AI marketing: how to use AI in your marketing

AI marketing means using artificial intelligence tools to do or speed up marketing tasks. That can be a first draft of a text, ideas for a campaign, a quick read of your sales figures or a website built from a short description. The AI does the groundwork, and you decide what goes out.

What is AI marketing?

In practice, AI marketing tools do two kinds of work. Some AI tools create content, such as texts and images. Others analyse your data and turn it into insights and automated actions, such as a reminder email to customers who haven't ordered for a while.

For a small business, the common uses are writing content, finding ideas, analysing data, tailoring offers to groups of customers and the routine parts of your SEO. Your part is to set the goal and give the tool the right information about your business.

You don't need a marketing team or a big budget to try it. A clear task and some time to review the result are enough to start.

How to use AI in your marketing

AI can help with work you already do in your marketing, from your website to your emails. Each task comes with an example of what you can ask for.

Build your website and landing pages

With an AI website builder such as our Aida AI Website Builder, you describe your business, and Aida creates a complete website with pages, content, images and design.

You then review the site and ask Aida for changes in the chat, or you edit the text, images and layouts yourself. You can also ask Aida to add a landing page, for example for a new product, a newsletter sign-up or a seasonal offer. You describe what the page is for, then ask Aida for changes until it says what you want.

Describe your business, and Aida builds your pages, text and images. Change anything you like before you publish.

Write and edit content

Writing takes time, and AI is good at first drafts. You can ask a tool for product descriptions for your online shop, headlines or a page about who you are. It also writes social media posts, a newsletter or an invitation to an event. If you already have a text, the tool can shorten it, make it longer or change the tone.

Give the tool more than "write a product description". Tell it who the text is for, what the product does, the tone you want and the words your customers use. That instruction is called a prompt, and learning to write a good prompt saves you rounds of corrections later.

Treat what you get as a first draft, and add your own examples before you publish it.

Find ideas for campaigns and posts

AI is a useful sounding board when you need ideas, such as a theme for your next campaign, topics for your blog or a name for a new product. Tell it who you are, who you write for and what you need.

A freelance graphic designer looking for blog topics that bring in clients could write a prompt like this:

I'm a freelance graphic designer. I have a blog on my website, and my readers are small businesses and start-ups. Suggest 10 blog topics that would interest them and bring traffic to my website.

If the first suggestions miss the mark, ask for new ones, or tell the tool what was wrong with them. You can also ask it to sort the ideas by theme or add a short explanation for each one.

Analyse your customer data

AI can also look through your data for you. A small online shop, for example, collects sales figures over time, along with what customers buy and how often they open the newsletter. An AI tool can help you spot patterns in that data, such as which products sell together or when sales dip. With that, you can plan campaigns and tailor offers to your target groups.

If your shop system can export your orders as a spreadsheet, that file is a good place to start. Before you upload it anywhere, delete the columns that identify a customer, such as names, email addresses and postal addresses.

Pick a chat assistant that accepts spreadsheets, such as Google Gemini. Before you add the file, switch off the use of your chats for training in its settings if the tool lets you. Then add the file and ask a clear question, such as "Which products are often bought together, and in which months do sales drop?" Compare the answer with your own figures before you build a campaign on it.

If you're unsure how to read a chart or a report, you can ask a tool to explain it.

AI can also set up a spreadsheet for you, for example to track your keywords, campaigns or content ideas. Describe the columns you need, and ask for changes until it fits how you work.

Get help with SEO

You can use AI for the routine parts of SEO. Ask it for keyword ideas, a first draft of your SEO texts, meta descriptions or headlines for a page.

For the figures, use a dedicated SEO tool. Check search volumes and how your keywords perform there before you build a page around a keyword. If your website runs on WordPress, an SEO plugin such as Rank Math gives you keyword performance insights. It works with Google Search Console, Google's tool that shows how your site does in search. Rank Math comes in a limited free version, and the paid Rank Math PRO adds the rest of its features, such as tracking your keywords in one place.

Write and answer emails

AI can draft a reply to a customer enquiry, a newsletter or a sales email. You then adjust the wording before you send it. A chat assistant can do this too, but you copy the text back and forth between two windows.

With an email address on your own domain from us, our AI writing assistant is built into webmail. It writes a first draft, improves your wording or changes the tone, and it can sum up a long thread in a few key points. If you'd rather work without it, you can switch it off at any time in webmail. You'll find what each plan includes on our email plans page.

Which AI marketing tools can you use?

You don't need many tools to get started. Most fall into one of three kinds:

• Chat assistants: general tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini write drafts, suggest ideas and explain data. Give them the background on your business in your prompt.
• AI built into your website and email: with our Aida AI Website Builder and our webmail, the AI sits in the tools you work in anyway, so you don't juggle separate tools.
• Tools for one job: an SEO plugin, a design tool or an email marketing platform with AI features. Pick one when a task needs figures you can rely on, such as search volumes, because a chat assistant can get those wrong like any other fact.

Start with the AI in a tool you already use for the task, such as your website builder or your email. Add a chat assistant for drafts and ideas when you need more. Some tools let you try them before you pay, so start with a free version where there is one.

Benefits and risks of AI in marketing

AI can make a small marketing budget go further, but it also brings risks you need to manage. The first benefit is time. AI can take over routine tasks such as first drafts and summaries, so you have more time for the creative parts of your work.

AI also helps you tailor content to each group of customers, which can lead to higher conversion rates.

Each of the risks is a reason to read what AI writes before it goes out under your name:

• Errors: AI can get facts wrong, and without someone checking, those errors go out unnoticed. Check every figure, name and claim.
• Bias: AI can produce biased content, for example about groups of people. Look out for stereotypes, such as a text or image that shows every nurse as a woman.
• The wrong tone: an unedited AI text may not sound like your brand. Your own examples and words are what make it yours.

Can you put customer data into an AI tool?

Usually, you shouldn't put anything that identifies a customer, such as a name, email address or postal address, into an AI tool. An order spreadsheet with those columns deleted, like the one in the data section above, no longer holds such details, so you can use it. The customer data your business handles also falls under UK GDPR, so treat it the same way inside an AI tool as anywhere else.

Google tells Gemini users that people may review some chats, and asks them to leave out anything confidential. As with your order spreadsheet, check any chat tool's privacy or data settings before you use it for work, and switch off training on your chats where you can.

How to start using AI in your marketing

Don't change your whole way of working at once. Start small and build from there:

• Pick one goal first, such as more enquiries, a smoother path to checkout or more free time. The goal tells you which task to hand to AI.
• Try AI on one thing you do often, such as product descriptions or email replies, and compare the result with how you did it before.
• Once one task works, move on to the next, and try the new AI features in the tools you already use.

If you don't have a website yet, it makes a good first task. You can build your website with Aida AI Website Builder and use its AI for the content as you go. If you already have a website, start with the next text you need to write.