ChatGPT: An Easy Way to Boost Marketing for Small Businesses

Posted on March 2, 2023 | Updated on June 11, 2024

You’ve most likely heard the buzz that’s been happening recently about ChatGPT. This powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot was recently launched in November 2022 and has taken off from the start — as people have found so many uses for it. It’s like having an assistant in your back pocket, allowing you to get help anytime and anywhere.

In fact, many people use it to develop new business ideas, conduct research, write emails and much more. You can even use ChatGPT as your thought partner and look for inspiration when the spark has run out.

What’s more, there are plenty of ways small businesses can make the most of their marketing efforts with it. Yet, before you start using ChatGPT for marketing, let’s understand what this AI tool is and how you can get started with it.

What Is ChatGPT?

According to ChaGPT, it describes itself as “a large language model developed by OpenAI. It has been trained on a vast amount of text data using a technique called deep learning, which enables it to understand and generate human-like language.”

ChatGPT can help you answer various questions and assist with multiple tasks. The purpose of this chatbot is to assist and communicate with users naturally and efficiently.

Adrian Twarog created this awesome ChatGPT tutorial video above as well as great walkthroughs over on his YouTube channel!

How Does ChatGPT Work?

ChatGPT works by understanding human language and responding to chats in a human-like way. When you ask ChatGPT a question or make statements, it carefully analyzes your words to understand the meaning behind what you’re saying. This means that it considers the context of the conversation and will provide the most relevant and appropriate response.

To generate responses, ChatGPT will analyze a massive amount of text from the internet to learn patterns in language and build a language model. From there, the model is fine-tuned to provide specific answers to questions or generate conversational responses.

The neat part about ChatGPT is that it learns something new from every piece of conversation so that it can improve its responses. Overall, ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for your business and even provide you with some company, especially as it can feel lonely as a solopreneur.

The Pros and Cons of ChatGPT

ChatGPT helps small businesses with marketing in several ways. However, it’s important to keep the downsides in mind. An over-reliance on this tool can place your marketing efforts at risk. So, these are the top pros and cons to be aware of before implementing it into your processes.

Pros

Speeds Up Productivity

Marketers and small businesses love this tool because it increases their processes in speed and efficiency. When you’re unsure about a task or need to find an answer to something, you can input a query, and it will generate a response within seconds. 

For instance, suppose you’re writing an article about a topic, but you could use more information to understand a particular subject. You can easily gain a full understanding by asking ChatGPT to elaborate on something or explain it to you like you’re five. Instead of spending extra time doing a Google search, get answers immediately and finish your projects faster.

Helps Marketers Generate New Ideas

No longer will you suffer from writer’s block or barriers to creativity. You can tell ChatGPT your goal and have it give you a list of ideas. For example, many people use it to generate ideas for article titles in content marketing. 

Your article headlines are crucial in garnering attention and gaining site traffic. If you use ChatGPT for new ideas, you can be sure to create precise titles that attract more readers.

Personalized Content

Whether you’re creating content for a blog, social media or email, ChatGPT saves the day in personalization. While you command it to generate content, you can also provide details about your brand, such as tone and style. Providing such information makes it easier for the tool to understand what you’re looking for, making it easier to personalize how you write.

Highly Versatile

One of the greatest things about ChatGPT is that you can use it for multiple tasks. Do you need to schedule your content in a calendar? Give ChatGPT your social media captions, and it will organize the content neatly. 

Maybe you need keyword ideas for your next article. The tool will also take care of this for you. With this AI platform able to complete various tasks for you, small businesses can streamline their to-do lists and focus on other aspects requiring more creativity.

Cons

Lacks Creativity and Contextual Awareness

ChatGPT is a tool that can only generate content it learned from its inputted data. Therefore, it can only regurgitate what others have said online, in books and in other text forms. While it’s great for helping humans stimulate their creativity, it can be a downside to those who need to create highly unique content.

Additionally, it doesn’t always understand the context of your prompt. Let’s say you ask it to summarize an article for research purposes. Sometimes, it may give inaccurate or completely unrelated responses.

Limited Emotional Intelligence

One of the other downfalls of this tool is its lack of emotion. AI has no feelings as humans do — it can only replicate emotions. Therefore, if you tell it to use a positive tone in its writing, it may give off overly cheerful energy by using too many exclamation points or going overboard in a happy manner. Using the exact language that ChatGPT gives you may reflect your brand negatively on customers.

Can be Biased

Bias has always existed in humans, so there’s bound to be some form within the data that OpenAI fed it. While OpenAI is working actively to fix this, it’s vital to watch the responses it provides.

Limited Knowledge

ChatGPT’s knowledge base cuts off in 2021. Therefore, asking for facts or the latest statistics can be an issue. That’s where you’ll need to use search engines to gather the latest information.

How To Get Started Using ChatGPT

To get started with ChatGPT, go to OpenAI and select “Try ChatGPT.” From there, it will ask you to create an account before using it.

Once you create an account, you can start familiarizing yourself with ChatGPT to understand its capabilities and how to use it to benefit your small business. One way you can do this is by asking it a simple question and seeing how it responds — you can build it out from there. 

ChatGPT only limits itself based on the prompts you enter, so use your imagination. The more targeted and creative your questions are, the higher your chances of getting quality output.

Another way to understand how ChatGPT works is by learning how others use it. Tons of online resources provide you with examples of how ChatGPT works. You can even discover a list of ChatGPT prompts to give you inspiration for what to ask it. 

