Using AI to Maximise Your Marketing and Save Money

This week I’ve taken a deep dive into AI, and specifically how it can be used by SMEs to save money and optimise their marketing.

AI offers SMEs the opportunity to market smarter, not harder (yes, that line was suggested by AI). It’s estimated by Hubspot that AI can help professionals save 2.5 hours per day – and who wouldn’t welcome that?

It’s already revolutionised much of our lives, and many are predicting its impact will be as significant as the invention of the internet itself. Yet many of us remain sceptical / scared / overwhelmed by AI. It’s revolutionised segmentation and personalisation (think about how Netflix, Spotify or Amazon serve up recommendations), unlocked medical applications which were unthinkable mere years ago, and made the chatbot ubiquitous (for better or worse).

Before we dive into the specifics, there are some best practice principles to keep in mind when employing AI:

• AI should be used as an assistant, not a replacement. In other words, we should see it as an input, not the final answer.
• Always review its output – double check facts and details and check for biases or inconsistencies.
• Avoid overusing AI. To do so risks you entering the ‘sea of sameness’ and your content can take on a generic feel.
• Approach AI not as a bolt on tool but as a capability that can be woven throughout your operations. Used correctly, it can supercharge your efforts right through the organisation.  

As an SME Owner – what are some quick wins from AI?

Content Creation

Creating high-quality content can be time-consuming and expensive. AI tools can help generate blog posts, newsletters, press releases, social media content, product descriptions, and even videos—fast.

I used ChatGPT in the drafting of this post, using it to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious. I did the research the old fashioned way, wrote the blog myself, then asked ChatGPT to write its own blog and compared and contrasted the two.

I’ve also made much use of Canva’s AI Video / Visual creation tool Magic Design for a lot of work recently.

Tools like Canva or Lumen 5 can even help you turn copy into video in a matter of minutes, something which otherwise would be beyond most of us.

Each of these tools has a free version, and even their paid versions are pretty affordable. I use the paid version of Canva at just North of £10 per month.

Using AI to create imagery:

There are numerous imagery creation tools available (for example: Canva, Adobe Firefly, Midjourney). I use Canva a lot for making quick, professional images for all sorts of applications.

Whilst these tools require no technical design skills, it helps to have a decent ‘eye’ for design. As ever with AI, the quality of the prompts you use will play a huge part in determining the quality of the output, and a healthy dose of critical oversight can help to refine the finished article.

One thing to keep in mind is that AI can still struggle to generate truly realistic human images, and many still fall into that ‘uncanny valley’ where something just feels off.

As you become more proficient using AI to generate images, try experimenting with your prompts. Instructions such as particular artistic styles, image perspective, emotions and themes, and even the type of lighting can help you create something genuinely unique.

Enhancing Existing Content

AI can also enhance draft content by:

• Re-writing sentences
• Aligning it with you brand voice
• Optimising for readability
• Adding persuasive messaging
• Inserting stats / facts / quotes

Brainstorming

Tools Like ChatGPT are great for an instant brainstorm. If you’re stuck for social media ideas or blog posts, simply prompt ChatGPT and save yourself an hour of head-scratching. Even if it’s just a jump off point for your own creativity it’s well worth it.

Scalable Content

If you need to create repeating content like product descriptions, AI can do this type of work in a fraction of the time. Rather than use your own precious time to write 100 product descriptions for your E-Commerce site, let AI do it for you

Summarising Research

If you need to summarise a large amount of data, AI is perfect for that. For example, if you’ve recently undertaken market research and you have reams of open-ended survey responses, let AI scan the whole lot and summarise the gist for you.

Content Repurposing

Have you written a killer blog? Use AI to repurpose that content for other channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok or even a Video.

Identify Influencers

If you’re looking for social media influencers within a particular industry – try prompting ChatGPT to find those for you. Something as simple as “Find me the top 10 Instagram influencers in the UK for flower arranging” will give you a great jumping off point.

Use AI Chatbots for Instant Support:

A chatbot like Tidio or Chatfuel can be used to answer common customer questions 24/7 and capture leads while you sleep.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO can be seen as a bit of a dark art, and it can be complex, but it’s another area where AI can give you a head-start.

Tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush or Moz can help boost your keyword research to ensure you’re targeting the most profitable search terms for your business.

You can then use one of the many generative AI tools to create content for a particular set of keywords, helping your site rank for those terms. It can even help ensure optimal placement of keywords and integration throughout the content. Tools like SurferSEO and MarketMuse are examples which can help here.

AI can even be used to automate the creation of backlinks (checkout tools such as Pitchbox).

Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can also help you analyse your competitors’ SEO, Keyword Strategy, Backlink Profile and Content.

Best practice for creating prompts for AI

If you want to utilise AI to its fullest, the quality of your prompts is key. Aim to provide as much relevant contextual information as possible. Hubspot recommends the following acronym to help you refine your prompts:

• D – Define what you want it to do
• I – Identify who is your audience
• C – Craft the prompt
• E – Evaluate, refine and revisit

Be straightforward, literal and clear with your prompts, and avoid using ambiguous terms. If you’d like the AI to revisit any of its original output, just prompt it again with what you’d like it to change.

For larger projects, it’s better to break down the challenge into parts. If you want ChatGPT to help you write a long-form article, give it a title and ask for an outline, then a table of contents, then ask it to fill in the detail piece by piece. That way you have the opportunity to feed into the process as the article develops.

AI tools SMEs can start using today

Here’s a list of AI platforms that are accessible, beginner-friendly, and powerful for SME marketers:

Tool	Function	Why It’s Great for SMEs
Mailchimp	Email Marketing	Easy automation, predictive analytics, and segmentation
Canva	Design & Content	AI-powered copywriting and design templates
Jasper.ai / Copy.ai	Content Writing	Fast Blog / Article / Social Media Generation
Lumen 5	Video Creation	Turns text into video with branding and stock footage
Pictory	Short-from video	Converts long videos into social-ready clips
SurferSEO	SEO optimisation	AI content analysis to boost search rankings
Hubspot	CRM & Automation	Full-suite marketing automation with AI insights
ChatGPT	Copywriting	Versatile & highly customisable for writing tasks
Tidio	Chatbots	Affordable, AI-powered customer chat tools for websites

A few areas for further exploration…

Many businesses are swimming in data, but much of it goes unused as it’s dispersed across the organisation. Many organisations will have several sources of valuable consumer data, such as transactional (sales) data, social media accounts, Google Ads and email databases.

Analytics databases like Hubspot, Datorama, Funnel.io and Adswerve ingest data from all sources into one analytics database. These tools allow you to pool all the organisations marketing data and glean insights otherwise hidden.

Such tools can help you exploit the data in myriad ways, including (but not limited to):

• Consumer segmentation and persona analysis.
• Personalised recommendations (some companies even personalise landing pages or emails to individual consumers). Tools include Adobe Target, Optimizely, Evergage.
• Predicting consumer lifetime value.
• Anticipating consumer churn – Identify high risk users who may cancel their subscriptions and target them with pre-emptive offers.
• Forecasting trends.
• Optimized and dynamic pricing (think about how Uber change their pricing in line with demand).
• Predictive lead scoring (judging the likely value of a particular lead).
• Generate recommendations for how you spend your marketing budget.
• Predict likely times of high engagement for campaign planning.
• Predict sales patterns for inventory management.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed diving into the benefits of AI for SMEs, and it will certainly change much about the way I go about my business. I would recommend starting with a tool like ChatGPT and just having a play around. It’s free to get started and it’s bound to spark some inspiration.