Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic in the marketing world, but not much has been said about how it can help small businesses. AI could be the key to unlocking new growth opportunities that have never seemed possible before. This post will look at what artificial intelligence means for marketing and how it can give your business an edge!
How AI can help small businesses marketing?
Small business owners often find themselves struggling to keep up with the ever-changing Martech landscape. Marketing is an important part of running any successful company, but it’s also one that can be difficult without help from specialists in different fields like marketing or public relations – unless you happen to have access (and budget) for such individuals on staff already! Artificial Intelligence has many answers when it comes down to solving these problems; either through automation software designed specifically around back end operations like machine learning algorithms which analyze large volumes of data sets looking for trends among other things; natural language processing capabilities capable of searching out keywords within the text using artificial intelligence techniques like keyword extraction (“Google”, “Keyword Research Tool”); speech recognition systems able transcribe spoken words into written form accurately enough to be used on a daily basis, or related technology.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to be a huge game-changer for small businesses. Not only will it help you reach your customers, but AIs also work on generating creative content that is both engaging and persuasive!
The future of marketing just took off with these futuristic tools which can eventually become an essential part in any successful company’s arsenal – if used correctly course. As soon as we start seeing more AI-powered ads popping up during our favorite TV shows or webpages loading faster than ever before there’ll know what this technology really means; how much time they’ll save us from doing menial tasks like making sales calls by using predictive dialers instead (which isn’t even humanly possible anymore), etcetera…
Marketing is a crucial aspect of any company, but it can become less of an expense and more profitable with the use of artificial intelligence. AI marketing tools are usually cheap solutions for small businesses that may not have budget constraints when using them correctly within their strategies!
Still, AI is a crucial part of marketing nowadays, and considering this graphic is already 4 years old, the progress accelerated most likely quite a bit in recent years!
AI is also being applied to the ways marketers are able to communicate with customers more efficiently and effectively. Natural language processing allows for AI-powered chatbots – like Salesforce’s Einstein Bot – to take over some of the most tedious tasks in customer service (or even sales). These chatbots can be programmed to answer simple questions and even schedule meetings, all without human intervention. Meanwhile, SMB marketers are now able to train AI algorithms on their own content using deep learning techniques which allow for the algorithm to understand what certain words or phrases actually mean – as well as how they should be used in context with other terms and phrases – to better predict which content is most likely to be shared with friends or followers.
AI can also help marketers target customers more effectively, by learning the best ways to advertise through marketing channels that are actually frequented by their potential audience (rather than spamming everyone on Facebook for example). An AI algorithm could look at countless data sets about a company’s customers and their social media usage, then learn how to target those individuals with ads that would be the most relevant – as well as important for them at a particular stage in their buying cycle.
How is AI used in marketing?
AI can be applied to a wide variety of marketing tasks in order to help SMBs take their business to the next level. Some examples include:
Sentiment Analysis – analyzing how customers feel about a specific product or service (AI-powered customer insights), then figuring out if there are any problems that need fixing before going ahead with a full-blown marketing campaign; this allows you to gain unique insights into your target audience that can be used for marketing purposes, such as better understanding their needs or improving the customer experience.
Sales forecasting – an AI algorithm can monitor sales trends to predict how many units are likely to be sold within a specific timeframe, which is important for planning out inventory levels; this may not seem like a marketing task, but it can affect how and when certain products are advertised through different channels.
Marketing automation – the AI algorithm will learn about your target audience’s interests based on their social media activity or even website browsing habits so you’ll be able to better market more relevant content at them; this is similar to sentiment analysis, but it applies to a larger scale.
Customer service – AI chatbots can be used for customer support; these bots will scan all incoming emails or messages and try to help customers with simple requests such as answering questions about products or services (or even scheduling appointments). This not only saves time for employees but also allows you to better manage incoming requests, which can help you provide a more personalized customer experience. A customer’s experience is crucial to their loyalty and positive word-of-mouth referrals!
Digital advertising – through an understanding of language and social media usage patterns among the different demographics your business targets, an AI marketing tool could decide on what ads would resonate most with a particular audience. This is also important for measuring the effectiveness of different ad strategies; in fact, if you’re running already campaigns on Facebook or Google, AI is heavily used here to improve results.
Content generation – AI algorithms can quickly scan a company’s existing content library and identify the information that would be most useful or relevant to their customers, then use this knowledge to create new posts for social media (which are also tailored specifically towards each platform).
Lead generation – by analyzing large volumes of data sets looking for trends among potential leads. This can help predict whether someone is likely to buy a product or service in the near future, and which specific marketing channels are most effective at targeting that person with relevant content.
