With almost 30 years of offline and online marketing experience under my belt, you could say that I’ve seen a lot of change within the industry. From the introduction of .com in the early 1990s, to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) around 1997, we’ve helped small businesses revolutionise digital marketing and how to navigate the wide world of search engine ranking alongside the rise of social media management and marketing in the mid-to-late 2000s era. 

Today, with the growing reliance on consumer personalisation, for small businesses vying to be seen online, the digital marketing industry as we know it has changed from the one that I started out in almost three decades ago, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

Revolutionising digital marketing through change

With periods of change comes growth and opportunity. And as Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to develop at a rapid pace, we find ourselves in another one of these exciting periods, that will likely see the industry as we currently know it today, changing into something new tomorrow.

A lot has been said about AI recently – some fear it, some ignore it and some embrace it, with big businesses leading the conversation from every side. Elon Musk recently asked for a 6-month pause on all AI updates (despite looking into his own AI developments for Twitter), while tech giants Microsoft and Google are taking their adoption of AI to the next level by incorporating the new tech into their software. 

While it’s clear they won’t be agreeing on an opinion anytime soon, one thing that they – and we – can all agree on is that AI as we know it today is nothing short of remarkable, with the potential to turn the digital marketing industry on its head in the best possible way. As a business, we choose to embrace AI, and have done for more than four years. It’s simply another tool that’s here to support our clients and wider networks, whether it be through smart bidding within Google ads products, proofing content or inspiring website product pages, and we’re encouraging other digital marketers to do the same.

Simply speaking, AI boasts a number of advantages for our industry, providing a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded digital marketplace. Thanks to machine learning and AI algorithms, digital marketers can look forward to assistance with improved efficiency, data driven personalisation, predictive analytics and enhanced customer insights. 

But don’t let me try and convince you – take it from the source. According to ChatGPT, digital marketers can benefit from AI in the following ways:

1. Personalisation: AI algorithms can analyse user data to create personalised marketing campaigns that target specific groups of people with tailored content and messaging.
2. Predictive Analytics: AI algorithms can analyse data and predict user behaviour, enabling marketers to optimise their marketing strategies and identify new opportunities for growth.
3. Chatbots and Customer Service: AI-powered chatbots can assist in customer service and help automate routine inquiries, allowing marketers to focus on more important tasks.
4. Content Creation: AI can be used to generate relevant and engaging content for marketing campaigns, including blog posts, social media updates, and video content.
5. Ad Targeting: AI can analyse user data to identify the most relevant and effective advertising channels, allowing marketers to target their ads more accurately.
6. Sentiment Analysis: AI algorithms can analyse social media conversations and other user-generated content to determine public sentiment towards a brand, product, or service.

According to the chatbot, overall AI can help digital marketers make better decisions and drive more effective campaigns by providing insights, automating routine tasks, and enabling personalization at scale. And we agree… within reason.  

Where to start?

Unsure where to start though? There are a number of popular AI programs that you should be trying out, including Jasper, ChatGPT, Copysmith, Writesonic and CopyAI. Jasper is our AI of choice, and a program that we’ve been integrating into our business for the past two years. Each has their pros and cons, but ultimately produces the same results. Whether you’re building out a social content calendar, or looking for a few thought starters for your next blog post – AI is there to assist. That isn’t to say that the technology is perfect… while it’s okay to use AI-content tools to assist, there’s still work involved to ensure you get the most out of the AI.

In terms of using AI to generate content for your website, the question has been asked: Does it affect my organic SEO rankings? Good question: We’ve found that it’s perfectly fine to use AI-content tools to help you gather ideas or build a framework for content, but again, there is still work to be done to ensure your content ranks well online.

As a digital-led business with almost 30 years of experience, this new technology is something that we’ve been monitoring for a number of years, and a tool that we began incorporating into our operations more than two years ago to help better service our large pool of clients. Today, Localsearch services over 28,000 Aussie SMBs while providing free support to an additional 300,000 and where appropriate, we lean on AI and all of its capabilities to draw on inspiration and get the most value for our clients.

We encourage all small businesses that are looking at integrating AI into their company to think about it practically. AI enables organisations to automate so many of the routine tasks, including data entry and analytics, freeing up the team to focus on more strategic and creative work, increasing both efficiency and accuracy. It’s a no brainer.

AI has been a game changer for all businesses, and as the tech industry continues to evolve and we see more capabilities around building web code, creating graphics, optimising administration and more, I envision more and more people integrating AI into their everyday lives – and we encourage small businesses to jump on the boat. Today. 

Daniel Stoten is the executive chairman at Localsearch.