New artificial intelligence tools are revolutionizing the way that SMBs approach marketing. Powerful AI software can predict future trends, optimize ROI through targeting and analyze competition. Generative AI is also taking over the creative side of marketing, which includes copywriting, advertising and content creation.
This guide dives into how new AI-driven marketing tools can help small business owners solve some of the most vexing marketing problems, saving both time and money. It also provides a list of actionable prompts that you can use with tools such as ChatGPT.
How can AI help you market your business?
Small business owners can access more data in 2024 than ever before. The problem is that no human can possibly sort through the mountain of information. AI can help you understand your audience by generating insights from big data. It can also assist in turning your marketing campaign ideas into reality by cutting down on labor-intensive brainstorming, content creation and editing.
Here are four ways that you can use AI to market your small business.
AI can generate SEO-optimized content across digital marketing channels.
Search engine optimization (SEO) remains one of the top avenues for small businesses to bring in customers. SEO refers to the best practices for getting your product or service to rank higher in search results. This can help drive organic traffic to your site or listing at no cost.
Today’s AI tools take the pain out of writing SEO content. We asked ChatGPT to write an SEO-optimized blog post on the importance of oil changes for a local car mechanic. In response, the tool spat out a 400-word blog post. Here is an excerpt:
Some advanced AI tools are built specifically for conducting marketing campaigns. Jasper is one paid service that can write ad copy in different tones, as well as generate marketing email campaigns, product descriptions for e-commerce products and blog posts.
Business owners can also feed the URLs of existing blog posts, product descriptions and other written material into tools like ChatGPT and obtain specific advice on how to improve them for SEO.
AI content prompts that small business owners can use right now
The possibilities for using AI for written content generation are nearly endless. Here are some plug-and-play prompts that you can use with ChatGPT to get started:
1. SEO optimization
“Generate SEO-friendly content for my [product/service] to improve search engine rankings.”
2. Ad copywriting
“Create compelling ad copy for my [product/service] targeting [specific audience].”
3. Social media post brainstorming
“Suggest engaging social media post ideas for promoting [product/service].”
4. Email campaign assistance
“Compose an engaging email campaign for my new [product/service] to send to my subscribers.”
5. Blog post generation
“Write a blog post on [industry-related topic] to share on my website.”
Cost savings of using AI for SEO
Many copywriters and bloggers charge on a per-word or per-post basis. At $0.25 per word, a 400-word blog post would cost $100. A product description writer who charges $0.12 per word would take $24 for a 200-word description.
Compare these costs to ChatGPT (free) or the specialized Jasper service, which costs $49 per month for unlimited use.
Limitations of AI for SEO
AI is pretty good at creating short blog posts and product descriptions, but a human proofreader is still essential. AI-generated content has come under fire for inaccuracies, so make sure you fact-check everything that it spits out. Another problem is that AI often layers in too many keywords, which makes the content sound awkward and is unpleasant for readers. Small business owners may want to add their own touches to give the writing a more human tone.
AI can assist with video editing, artwork and thumbnails.
One of AI’s most visible uses has been on the creative side of marketing. Small business owners can leverage new AI tools to generate a wide variety of media at little to no cost, including slick marketing videos, eye-catching social media posts and artwork.
Returning to the example from earlier, we asked DreamStudio, an AI art generator that provides a limited number of free images, to “create a thumbnail for a blog post about the importance of changing your car’s oil.” We specified that the image should include a mechanic performing this work.
Not a bad result, if we do say so ourselves.
Tools such as DreamStudio often allow users to upload their own photos for transformation. This is particularly useful if you want to generate professional-looking photography for your physical products without actually needing to travel to exotic locations or hire models.
On the video side, cutting-edge AI tools can take your footage and edit it into a slick ad. With Vimeo’s Magisto video maker, you can choose from a variety of templates, background music and styles to turn your photos and footage into videos – all with no editing skill whatsoever.
AI image prompts that small business owners can use right now
Here are some prompts designed for easy use with AI image generators to help you kick-start the process of generating graphics:
- “Create an eye-catching graphic for a limited-time discount on our latest collection.”
- “Design an appealing infographic for our blog post on industry trends.”
- “Generate a set of images to showcase the step-by-step process of using our product.”
- “Create a visually striking image to accompany our email newsletter about the brand’s story.”
Cost savings of using AI for the creative side of marketing
Professional photography and video editing are often tremendously expensive for small business owners, costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per session. Meanwhile, a tool like Midjourney costs $8 per month for 200 images, while OpenAI’s Dall-E costs $20 per month as part of the ChatGPT Plus package. Magisto’s entry-level plan comes in at just $9.99 per month.
