Cut through the generative AI noise with Modern Word of Mouth™ (2024)

“We’re in a very noisy space,” is a sentiment Onsite advisors hear from Insight’s portfolio companies every day. “How can we stand out?” is usually the next question.

Cutting through the noise was a real challenge before generative AI, and it’s even more significant today with the deluge of AI-generated content flooding digital channels. Moreover, this core strategic issue is further complicated by a more fundamental shift in how B2B SaaS prospects inform themselves and ultimately make purchases. What is clear to us is that what may have worked in the BG (before generative) era will certainly not succeed in our new AG (after generative) world. We need a new approach.

New realities for B2B SaaS GTM teams

B2B SaaS companies and their GTM teams face many new realities that dramatically change the B2B selling process.

What is Modern Word of Mouth™ (mWOM)?

Given these new realities, B2B SaaS leaders need a new approach. Earlier this year, Insight wrote a blog on the five seismic shifts for how genAI is impacting marketing. Since our initial exploration, we have been closely monitoring the evolution of these shifts. Through conversations with our portfolio companies and extensive research, we’ve realized that one seismic shift, Modern Word of Mouth, has been rapidly evolving and is more important than ever today.

How Insight Partners defines mWOM

Modern Word of Mouth is a marketing strategy where diverse stakeholders actively engage across scalable, authentic channels to mold B2B brand narratives. In this approach, brands use genAI to listen to and analyze stakeholder conversations. These insights augment existing messaging that is then amplified to the market to drive advocacy, presence, and buying decisions.

The differences between traditional word-of-mouth and mWOM are stark. mWOM represents a sophisticated evolution of traditional word-of-mouth marketing, integrating strategic planning, genAI, and automation to create a more effective and scalable marketing strategy. By leveraging genAI and focusing on data-driven insights, organizations can enhance their brand narratives and drive more impactful advocacy and buying decisions.

How can startups and ScaleUps start using this new approach?

It is not easy to create a coherent mWOM strategy, but ultimately, organizations that actively and consistently align their organizations around mWOM are able to create a flywheel with four key activities: prioritize and audit opportunities, leverage genAI to harvest insights, use those insights to augment messaging, and then amplify your brand’s narrative across mWOM channels.

Here’s an example of what this might look like in practice that any company can do:

1. Prioritize and audit relevant channels. After auditing the channels most important to your business, you identified software review sites and industry analysts as two mWOM channels. Customers leave reviews on G2 and prospects reference both G2 and analyst reports from Gartner or Forrester as part of their purchase journey.
2. Harvest insights with genAI. Use an automation to harvest the reviews that customers have left, or simply copy them from the page and paste them into the agent. Follow the same process for competitor pages.
3. Augment messaging with insights. Instruct an agent like ChatGPT to summarize strengths and weaknesses from the previous step. Feed it existing messaging (e.g. copy the full text of a homepage and paste it into ChatGPT) and instruct it to look for double-down opportunities based on the strengths identified by customers. Continue to augment this step by adding recent analyst reports.
4. Amplify messaging in market. This new messaging could be used for a product page, in email or ad copy, or to refactor an existing white paper. Maybe you’ll even conduct a review campaign instructing customers to emphasize areas in which you are strong versus your competitors.

GenAI will continue to disrupt marketing and we’re still not clear on how all the change will evolve our tactics. One change we are sure of is that leaders will need different approaches to thrive in this new world. mWOM and the harnessing of authentic buyer voices will be crucial. It is still early days, but as new tools come to the market, Insight believes that mWOM will become a core competency of high-performing marketing teams.

Insight Partners portfolio companies should reach out to their Onsite team of advisors to discuss mWOM and get access to the wealth of resources and experts across the GTM spectrum.

Additional marketing resources

Navigating generative AI’s seismic shifts for marketing in 2024

Generative AI, SEO, and what leaders should know: Google search in the future

SaaS Marketing Periodic Table: Insights that guide exceptional marketing performance

AI Agents are disrupting automation: Current approaches, market solutions and recommendations

References

Forrester, Who Do B2B Buyers Trust

6sense, Why Buying Cycles Are Usually Over Long Before You Ever Know About Them

Gartner, Gartner Predicts One-Third of Interactions with GenAI Services Will Use Action Models & Autonomous Agents for Task Completion by 2028

The use of genAI poses a number of risks, including privacy, intellectual rights, and information security concerns. We suggest conducting a comprehensive risk assessment before engaging genAI or incorporating it into your processes.