Automated email content curation – a more personalized way to show customers which content is most relevant for them, based on how they interact with a company’s social media accounts.
Personalized customer experience – a source of competitive advantage that can help you stand out from your competitors. AI algorithms could understand different buying habits and preferences among customers, then use this knowledge to provide them with more relevant content or service offerings in order to better meet their needs (for instance content on the website or in emails).
Dynamic pricing – a marketing tool that allows companies to change their prices based on supply and demand. The idea here is that if you can sell more of your products or services, then the price will be lower. This helps SMBs gain market advantage by being able to offer something unique compared with other businesses in the same industry.
AI for small business marketing – use cases and best tools
In a recent study conducted by Vistage, only 22% of small business owners have leaders dedicated to IT. Furthermore, most SMBs are generalists rather than data scientists who know how to integrate AI into their businesses seamlessly and effectively.
In light of this information, it is no surprise that many companies struggle when integrating new technologies such as artificial intelligence or blockchain into current systems for which there may not yet exist applications compatible with those particular tools at hand.
What does this mean for small business owners who are interested in using AI to improve their marketing efforts? While the use cases listed above may be compelling, it is important not to get caught up in all of the buzz surrounding new technologies and lose sight of your own company’s needs. To get started here are the probable easiest to use real-life applications of AI for small business marketing:
Digital advertising
Facebook’s artificial intelligence will help you create more effective ads (other platforms like Google or B2B marketing like Linkedin work similarly). It has the ability to analyze data such as interests, demographics, and keywords people use online in order for your Facebook Ads messages to be better targeted at a specific audience with their current needs or wants.
AI in advertising refers specifically to the subset known as machine-learning algorithms, which automate business processes like marketing research or customer segmentation by teaching machines how humans interact with data sets (e.g., text messaging). The main areas of AI within a Facebook campaign are:
- Auto Advanced Matching
- Account Simplification
- Campaign Budget Optimization
- Automatic Placements
- Dynamic Ads
The good news is that Facebook and the likes are really interested that as many SMBs as possible start spending money on their advertising platforms and hence make the use of AI for SMBs really easy.
Content creation
There are a number of artificial intelligence tools that can create engaging, helpful articles for your audience. These natural language generation platforms take ideas or data and produce quality unique content instantly with the right tone in seconds! You probably have seen this AI software already in action and maybe even this article was written by a machine learning algorithm – you never know…
Especially small businesses that are applying content marketing strategies and do need to push out good amounts of content should exploit the potential tools like Jarvis provide them in a very small business user-friendly and time-saving way. Check their ad below:
Improve on CRM with artificial intelligence
If you have a list of 100,000 email addresses, you need to target your marketing or if you have 100,000 leads, you need lead scoring. Lead scoring for instance is inbuilt in many existing CRM software tools as a feature. Salesforce Einstein, for example, is now also called “AI” by many companies – it’s just how they refer to that kind of machine learning technology and AI tools within their own product range. Also, Hubspot and Marketo and most major CRM vendors have been doing something similar for a few years now. You can use this technology to detect if emails are not valid or from prospects etc, so they don’t clog up your email system with invalid data – it’s an automated process that is highly accurate as well!
Chatbots and voice assistants on your website
You can save money by cutting down on the cost of customer service. It’s not always worth hiring an entire team if you have a small business, as they may only be helping one specific set or type of questions at any given time — which means that all other problems will need solving themselves! Shipping and returns are common headaches for businesses these days because it often becomes difficult to troubleshoot why something went wrong without having access to every nook and cranny in your storefronts (plus who has THAT much free time?). AI can be the solution to these issues as it works 24/24 and 365 days a year! Also, more importantly, AI chatbots will learn from your customers as they talk with them on instant messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger or Google Talk. The thing here though is that you need to build some kind of human empathy into those automated bots – so people don’t feel like they’re talking to a robot from outer space when contacting your business!
Marketing automation and email marketing
A tool that can help you scale and automate your marketing efforts while providing more personalized content to each potential customer. Marketing automation tools such as HubSpot allow small business owners to personalize messaging and improve conversion rates.
Marketing automation is a must for small business marketing today – it’s not optional anymore! These tools allow SMBs to scale their activities, save time on repetitive tasks like email blasts or social media posts and better engage with customers by providing personalized content throughout the buyer journey.
An easy way to start is utilizing marketing automation for lead nurturing workflows and the corresponding use of email marketing. You can use this for instance to automatically send an email series or a drip campaign according to the actions your customers take on your website and what they subscribe for.
This is more of a mid-term strategy than something that will bring instant sales but it’s one of those things you need to do as part of building trust with potential consumers and cutting the length of the sales cycle in B2B marketing with the help of artificial intelligence.