When many of us hear how AI will change the world, especially digital marketing, we often wonder how large organizations are using machines to do the work of so many copywriters, designers, and other content creators. Thoughts (and sometimes fears) shift in the direction of
Large enterprises with similarly large customer bases and highly competitive content needs are turning to advanced AI systems to generate content, process and analyze data to stay ahead.
But the opportunities presented by AI are not just for big companies.
In fact, local SMEs with low resources and often short hours can certainly benefit from the innovative time and cost savings that AI solutions offer.
One of the most challenging aspects of running a small business these days is keeping up with the overwhelming demand for digital marketing. Digital marketing can be a full-time job by itself.
Maintaining a rich, up-to-date and relevant digital presence and enabling increasingly savvy customers to engage with your business through multiple channels is an expectation and a requirement for any company wishing to grow.
Again, how are small business owners responding to increased demand in their weaker areas?
Deploy AI as your virtual digital marketing assistant.
How can AI support small business marketing?
AI comes in many forms, but when it comes to marketing applications, one of the most popular applications today is generative AI.
AI engines like ChatGPT, called large scale language models, are effective AI algorithms trained on large sets of data or content to understand, summarize, and generate new content in response to prompts. .
As such, the AI can quickly and effectively create content on almost any topic covered by the dataset it was trained on.
Websites, blogs and social content
The first natural use of AI writing tools for small businesses is to create educational, informative, or helpful content that can be consumed by website visitors, social followers, and search engines.
Content remains a key factor when it comes to establishing your authority online, and one way to stand out from your competition is to provide better content that your audience wants to read, like, and share. to create more.
We’ve established that AI can generate content on any topic you want, and that for most local small businesses, customer needs are relatively consistent.
The key to getting high-quality, engaging AI-generated content is the quality of the prompts provided.
A well-structured request can create a blog post, how-to article, FAQ section, web page, or social media post. These will be available to your audience with only minor changes and personalizations.
If not, you can ask the AI again for a better version. Over time, the AI will continue to learn and generate better and relevant content.
However, we want to be clear: you shouldn’t skip the steps of reviewing and editing your content to make sure it’s unique.
AI is known to “hallucinate”. This is a fancy way of saying it, but AI has a tendency to be inaccurate at times, so we need to check all our work for accuracy.
It’s also very important to make sure the final product is human, as the text can sound awkward and stiff. You should also ensure that your content reflects your brand and belongs to you by adding your own signature. Include your anecdotal point of view, tone of voice, or links to other relevant content you have produced or curated.
Direct communication with customers
In addition to the content companies create for mass sharing via their sites and social, there are also direct-to-consumer campaigns aimed at promotion, education and information.
These can be short in the form of emails or SMS messages, but it still takes time to develop the campaign idea and deliver the resulting content to the target audience. AI can help at both stages of the process.
First, you can ask the AI to provide you with a list of topics and ideas to base your campaign on.
For example, I asked ChatGPT, “Give me a list of promotions a small local plumbing company might run to increase their revenue…”.
In response, our AI virtual marketing assistant quickly returned a summary list of suggestions like this:
“Yes! Here are some promotions that small local plumbing companies can run to increase their revenue.
- Seasonal Maintenance Packages: We offer discounted packages for seasonal plumbing maintenance services such as drain cleaning, water heater inspection and leak detection. Advertise this package at certain times of the year when homeowners typically focus on home maintenance.
- new customer discount
- Loyalty rewards program
- bundle package
- friend referral program
- limited time offer
- Social Media Exclusive Sale
- Senior Citizen or Military Discount
- maintenance plan subscription
- partner discount
For maximum visibility and reach, don’t forget to advertise your promotion through various channels such as website, social media, local advertising and direct mail. Monitor the effectiveness of each promotion and adjust your strategy based on customer response and revenue growth. ”
The AI can then be called again to suggest the message itself. A well-structured prompt in your marketing message can consider any or all of the following:
- message type: promotions, announcements, invitations, greetings, appreciation, education, information, etc.
- Services or products to refer to: for appropriate message types.
- specific words to include: Highlighted offers, discounts, specials and more.
- specific words to exclude: names of competitors, references to unwanted alternative products.
- Demographic targeting information: Gender, age, marital status, etc.
- writing style: conversational, friendly, helpful, professional, welcoming, witty, etc.
- lighting perspective: first person or third person.
As mentioned earlier, the more detailed the prompts provided to the AI, the more accurate and effective the responses it generates.
SEO and Paid Search
AI is at the heart of SEO, as AI algorithms have powered Google and other search engines for years.
So why not leverage the same technology and save yourself a few steps when creating the structured content search engines are looking for?
Small business owners and employees with the time and knowledge to solve website problems themselves can use generative AI for SEO to perform keyword and content research, page titles, meta descriptions, or on-site can be used to create more advanced aspects of optimization.
Not surprisingly, AI is already embedded in many paid advertising platforms and underpins services such as Google Ads, where content is automatically recommended or created based on existing content and past performance. will be
Advertisers, large and small, can benefit from the combined knowledge of each other’s campaigns.
website support
Website chatbots have been popular for some time. Still, AI opens the door to new levels of chatbots, allowing them to interact more seamlessly with website visitors and more accurately extract the information they seek.
Just as AI LLMs are trained to scrutinize and interpret large amounts of content on the web, they catalog a small corner, a website containing all the important details about products, services and business practices. You can also train them to do so.
If a site visitor encounters a roadblock, asks a question that the bot has not been trained to, or does not have the necessary content to provide an answer, the smart system allows the customer to send other You will be able to forward questions in the channel.
future thinking
AI-generated text-based content is just the tip of the iceberg. Similarly, we’ve already seen photorealistic images generated by systems like the DALL-E2 and Midjourney based on plain language prompts, but full-blown video isn’t far off. . behind.
Again, the potential for creating compelling business content is real.
Beyond content, AI promises to automate content personalization and optimization. This ensures that the right content is delivered to the right people at the right time. This has been Google’s way for years.
Apart from the future, Google and search engines will no longer be the only ones capable of providing this level of customized content. Open source AI solutions open this door for everyone.
Solutions like predictive analytics enable small business marketers to build and automate strategies that have worked and ignore those that haven’t, to stay ahead of the competition.
But… AI is just a tool
AI has a lot of potential when it comes to saving time on content creation, but it should never be seen as a complete replacement for human writers and editors.
Because AI-generated content builds on content that has already been created, there is certainly a risk of mass identities if some creators publish this content as-is.
A recent article in The Washington Post rightly points out:
“Experts say even advanced AI falls short of human writing skills. AI lacks personal opinion and style, and it produces a large number of wrong, gibberish, or biased answers. But for many companies, cost savings are worth sacrificing quality.”
This is not what your audience or Google wants to hear. It will become increasingly important to take what AI has to offer and add your own opinions, perspectives and anecdotes based on it.
Google continues to work on the EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritative and Trustworthy) principle as a key factor in ranking content. EEAT is what the small business owner needs to add as a starting point to what his AI can offer.
The conclusion is
AI-powered digital marketing offers local small businesses a huge opportunity to improve their online presence by creating rich and relevant content, improving the customer experience and generating more leads To do.
However, to reap the benefits of this transformative technology, companies must understand the challenges, set measurable goals, develop strategies, and continuously monitor and optimize performance.
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Featured Image: Gearstd/Shutterstock