Finally, consider asking ChatGPT yourself about the ways to use it. For example, you could write a prompt that says, “I’m new to ChatGPT. What is the best way to use it?”

Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Marketing

As soon as you learn how ChatGPT works, you will see it as an invaluable tool for your business, especially as you look to improve your marketing efforts. Here are some ways small businesses can use this tool for marketing.

1. Optimize Content for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Small businesses looking to improve their online visibility and drive more traffic to their website can benefit greatly from using ChatGPT — as you can use it to optimize your content for search engines. 

One of the ways ChatGPT can assist you with SEO is by suggesting relevant keywords and phrases. The AI chatbot does this by analyzing search trends and identifying commonly used terms and phrases related to the topic and your industry. 

It will also give you ideas about improving your content for readability and user engagement. By utilizing this tool for SEO, you can ensure your content’s visibility increases in search results and that it’s engaging and informative.

2. Generate a List of Ideas for New Content

Small businesses always seek new, engaging content ideas to attract and retain customers. However, creating fresh and relevant content ideas can take time and effort. That’s where ChatGPT can help.

You can use this tool to inform it of your business type and what problems you’re trying to solve for your customers. Once you enter the prompt, ChatGPT will analyze this information and provide relevant topics for recommendations.

For example, suppose you run a fitness center and are looking to post new content on your website. ChatGPT can identify topics of interest, such as healthy eating tips, workout routines and fitness trends and suggest new ideas that resonate with your audience.

3. Assist in Creating High-Quality Content

Whether you need help writing blog posts, social media updates or product descriptions, ChatGPT can provide you with the assistance you need to create engaging and informative content.

One of the main benefits of using ChatGPT to assist with content creation is its ability to generate text quickly and efficiently. By inputting a topic or prompt, ChatGPT can instantly provide you with a range of responses that can inspire your writing or serve as a starting point for your own ideas.

This can be especially helpful for small businesses with limited time and resources, as it allows them to produce high-quality content without dedicating significant time to research and writing.

4. Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for small businesses looking to create a digital marketing strategy. The best part about this is that it can help you create a plan that aligns with your business goals. All you need to do is explain your business and what purpose you want to achieve, then ask it to help you create a strategy.

While ChatGPT itself does not create marketing strategies for small businesses, you can still use it to assist you in designing your own. Creating an effective digital marketing strategy can be challenging, and small businesses can save time and money with quick, useful ideas.

5. Enhance Social Media Marketing

Small businesses can also benefit from ChatGPT by improving their social media marketing efforts. For example, you can use it to create engaging content, develop a social media strategy and provide topic suggestions for posts. 

This tool can even analyze social media trends and provide you with a range of ideas for content, so you always stay on top of the latest trends. 

Furthermore, this machine can assist with social media advertising by learning about your target audience and identifying the best ways to reach them. As this tool gets to know you more over time, you can increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts and drive more traffic to your website.

Tips for Using Generative AI in Marketing

Despite ChatGPT having a few downfalls, it’s still a viable tool for your marketing strategy. 

Balance Human and AI Use

Humans and AI both have their strengths and weaknesses. Human marketers are creative and tenacious but can become burnt out easily. On the other hand, ChatGPT’s cleverness is seriously limited.

However, the tool is like a robot assistant to help you 24/7. Put the two together side-by-side, and you get the best of both worlds — human creativity and increased content creation. 

When using both in marketing, ensure you balance the two effectively. Determine what you can use the tool for and where human intervention is necessary. Creating a balance between humans and AI will be crucial in producing marketing efforts that meet your audience’s needs.

Use Detailed Prompts for Better Output

ChatGPT’s responses are only as good as the prompts you give it. Try to be as detailed and descriptive as possible to get quality results. For instance, suppose you need to devise a content marketing strategy. Instead of telling it to create one for you, ask it for help. 

ChatGPT will help you in this aspect, as it will ask for more details it needs to know to create a personalized content marketing strategy. You can also tell it to pretend to be a content marketing expert so that it will give you more detailed information in the process.

Use It for Ideation

It’s a given that many companies will use ChatGPT to help them create content. However, the downside is that these businesses will all sound the same. If you truly want to stand out online, leverage ChatGPT for ideation. For example, if you have to produce content for an article, avoid copying and pasting. Rather, use it to give you ideas for what to include in your blog post.

Leverage for Content Improvement

This tool is amazing for asking for feedback on what you need to create. Once you finish writing your pieces, ask for feedback on grammar, sentence structure, tone consistency and more. This way, you understand where you need to improve, creating better content than ever.

Always Start a New Prompt for a New Task

It’s best to keep your tasks separate in ChatGPT. While it’s great for continuing a job you started previously, it’s better if you start a new chat for a different project. Otherwise, the tool can become confused with the previous prompts you’ve fed it. Then, it may give nonsensical responses. 

Make the Most of Your Marketing Efforts With ChatGPT

ChatGPT can provide the support and guidance you need to succeed. The best part is that it’s easy to use and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a solopreneur or a small team, this tool will provide the resources and insights needed to boost your marketing efforts.

Most importantly, it tailors your marketing to your unique needs and goals. Therefore, if you’re looking for an easy and effective way to enhance your marketing, consider using this AI-powered chatbot and see the difference it makes for your small business!

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About The Author

Eleanor Hecks is the Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, an online publication dedicated to providing in-depth content from the design and marketing industries. When she's not designing or writing code, you can find her exploring the outdoors with her husband and dog in their RV, burning calories at a local Zumba class, or curled up with a good book with her cats Gem and Cali.

You can find more of Eleanor's work at www.eleanorhecks.com.

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