Digital Marketing
Consulting & Training
How to Use AI for Small Business Digital Marketing
Authored June 2023 by Tim Campbell-Smith
5 minute read
Artificial intelligence is taking the media by storm. Effects are being felt
everywhere in every facet of life: in education, healthcare, tech and digital
marketing. But, we small business owners have some unique needs that aren't the
same as big corporate businesses! That's why I've put together the basics of using
AI in an effective way to improve your digital marketing.
Using AI effectively relies on two things:
1. Knowing what you can use it for, and
2. Using it effectively to get the most bang for your buck.
Artificial intelligence is taking the media by storm. Effects are being felt
everywhere in every facet of life: in education, healthcare, tech and digital
marketing. But, we small business owners have some unique needs that aren't the
same as big corporate businesses! That's why I've put together the basics of using
AI in an effective way to improve your digital marketing.
Using AI effectively relies on two things:
1. Knowing what you can use it for, and
2. Using it effectively to get the most bang for your buck.
Please note, I mainly use Chat GPT for these kind of things, but every day more and more platforms come out, so play with them! If you also want to see this in action, watch the video at the bottom of the page for a live example.
First let's start by figuring out what the most common and effective uses are for AI in digital marketing:
5 Key Uses of AI in Small Business Marketing:
First, AI can really help give you ideas. If you don't know what to post, or maybe what goes into a campaign or need sources of inspiration, AI can really help with that.
Second, artificial intelligence can make strategic and high level recommendations. While this might include things like content, ideas or campaigns, it can also start to make recommendations on things like hashtags, which platforms to use or different strategies that other brands and companies are using that you could also use.
Third (and I have a whole YouTube video just on this alone) artificial intelligence can recommend a total strategy for you. If you tell it details about your business (which we will cover below) in effective prompts and you refine it, you can get AI to write for you the start of a digital marketing strategy. It can be as broad as you want or as specific as you want. The big thing though is that it often lacks customization and personalization. Remember, no one knows your business better than you do. You will have to take these suggestions and apply it to your business because chat GPT and artificial intelligence doesn't know the difference between this soap maker and that soap maker (for example).
Next, artificial intelligence can also suggest specific tactics that you can use to grow. In The below video, you'll see I got it to recommend budget for paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. Or you can ask it for suggestive blog topics based on your business. You could ask it for recommendations of influencers depending on platforms, or what YouTubers are doing to grow.
Finally, and arguably most noteworthy, artificial intelligence can write for you (and no, this blog is not AI written). They can write anything from blogs to social media captions to ad copy, you name it. A cool prompt that you may use in writing is you can feed artificial intelligence or chat GPT a sample of your writing (remember: the longer the sample the better, because it has more to work with) and you can ask it to write something in your style. If you don't know what to write, or how to write something, or maybe you even just think it could be written a little more clearly.
It is still worth noting everything still requires human intervention. Artificial Intelligence is designed and built by humans who are flawed and have biases, and we have to navigate that as well.
Effectively using these ideas, though, comes down to a really strong prompt.
5 Parts of an Effective AI Prompt
Prompt engineering is a relatively new concept that surrounds itself with the idea of how we prompt artificial intelligence to deliver an output, and then further improving that whole process.
Simply put, the five parts are input cues and clues, context, output and refinement.
Input refers to what you literally put in to the platform and usually includes the ask.
Cues and clues refers to any details you want it to conform to consider or actually do in the deliverable.
Context or any other identifying details you may want it to know or consider.
Output is the actual thing that gets spit out from the artificial intelligence platform and includes your format or requested details.
Finally is refinement, which is the process of getting the AI to learn, improve and try again. This stage is repeated as necessary.
An example for the difference between cues, clues and context can easily be made with dessert: say you ask chat GPT to suggest a dessert recipe that includes ice cream. Asking it to suggest a recipe is the input. The cues and clues have to do with the dessert. The context would be adding on saying that you want it to include ice cream. Now if it gave you a recipe and you asked it to refine that recipe, or change the recipe so that it can be made for 20 people, that's the act of refinement.
Business Example of an Effective AI Business Prompt:
Let's break down a whole business example. Say we ask chat GPT the following:
"Can you suggest a blog topic for a travel agent based out of Ottawa Ontario with clients from the Ottawa region where we sell Caribbean destinations in a bullet format list."
Input = Can you suggest a blog topic
Cues/Clues = for a travel agent
Context = based out of Ottawa Ontario with clients from the Ottawa region where we sell Caribbean destinations
Output = in a bullet format list
Refinement = Can you write this blog in 1000 words?
Ultimately, artificial intelligence is great whenever you need help with your digital marketing. If there's something you don't know, you don't know how to ask, you need ideas or recommendations, artificial intelligence is a great first step. However, the most notable limitation is that it often requires human intervention because it's not perfect (which is why we still have consultants). Play with your prompts, ask for what you want and make sure your prompts include all five parts!
Bonus: See this practice in action in a video (skip to 7:13 for the example)
