

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes

Intended Audience: Microsoft Partners

Revised August 2023

Microsoft provides Partners with various benefits, including access to the Commercial Marketplace, the CloudAscent Program and Digital Marketing Content (DMC) OnDemand, the Co-Sell Program, and Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP). Let’s dive further into how Microsoft provides support for Partners, what Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners entails, and the benefits that come with it.

Microsoft Partner Support Plans

Being part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program automatically comes with benefits, and depending on the Solutions Partner designation, includes technical pre-sale and deployment services (TP&D), go-to-market services, product benefits, and eligibility for incentives. However, while Solutions Partner designations provide various benefits, they are limited in that they are self-service benefits, meaning Partners are expected to familiarize themselves with the services provided all on their own. With these benefits, Partners are not given any management or a ‘navigator’ to help them understand the various facets of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. While the benefits are available, they are quite general and may not represent the specific interests of the organization. This is where Microsoft’s Partner Support Plans come in:

Microsoft Premier Support for Partners

Premier Support offers complete end-to-end managed support for Partners across the entire Microsoft platform to meet their complex needs, expand their cloud capabilities, and strategically collaborate with Microsoft. With Premier Support, Partners are given an account manager and a full catalog of proactive services, but this plan can be quite cost-prohibitive for many organizations.

Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners

We will focus on Advanced Support for Partners, as it offers a managed cloud-focused service experience but at a fixed price for every partner, no matter where they are geographically located. Advanced Support, starting at $16,500 USD yearly (2023), is at a more accessible price than the Premier Support plan, and is a good fit for organizations looking for elevated support to help grow their Microsoft practice.

The Value of Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP)

Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners comes with plenty of benefits, including:

Technical Cloud Support: Gain access to prioritized technical break-fix support for Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365, for both you and your customers, giving you the opportunity to resolve issues as soon as they come up.
Account Management: Gain direct access to a Partner Success Account Manager (PSAM) who will advocate for and represent your organization within Microsoft and act as an extension of your team, helping you with your top cloud priorities and escalation management.
Cloud Enablement Services: Accelerate cloud adoption and growth of your business by accessing Cloud Consults, Cloud Optimization Reports, or Support Practice Enablement.
- Cloud Consults: One-on-one technical consultations with a Microsoft Cloud Expert, designed to guide you on best practices to optimize your cloud projects.
- Cloud Optimization Reports: Review a monthly in-depth view of your Advanced Support partnership, offering insights on customer renewals, deployments, and seats sold.
- Support Practice Enablement: Optimize your support, help your business plan, and enable your team to better support customers.

Is Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners a Good Fit for Your Business?

Microsoft Advanced Support for Partners is the right choice for Partners looking to accelerate their cloud business, as they can benefit from cloud enablement services and best practices guidance. By having a Partner Success Account Manager (PSAM), Partners can have a closer relationship with Microsoft as the PSAM can act as a trusted advisor and help with resource coordination.

If your organization is looking for proactive cloud enablement services, elevated technical support benefits, and a closer relationship to Microsoft, then Microsoft Advanced Support is a good fit for you, especially if you are a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) working directly with customers.

Leverage All the Microsoft Benefits for Microsoft Partners

With all the benefits Microsoft offers to Partners, it can be difficult to decide which ones are most relevant to your organization, which is why we are here to help.

Engage the Mavens to help you elevate your brand with our measurable expertise in Microsoft Partner marketing and knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem.