An Owners Guide to Leveraging AI to DIY Your Digital Marketing Strategy for Local Small Businesses

The use of AI in digital marketing is definitely on the rise, and it’s a trend that you’ll need to get on to keep up with your competitors. Below is a list of AI tools that we have researched and tested, and how they can fit into your digital marketing strategy.  Get in touch with us today to learn more about leveraging AI in your digital marketing strategy!

Jasper.ai

Jasper.ai is a tool for copywriting. Fun fact: an earlier version of Jasper was known as Jarvis, based off Tony Stark (yeah, Iron Man!)’s virtual assistant, but Marvel sent them a cease-and-desist letter, and so it became Jasper.

Jasper.ai uses Open AI’s GPT3 technology to allow you to create human-sounding copy in many tones and styles for things like website content and blogs. While the text sounds fairly human, it can be a little repetitive and it doesn’t always have a natural flow. As with any AI generated text, it’s a good idea to have a human edit your content before it makes its way to your audience, but Jasper.ai, and other similar tools, can do the heavy lifting when it comes to content writing (I say as I write this from scratch…)

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that helps your content rank better on Google and other search engines. It does not generate content for you. You write or provide your own content, but Surfer then scores your content on criteria like:

•          Keyword density
•          Readability
•          Length
•          Use of headers
•          And other elements that impact how well your content ranks.

After you select your domain, niche, and target audience, Surfer will run its analysis and give you suggestions on what to revise in order to improve your SEO ranking.

Grammarly

You may already be familiar with Grammarly, an AI tool for editing syntax and grammar. One of the cool features of Grammarly is that it can be integrated with so many programs and platforms, including Word, Gmail, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more. It highlights errors and suggests corrections. From there you are free to take their suggestions or ignore them. While Grammarly has a focus on traditional grammar and syntax editing, it also notices redundant words, inconsistencies in style, and can offer alternative word choices.

Chatfuel

Love them or hate them, chatbots are a mainstay of the digital landscape. Chatfuel simplifies building a useful chatbot. It allows you to create a custom virtual assistant with ease through their drag and drop interface. The AI involved is exceptional at interpreting queries and providing helpful responses, and even handles misspelt or grammatically incorrect prompts with ease. To bolster confidence in Chatfuel, they’re an official partner of Meta!

Brand 24

Brand 24 is an AI tool for media monitoring. It tracks where your brand is being mentioned online. It combs through social media, blogs, news sites, forums, and more to amass mentions of your brand. The AI then analyzes the sentiment behind the mention, identifying context and topic of the conversation, as well as the tone and emotions of the users.

The cool thing about this is that it lets you quickly intervene with customer support in cases of poor reviews, or product or service issues and take control of the situation before it becomes a bigger problem. It’s also more effective than running a Google keyword search, as the AI does it for you.

Hemingway app

Hemingway app is another AI tool for editing content, but it works a little but differently than Grammarly. Hemingway edits content for maximum clarity and readability. It points out run-on sentences, passive voice, and superfluous adverbs, and other aspects of poor style. It also gives you a readability score based on the US Education system. To reach the largest audience, Hemingway suggests a grade level 9 or lower for most content. With that in mind, what Hemingway considers to be perfectly optimized may be too simplistic for some forms of content where style and technicality carry more weight.

AI Tools are Just Tools

The use of AI in your digital strategy does NOT allow you to compete with emerging AI. It allows you to compete with other business owners that are already taking advantage of AI tools to strengthen their digital marketing. A tool is only as useful as the person operating it. To learn more about leveraging AI tools effectively, call us at Smart WSI Marketing today for a digital marketing consultation.

Lynne Motkoski, Marketing Strategist

Specialty: Online Marketing Strategies
Education: MA Communications & Technology, BComm [U Alberta]
Author: The Online Marketing Handbook for Busy Entrepreneurs (coming soon)

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Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.

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