Lessons in AI Marketing Experimentation and Transformation

Artificial Intelligence has its place in modern marketing strategies, particularly in enhancing digital engagement. But how exactly does AI help? 

That was the question our panel of experts sought to answer during “Peer Perspective: Lessons In AI Experimentation and Transformation” at ON24X 2024. During this panel discussion Jessica Brady, AAA – The Autoclub Group and Kim Johnston, Flexential, shared their perspectives on how experimenting with AI helped boost marketing results. 

Here’s what they had to say.

The Role of AI in Marketing

Artificial Intelligence gives marketers valuable data and helps personalize user experiences. It elevates a B2B marketer’s ability to gather actionable insights into customer behavior and consequently provides visitors with improved, seamless user experiences. 

Generative AI can help B2B marketers identify snippets of content that resonate most with audiences. Those key moments can then be reformatted in other content ways. For example, a single part of a webinar that generated the most reactions can be turned into shorter, bite-sized reels that can be reused for other channels, like social media.

Promotional material can also get a boost thanks to generative AI. AI can offer a wide range of copy suggestions for email headlines to ad copy. Content creators and B2B marketers can then sift through these suggestions and edit or adjust accordingly. 

Think of AI as that reliable, steady workhorse that lets your team continue to reach customers while streamlining their workload.

Case Studies: Real-World AI Applications

Flexential’s AI-Driven Webinar Transformation

Flexential, a premier data company that works with cloud and data protection, wanted to reimagine its webinar program. Kim Johnston, Vice President of Revenue Marketing, Flexential, led the charge by using webinar capability powered by ON24 to kickstart a webinar series and awaken audience engagement. 

With AI tools, Johnston could go the extra mile and scale Flexential’s webinar program efforts and expand the organization’s ability to create content.

“We look at ON24 and webinars as a way to drive engagement with both prospects and customers and at scale well beyond what physical events could do for us.”

– Kim Johnston, Vice President of Revenue Marketing, Flexential

For example, AI helped generate blogs and e-books from the company’s already existing webinars. By repurposing webinars into new content, Johnston and her creative team could easily produce more material while reducing their overall workload. 

And, according to Johnston, increased engagement means increased pipeline growth and indicates future demands. “We look at ON24 and webinars as a way to drive engagement with both prospects and customers and at scale well beyond what physical events could do for us.”

AAA’s Virtual Event Strategy with AI

For AAA, The Auto Club Group, undertaking a massive strategy shift from in-person events to virtual would not be possible without the help of AI. 

With 13 million members in more than 14 states, AAA had to do a lot of work just to keep up with engagement. AI capabilities helped the team reach their audiences at scale. For example, AI provided the team with blog drafts that they could use to edit and expand into full-fledged articles. AI-provided briefs also freed up the content team’s workload and improved their creative output. 

Jessica Brady, Director of Travel Innovation & Business Development at AAA, said AI has complemented the capabilities of AAA’s content team, helping them to reach audiences through multiple channels. For example, the team could repurpose Key Moments into promotional tools like video teasers and use AI to generate complimentary text. These teasers help drive attendees to watch both on-demand and live webinars. 

It’s proven incredibly successful year over year as we’ve seen both our sales and our lead generation grow double digits every single year, with a couple of years actually seeing triple digit growth.”

–Jessica Brady, AAA

With a steady webinar attendance, made possible with the use of AI-promoted materials, the AAA team then began to experiment with simulive and live webinar format. Engagement results — thanks to the inclusion of live polls, surveys and group chats — began to soar from their use of ON24 capabilitie, including Content Hub and targeted landing pages. 

The end result is a full digital suite that offers different events to engage thousands of AAA members, monthly.

The results speak for themselves: implementing AI tools into their virtual event engagement strategy has increased webinar attendees by the thousands. According to Jessica Brady, Director, Travel Innovation & Business Development, AAA, “It’s proven incredibly successful year over year as we’ve seen both our sales and our lead generation grow double digits every single year, with a couple of years actually seeing triple digit growth.”