How You Can Use AI to Grow Your Business

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a simulation of human intelligence processes conducted by machines, including computer systems. It has the ability to think and learn too. In recent years AI has taken leaps forward and is becoming increasingly important in every industry.

Previous studies have shown that a sizeable majority of small business owners either don’t understand AI or don’t think their business can adapt to it. We want to show you that AI doesn’t have to be complicated and can and using AI can bring huge benefits to your firm if done correctly.

Email Marketing

Have you ever received an email from a business or website along the lines of “You still have items in your basket” or “We miss you!” implying you haven’t visited their store for a while? If you have then that has occurred thanks to AI, which works in the background of your browser.

Email marketing has a high ROI, and if you’re not using it you’re missing out on a golden opportunity. However, if you are using it, consider fine tuning it with a bit of AI. Email marketing platforms such as MailChimp allow you to sync your physical and online customer lists so that you can create segmented email lists by dividing it up into smaller groups, e.g. by location. If you have an events company and run events across the UK you likely have a large customer base that are spread out miles apart, and they are likely not interested in events located in Manchester if they’re based in London. Hence, segmenting your email lists into locations will help you create tailored email campaigns that better serve these customers.

You can also take your email marketing a step further by using automation, which allows you to create emails that automatically send when triggered by certain user activity, inactivity, or a specific date like a birthday. The triggers are essentially AI at work in the background. Depending on the subscribers specific action, a programmed response is triggered, and so on down the line until the customer (hopefully) converts to a sale.

Analytics

The data that we hold is powerful, from a business perspective, data analytics can be used to increase revenue, track emerging trends, improve operational efficiency and optimise marketing. So does AI play a role in analytics? AI has allowed CRM’s such as Salesforce to build the world’s smartest CRM system. Einstein (a program built into Salesforce) can deliver predictions and recommendations based on your business processes and your customer data.

This means that these valuable insights can help you create a more personalised experience for your customers and with 80% of marketers saying that customised content is more effective using AI business intelligence can really help you to boost your business. AI also allows you to track your user’s journey as they navigate through your website and analyse their behaviour using AI tools.

Team Growth

Did you know that you can also grow your team without employing anyone? Sounds ridiculous but let us convince you! AI can help you implement a customer support system. This may be especially relevant to you if you’re a small business that doesn’t have a dedicated sales team. AI can help you in the form of chatbots, those pop-up windows that appear when you first open a website.

If you have a website then seriously consider “hiring” a chatbot, it’s like having an employee that works 24/7 but for a fraction of the cost! Certain studies even show that just over half of customers prefer using a chatbot to consult with before directly calling a business, which is one of multiple reasons why chatbots are becoming increasingly popular.

If you’re still not convinced consider this: a customer goes online to submit their query in the form of a support ticket, and could take up to 48 hours to receive an answer, leaving the customer disappointed with their experience. AI tools can help you provide prompt customer service in a variety of ways. For example, AI tools can collect data from your website, allowing users to have interactive conversations and get answers to FAQ from chatbots. When a potential buyer gets their answers in an instant, they are that much more likely to sign up, subscribe and buy.

Lead Generation

We’ve mentioned earlier how AI tools can enhance your email marketing campaigns, but what else can they do to improve on your marketing strategy? When designing an advert, the end goal is always to reach as many new leads as possible in your target audience. Facebook has one of the best ad platforms out there: they allow you to select the demographics of the users you want to reach with your ad (their age, location, profession, etc), but AI tools can help you take this a leap forward.

Facebook ads are now immensely powerful when combined with AI. Now you are able to target your ads to a Lookalike Audience, which you can do by connecting your instagram feed to your Facebook. You can also upload your information about your current customers from your CRM, MailChimp & website! Facebook’s AI tools are able to build similar audiences for your ads based on this data which means you’re more likely to reach an abundance of new target users who are interested in what you have yo say because they’re almost identical to your existing customers.

AI isn’t all about Amazon Alexa, switching your lights on and off when you’re not home and self-driving EVs. Now businesses of any size can utilise AI tools to transform their business goals.

That's A Wrap!

We hope you found this informative, but if you’re still stuck, why not shoot us a DM? We’d love to help you. We suggest you begin posting reels once per week, then increase as you see fit. We know you are going to fall in love with using Reels and their results, of course!