Limitations of using AI for the creative side of marketing
AI tools are “trained” by ingesting large amounts of content. The programs find patterns in the data and use that knowledge to generate new content. By its very nature, AI lacks genuine creativity and originality. It can create material only based on what it already knows. We also found that some popular AI tools still have trouble generating human faces and including text within images. However, for narrow use cases, such as basic artwork and editing, AI can be a very cost-effective alternative to a human creator.
AI can help you leverage data and generate leads.
Modern marketing is all about leveraging data. The newest AI tools can help customize ads for different platforms (e.g., Google vs. Facebook), segment the market, and ultimately drive more traffic and engagement to your site. AI can also analyze past campaign performance, customer data and market trends.
- Competitor analysis: Normally, this is a time-consuming process, but algorithms such as Browse AI can do the tedious work of collecting data on pricing, reviews and product launches. This service can spot competing products that score poorly on customer satisfaction, which can help you spot opportunities to gain an edge.
- Campaign management: In the old days, advertising consisted mainly of trial and error. Today’s AI tools take out much of that guesswork. Albert.ai works by analyzing your existing customer base, choosing keywords, targeting the right audience and running your ad bidding across various channels, including search and social media.
>> Learn More: The Small Business Owner’s Guide to Data Analytics
AI analysis prompts that small business owners can use right now
Although free tools such as ChatGPT lack the ability to manipulate or visualize data, they can conduct analysis based on content that is already public, Here are a few basic analyses that you can do right now:
1. Competitor analysis
“Provide insights on how to analyze and stay ahead of my competitors in [industry].”
2. Campaign performance review
“Assist in analyzing the performance of my recent marketing campaign and suggest optimizations.”
3. Trend analysis
“Analyze current market trends in [industry].”
Advantages of using AI for data analysis
Several years ago, Albert.ai generated headlines by helping a Harley-Davison dealership generate 2,930 percent more leads. The AI accomplished this by using the dealership’s customer data and running micro-targeted ad campaigns to test different strategies. Eventually, Albert.ai zeroed in on a particular target market and served that market ads across various digital channels.
Limitations of using AI for data analysis
Many customers of AI data analysis tools complain about prohibitive costs. In many cases, these tools take a large percentage of ad spend as compensation, which is a tremendous financial drain if increased sales don’t materialize.
Future trends in marketing AI tools
The field of marketing AI is evolving rapidly. It is impossible to predict what these tools will be capable of doing in the future. That said, we expect several trends to impact the marketing field over the next several years:
- Personalization: As more businesses feed their customer data into AI programs, we expect that the underlying algorithms will learn how to identify potential customers and generate leads even more precisely.
- Better content: Many popular AI image generators remain basic, but we expect that they will eventually become more proficient in creating quality content. This will empower small businesses to generate professional-quality marketing materials on par with those of much larger corporations.
- More emotion: Right now, AI tools generally fare poorly when it comes to understanding the subtleties of human emotion, tonality and cultural differences. As AI becomes better at parsing emotion, we expect that marketers will gain more knowledge about how different campaigns resonate with consumers.
- Predictive analytics: By leveraging big data, we expect AI tools will become more proficient at forecasting market trends and customer behavior, including sudden spikes in product demand driven by viral social media content. These innovations will allow small businesses to meet demand surges in real time.
- Influencer marketing: In the nascent field of influencer marketing, it can be difficult to predict the ROI for collaboration with social media personalities. We believe that AI will play a major role in helping small businesses identify which influencers will generate the most buzz for products and services.
- Legal and ethical: Debate over how original works are used to train AI image and text generators has led to lawsuits from artists, news outlets and other human content creators. Time will tell how these controversies play out, but we expect that they will remain part of the conversation around marketing AI tools for years to come
Powerful AI tools have revolutionized not only the data-intensive aspects of marketing, but also the creative elements. From generating SEO-optimized content and assisting with video editing to analyzing big data for personalized marketing and monitoring customer reviews, AI has emerged as a valuable tool for small businesses seeking efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Although AI technology remains limited in many respects, the tools highlighted in this article are rapidly evolving. Looking ahead to the future, we expect to see improved content generation, more emotional intelligence, better predictive analytics and much more. Despite continued controversy regarding the role of AI in society, we expect that these tools will empower small businesses to grow and stay relevant in a hyper-competitive world.
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