For all those who thought that AI was just a fad, here’s the news.
The technology is proving its metal in amazing ways.
Not only for big businesses but AI for small business entities too holds great possibilities.
If you need some convincing, take a look at these numbers.
Statista estimates that the global AI market size in 2021 was 327.5 billion US dollars. Almost 85% of businesses say that investing in AI is one of their top priorities.
Source: Statista
Right from product development to understanding audience behavior, marketing and sales, and in using CRM software effectively, the possibilities of using AI for small businesses are endless.
If you are planning to implement AI tools for your small business, this post is a must-read for you.
Let’s dig deeper and understand how to leverage AI for your small business and take it to the next level.
How to Apply AI for Small Business to Accelerate Growth
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly becoming an integral part of how we do business.
The brands that realize the worth of AI for small business and incorporate it into their business process will gain an advantage over their competitors.
Here are 8 smart ways how AI can contribute to your business growth.
1. Assist in Elevating Product Quality
The value of your entire business heavily relies on the quality of your product.
It is imperative that you develop and position your product to meet the expectations of your potential customers.
AI for small business entities can simplify and quicken the process of market research by collecting data and analyzing it.
When you have quality insight into the customers’ pain points and how your competitors are meeting them, you can strive to make your product better.
For instance, your AI-powered chatbots can collect a lot of data on customers, and this data can be used to understand what they want from your product.
AI for small business can also be used to compare your product with other similar brands in the industry to improve the quality and enhance the uniqueness of your entire offering.
2. Customize and Automake Marketing Campaigns
The benefits of AI for small business entities in the field of marketing are plenty.
Machine learning can be applied effectively at every stage of the marketing process to create targeted campaigns and gain better ROI.
AI-assisted data analysis tools can analyze a plethora of data to assess customer behavior. This helps to understand their expectations and create more precise buyer personas.
Based on these insights you can customize marketing communications that have higher chances of generating leads for your small business and improving conversion rate.
To better utilize your time and resources, you can use AI for small businesses to automate many of the marketing activities right from content generation at scale email campaigns, lead generation and nurturing to social media marketing.
You will be amazed at what marketing automation software can achieve for you.
3. Drives Better Sales
The equation is pretty simple. Better marketing efforts will result in better sales.
It is a proven fact that AI solutions like tools for lead generation can drive better leads and improve the quality of your sales funnel.
AI for small business entities can offer predictive sales forecasting by deeply analyzing customer-generated data.
It can be used to automate and augment a large portion of the sales process to allow sales reps to focus on closing the deals.
You can also use machine learning to train your sales reps to understand customers and sell better.
4. Improve Customer Support with AI-Assisted Chatbots
Customer support is one of the most popular areas where AI for small businesses is being used extensively. Businesses of all kinds, be it travel agencies, healthcare centers, credit agencies, or e-commerce businesses, rely on AI-assisted chatbots to deliver better customer support.
According to a Drift report, 44% of customers get frustrated when they are unable to find business information quickly or easily.
Source: Drift
AI-assisted chatbots may be the apt solution for this pain point.
Businesses today are open to incorporating chatbots into their website to enhance the effectiveness of their customer support. AI-assisted chatbots are capable of answering a majority of standard business-related queries that customers come up with.
To make your chatbots even more effective, you can make engaging videos on several topics and get the chatbots to share them whenever a customer has a relevant query.
Furthermore, AI chatbots for small business entities can reduce the pressure from your customer support team, helping them to focus on other activities.
5. Enhance Cybersecurity
Cybercrimes are a very real danger to both customers and businesses. Advanced digital security has become absolutely necessary for businesses big and small.
Cybersecurity AI tools observe the behavioral patterns of employees and customers when they interact with your business database, software, and apps to determine which actions are relevant and acceptable.
Unusual or suspicious actions are flagged to be assessed further and negate the threat if there is one.
AI-guided programs also run security checks regularly to spot security vulnerabilities and suggest means to close the loopholes.
By investing in cybersecurity AI for small business entities, you are ensuring customer trust and enhancing the longevity of your business.
6. Strengthening Customer Relationship
Customer relationship is an important field where AI and machine learning are being used extensively.
CRM systems embedded with artificial intelligence can provide valuable insights based on the recorded conversations from:
- Your cloud-based business phone system
- Social media interactions
- Customer reviews and mentions
- Email conversations
Such CRM tools can have real conversations with your potential and existing customers. They are capable of analyzing customer data to provide recommendations and predictions for both marketing and sales teams.
AI for small business is smart enough to “listen” to customers’ conversations about your brand and evaluate customer sentiments.
You can use it to improve the quality of leads, nurture them, and provide a pleasant customer experience.
7. Gain Competitive Intelligence
Won’t it be wonderful if someone could monitor your competitors’ activities regularly and provide you with recommendations to stay a step ahead? AI for small business entities is capable of doing that for you.
Tools with AI integrations today are capable of monitoring the online activities of your competitors and analyzing them to generate comprehensive reports.
The insights gathered from these reports are of great value to your marketing team who can tweak their strategies to beat the competition.
The real-time competitive intelligence acquired from AI-assisted tools can help you make timely changes in your pricing, pitch, and PR message.
8. Review Your Business Performance
I am sure you evaluate your performance at the end of every campaign or financial year.
AI for small business entities can not only simplify the process, but provide in-depth analysis like never before.
AI can:
- Evaluate your marketing moves to determine which ones got you more sales leads.
- Run through your business deals to determine which approach was the most fruitful.
- Measure the success of your social media activities and PR efforts to gauge how they contributed to your brand presence.
Such detailed analysis provided by AI for small business will not only highlight your positives but your shortcomings too.
Rectify the shortcomings in time and you can set your business on a growth trajectory.
Are you Ready to Reap the Benefits of AI for Small Business?
The possibilities of applying AI for small business growth are endless. I am sure you too are convinced of its benefits for your business.
Everything from AI-assisted marketing tools to help desk tools and PRM solutions is available for small businesses to make the best out of this technology.
Go ahead and incorporate one or more AI-assisted tools into your business system and see how it can supercharge your growth.
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