Small but Mighty: How Generative AI Gives Solo Marketers a Competitive Edge

In 2007, I co-owned a glass block company, which was the result of pivoting our home renovation business when the economy tanked during the Great Recession. We reskilled our team and made them experts at installing security windows. We quickly grew, surpassing competitors and attracting attention from industry leaders.?

Despite challenges like a disruptive DOT project, we became the region's second-biggest glass block company in 18 months. However, our advertising expenses - which included TV ads, yard signs, and a Yellow Pages ad - were draining our revenue.?

Like many small minority-owned businesses, we faced limited resources and fierce competition. One of our competitors actually started copying our ads and changed their branding to match ours.?

#thatswild?

When you’re faced with those kinds of challenges as a small business, and especially as a small marketing team, it can be hard to stop running long enough to pivot. But you may find you’ll get farther faster if you can shut off the engine for 30 to 90 days to re-assess your tactics and upskill, if necessary.

TLDR Takeaways

Generative AI provides a multitude of benefits for 1-person marketing teams. With AI-powered tools, solo marketers can create better content, streamline and automate repetitive tasks, and accurately analyze the types of results their efforts can deliver. And if you’re concerned about racking up expenses with a bunch of costly tools, don’t. A lot of AI tools can tick multiple tasks off your list for? a small monthly investment.

By utilizing generative AI, small marketing teams can enhance productivity, improve the customer experience, drive growth, and establish brand authority.

Go Farther Faster: Using Gen AI for Marketing

I mentioned in the previous article (this one) that 43% of small B2B companies don’t have anyone in the company who’s in charge of creating content to promote the business and generate sales.?

And while we spent a lot of money on paper ads and cardboard yard signs in 2007, and invested a ton of time working on website pages, it’s hard for me to picture a marketing strategy in 2023 that doesn’t include some sort of consistent digital content generation.

For small marketing teams, generative AI encompasses technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), image recognition, and predictive analytics (yay!!), to create, analyze, and optimize content autonomously. So, let’s talk about practical ways these technologies can help the solo marketer or a marketing duo.

20+ Ways Solo Marketers Can Use Gen AI to Do More

Instead of cherry-picking three or four AI-powered tools that I think are worth the effort, my goal is to list a bunch of tasks that would be accessible and practical for a 1- or 2-person team to implement.?

I don’t promote any particular tool; I just hate it when I get vague instructions with no real starting point for further investigation. So, any tools mentioned here are just to give you a starting point.

EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING

Content Generation: Gen AI tools such as Jasper and ChatGPT can help solo marketers generate content quickly and easily, freeing up their time for other tasks. Plus, you can use a prompt tool like AIPRM to get the ball rolling.

Copywriting Support: AI can provide suggestions and ideas for compelling copywriting, helping you craft effective headlines, taglines, and ad copy.

Repurposing Content: You can prompt an AI tool to turn a piece of pillar content into social media captions, Twitter threads, thought leadership content, infographic text, slideshow presentations, etc.?

Landing Pages: Gen AI can help solo marketers create landing pages that are conversion-optimized.

White Papers: Generative AI can help create white papers that are informative and valuable.

Case Studies: Generative AI can help write case studies that showcase their expertise and results.

Design Assistance: AI-powered tools such as Canva and Mid Journey can generate visually appealing designs for social media graphics, website banners, and other marketing materials.

Image and Video Editing: AI-powered tools can assist in editing and enhancing images and videos, saving time and resources for content creation.

ENHANCED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Personalized Marketing: AI can analyze customer data and generate personalized marketing messages and offers based on individual preferences and behaviors.

Chatbot Support: AI-powered chatbots can handle customer inquiries, provide real-time assistance, and gather information for lead generation.

Customer Segmentation: AI can segment your customer base based on demographics, behavior, and preferences, allowing you to target specific groups with tailored marketing campaigns.

PRODUCTIVITY

Email Automation: AI can automate email marketing campaigns, including personalized drip sequences and triggered responses.

Social Media Automation: AI can help schedule and automate social media posts, ensuring a consistent online presence even with limited time. Tools like Publer and Hootsuite have built-in writing assistants to help create captions.

Ideation: Generative AI can help solo marketers generate ideas for new marketing campaigns or products.

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Market Research: AI can analyze market trends, consumer behavior, and competitor strategies, providing valuable insights to inform your marketing decisions.

A/B Testing: AI can run experiments to optimize your marketing campaigns by testing different variations of ads, landing pages, and email subject lines.

SEO Optimization: AI can analyze your website's content and structure, suggesting improvements to boost search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.

Social Listening: AI can monitor social media platforms and online conversations, helping you track brand mentions, industry trends, and customer sentiment.

Sentiment Analysis: AI can analyze customer feedback and reviews, giving you insights into how your products or services are perceived and helping you address concerns.

Just an aside: Sentiment analysis is more important than most marketers think. Ignoring the importance of sentiment analysis is one of the primary reasons influencer campaigns can be hit or miss. You need a way to assess how an influencer’s audience reacts to the influencer posting content on different topics to see which topics their audience is interested in and receptive to. At The Shelf, we use our proprietary tech to analyze an influencer's audience. Because not every influencer has influence/authority/trust in more than one area.

Predictive Analytics: AI can forecast customer behavior, sales trends, and marketing performance, aiding in budget allocation and strategic decision-making.

Competitive Analysis: AI can analyze competitors' marketing strategies, ad placements, and pricing models, providing insights to help you stay ahead of the competition.

GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT

Lead Generation: AI can identify potential leads and provide contact information, saving you time in prospecting and outreach.

Customer Retention: AI can analyze customer data to identify factors that contribute to churn, allowing you to develop targeted retention strategies.

Call Intelligence: AI can analyze sales calls to gather insights to help you tailor your services to your ideal client. Having access to these types of insights also plays a key role in helping marketers figure out what types of assets to drive sales.?

BRAND AUTHORITY

Influencer Marketing: AI can help identify relevant influencers and analyze their impact, assisting you in finding the right partners for collaborations.

Brand Monitoring: AI can track online mentions of your brand, notifying you

Content Analysis: AI can audit your content and provide detailed steps to help you improve your content so it gets better results for the company.

Conclusion

No matter your industry, you are likely smackdab in the middle of a very competitive business landscape. Small marketing teams face numerous challenges, including limited resources and fierce competition. However, generative AI can deliver some quick wins for both your business and the morale of your marketing team, even when that marketing team is you. Just you.?

By leveraging AI-powered tools for content generation, personalized marketing, automation, market research, and #allthethings, 1-person marketing teams can enhance their productivity, improve customer experience, conduct insightful analysis, drive growth, and establish brand authority (super important).?

Embracing generative AI technology can help these teams achieve efficient and effective marketing strategies, enabling them to thrive in the digital age.