AI Marketing for Small Businesses: Powerful Tool or Costly Shortcut?
When working on marketing campaigns, we know that every word and every detail matters in order to leave the right impression. This focus and care should always be considered when you integrate tools such as AI into every aspect of your business, but especially advertising.
When used correctly, AI is a powerful tool that can, like any other, make certain simple aspects of your business easier to manage. However, the key is to understand what aspects can be automated and what needs the deft hand of a marketing expert.
Aside from active boycott campaigns, poorly generated AI marketing materials can be somewhat sloppy in execution, reflecting poorly on a brand in unforeseen ways.
However, there is a place for the right tools to be used to make certain parts of your marketing campaign easier, sharpen imagery slightly or help with basic elements of copy such as spellchecking, grammar and context.
To understand why, we need to explain what AI marketing is, what it does right and what it needs the help of knowledge, oversight, context, quality control and even expert tweaking to perfect.
How Is AI Used In Marketing?
Whilst often associated with large-language models such as ChatGPT, Claude or Midjourney, AI is a broad, complex group of technologies and, because of this, can be slotted into a range of roles in your campaign.
Most of its best uses are invisible. It is most commonly used to tweak and perfect existing assets, correct spelling and grammar, turn a predesigned poster into multiple sizes and shapes for different social media platforms, and as part of budgeting and targeting advertising spend.
Can You Just Ask An AI Tool To Generate A Poster?
Technically, you can, but as has been unfortunately seen in many high-profile examples, the results can be less than desirable.
Left to its own devices, AI imagery is actively repulsive, and customers will have an immediate negative reaction when they see it, although to what extent depends on the person, the business and the market sector.
In terms of holistic statistics, a Bentley University study found that just 19 per cent of people have a positive view of AI, compared to 49 per cent who actively hate it.
AI posters rely on a certain number of set templates, and due to the problems large language models have with context, these posters often break a lot of the cardinal rules of marketing.
Ultimately, therefore, whilst they are sometimes useful for creating prototypes and ways to quickly visualise a full campaign, you cannot create an effective marketing campaign for your business with just a prompt.
How Can You Use AI Effectively In Your Marketing?
AI content is known as “slop” less due to its output and more based on how it reflects on the business, and the best way to ensure that AI works effectively for small businesses is to treat it like any other business tool.
It is not a replacement for creativity nor expertise, and whilst it can sharpen or accentuate the appearance of your existing marketing imagery, you should always make sure you have an oversight plan in mind.
This is particularly true for more complex products, where AI imagery will sometimes make up details that are typically best corrected by a designer or marketing expert.