Kalin Kassabov is a Founder and CEO of ProTexting.com, a fast-growing enterprise-level text message suite of services.
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. We see AI-generated photos, videos, articles, even books. Aside from content-generating AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, AI has applications in marketing, supply chain planning, data analysis, and many other areas.
What does this mean for small businesses? As someone who provides B2B marketing services to many industries, I thought I’d share some guidelines on how you should -and should not- implement AI in your own business.
Dos: Ways AI Can Help Your Business
Offer 24/7 Customer Service
Chatbots are one of the most widely-used AI tools, and for good reason. They can provide interactive guidance to visitors 24/7. Chatbots can also collect data on customers that you can use for your web analytics (such as who is visiting your site from which locations and at what times).
In addition to chatbots, you can leverage AI to help create more efficient automated customer service by phone. Voice-enabled AI can answer many questions or direct callers to find the answer on your website. These customer service tools are especially convenient for smaller businesses that can’t provide live customer service during off-hours.
Boost Your Content Creation
You can generate articles and blog posts with ChatGPT, Gemini, and other tools. The popular proofreading tool Grammarly now offers AI writing assistance if you have a premium subscription. These are good for business emails, simple blog posts, and outlines for more complex content.
Video making services such as InVideo let you create AI-generated videos based on prompts. Similarly, you can create graphics with MidJourney and other generative AI tools.
Conduct Research and Data Analysis
AI can help you conduct research. You can use it to keep track of current trends in your industry. Market forecasting can help you identify which products and services are likely to be popular in upcoming seasons.
AI is making it easier for smaller businesses without extensive resources and huge budgets to even the playing field and access high-level research. Depending on your needs and experience, you may prefer to tap into the research done by others. HubSpot provides some guidance on where to find the best market research.
Use it For More Efficient Marketing
Many marketing and advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, have sophsisticated AI capabilities built in. This means, you don’t have to know anything about AI to reap the benefits. According to Google support: “Google uses AI to set the right bids, reach the right searches, and create the most relevant ad for consumers.” The same is true for email marketing services such as MailChimp, which use AI for automation and personalization features.
AI Don’ts
Don’t Use AI to Create All Your Content
Tools such as ChatGPT are great for generating ideas for content, creating outlines, and basic “how to” articles and listicles. However, there are a few reasons you shouldn’t rely too much on AI for content.
- It lacks the personal touch. You want to insert your unique point of view and your brand voice into your content.
- It’s not always accurate. Never publish factual material, such as statistics, studies, and news stories without checking it! AI has been known to fabricate studies and get key facts wrong.
- It lacks creativity and originality.. AI is great for mining existing ideas but don’t expect it to generate truly original or unique ideas.
- It may adversely affect your SEO. Although Google itself integrates AI into many of its services, its algorithms may penalize AI-generated content, especially if it sounds too generic.
Don’t Use AI For All Your Customer Service
AI has some amazing capabilities to help you offer quality customer service. However, it’s not a replacement for personalized service. For example, a chatbot can answer many FAQs and help customers navigate your site. But you should inform people how to reach a live person for more complicated or serious issues.
Don’t Rely on AI to Make High Level Decisions
Most seasoned business owners and entrepreneurs are independent-minded and probably aren’t ready to turn over their free will to a robot. However, as AI gets more advanced and more widely used, it’s worth noting that you should limit your reliance on AI in the following scenarios.
- When you need to make important ethical decisions. For such matters, rely on your own conscience, trusted acquaintances, and, when appropriate, an attorney.
- When you are deciding on your fundamental branding or company culture. These should be personal decisions.
- When you’re dealing with proprietary information or data. Many AI tools are public and uploading confidential information could compromise the privacy of your clients or partners.
Artificial intelligence is sure to transform our lives and the way we do business even more in the future. It’s important to keep it all in perspective. Use AI as an intelligent assistant when it’s appropriate but understand its limitations