Content Marketing for Local Business Owners in the World of AI

When it comes to running a small business anywhere in the country, you know, there are certain challenges you have. The biggest one is, hey, how do I attract customers? How do I convert customers? And then how do I retain customers? Well, I want to talk a little bit today about content marketing, which is to attract and convert customers and to retain them all in one shot, only with a twist. Hey, how do we do this in a world of artificial intelligence? Is. Does artificial intelligence have a place for this, or is it too soon? And if so, how do we implement it? Hey, my name is Jeff Harrison. You're here with me on the local voice. This is a program that I try to do this on a consistent basis. And shame on me. I have been a little void devoid of being here, almost only because I've been busy with two other podcasts with a couple of other people that have. Has. Has taken my attention away. And I realized I need to get back to doing what I'm doing, which is I love to talk to you about the things that are going on. So today we're talking about content marketing and really how we can use this to attract and nurture people. And I want to give you an example. I just wrapped up an episode with somebody who's a dear friend, and while we were about ready to start, her phone rang. What happened was. And I could hear. And then I finally shot off because it was kind of loud. Is this person was calling to become a new customer of hers. And I want to say that person probably heard her speak at a function and then probably followed up with information that she found online. And I call that sometimes a digital footprint. This could be her content, it could be her videos, it could be her newsletter, it could be her blog post, it could be your social media, in other words, that kind of reinforced who this person is, what she does, is she trustworthy? Did she. Did she look at the reviews on our Google page? All these things. I don't want you to misunderstand this. This is content. Your digital footprint is made up of content. It's not necessarily just your website. Let me say that again. Content marketing. And your digital footprint is not just your website. To find out, hey, how strong of. If you have a digital footprint, I would encourage you to either if you go by the brand name of your own, if you put in Jeff Harrison as an example and you Googled that, or you put in the name of your company and you. You have a result of that. Take a look at that and see if you have more than one or two responses like One or two entries. If you only have a couple, that means your footprint is kind of tiny. There's not a lot of depth. And why is that important? Well, when you're trying to attract customers, Google, and quite frankly now Chat GPT, I have often said they're kind of like, they're kind of like a dating game. They're matching people up. So when you put a query into the, the search engines, it's able to look out over the vast horizon of all the content, all the businesses out there, and decide, hey, who's the best one to match up with that? Now, it's a little different with Chat GPT because what it will do, it may cite several different sources. Well, you want to be one of those sources, but if you don't have any content out there, you're kind of like that. You know, imagine you're trying to hire an employee and they have a very thin resume. What does it do? Maybe, maybe this person doesn't have a lot of history. There's not a lot going on there. I'm going to pass. Well, ChatGPT and search engines like Google will treat it the same way. So that's why content marketing is so important to attract new customers. Because it's like saying, like, if you watch this video and then you think, well, let me, you know, let me Google Jeff Harrison and see what he is, or Swing Point Media, the name of my company. And you see that there's a lot of information. There's pages, information, a lot of videos and thousands of entries of blogs and things like that. You're thinking, okay, hey, you might think, wow, this guy's really busy, or, you know, puts a lot of content out. Let me read some of it. Well, when you do that, our relationship starts to grow. And, and it doesn't mean a relationship like you're going to be a client of mine, but your relationship might grow from a standpoint of like, this guy seems to know what he's talking about. He's written a lot of content about, he's made a lot of videos. He's been in business for 15 years as of this, as of this episode. But on the other hand, if you, if I'm giving you advice and now you're going back and you're checking me out and it's, it's real thin. There's one or two like, okay, Jeff has a company called swingpoint Media, and swingpoint Media doesn't put out any content besides just their website. That is not going to give you enough confidence to, to do anything to take the next step. You may not come back to this episode or, excuse me, this podcast. You say the Local Voice was a one time. I'm out of here. It's almost like going to a restaurant. You're thinking, well, somebody, I saw it on the road. I'm hungry, I'm checking it out. But when you get in there, it's like, you know, they have some decent food, but there's nothing that I like in there. I'm probably not going to come back. You don't want to be one of those situations that you're a business when people are out there looking around for solutions to the problems they're dealing with, that they're thinking, I probably should pass on this. So how do you do that? You have to make content. And the days of making content are a little bit different today in, let's call it the last quarter of 2025 than it was in the first half or of 2025 or any time prior to that. And by that, what I mean by it used to be this, Google was the big dog. 92% of all search traffic. Google got 92%. Now it's a little bit different now. But they were the big dog. So you had to make sure that's where you showed up. You're in the top three, right? To what they call a three pack. Well, the way to get there was to put a lot of keywords in there. Meaning, you know, if I'm an H Vac company, H Vac repair, air conditioning repair, you know, anything to do with that would be these keywords. And then started coming along is there was a thing called E, E, A T, expertise, authority and, and trustworthiness. So you'd by putting more content onto your website, onto your blog, it helped reinforce that, that, hey, you're a trustworthy resource that I can cite. This is Google thinking that I can cite to put in front of customers that it's a good resource and somebody says, hey, why is my air conditioning blowing warm air? And you have an article or you have several articles in there and you're really well known, they may put your article as number one and that would drive traffic to your website. Well, now here in the LATTER Part of 2025, when I'm, when I'm recording this, it's a little different. Now it's really what we call I, I started this, I think it was back in February of 2025. I said, I, I coined this phrase. I coined this AEO answer Engine optimization or artificial intelligence engine Optimization, it's a little different because what happens is so artificial intelligence can scour so much information so quickly and say let me look at all of this and determine what je asking for and give him the best answer. But then in the answer it says the resource I cited this article, I cited this website, I cited this particular journal. But the answer is very complete. It's one answer. It's not a list of 10, it's not a list of 20, it's not a list of three. It's one answer that's different. You have to be good at it. So content marketing is not in the first time ever really. Content marketing is really a non negotiated must do. That's all I can say because at the same time you say, well I do all my ads, I run ads, do me a favor, go put a search term in in Google right now, it's December 17, 2025 and see what shows up. What shows up at the top? The AI overview or ads, Sponsored ads, tell me what shows up. And as of today you're going to see more of AI overviews which is going to now cite several sources and websites before it. It has an article or excuse me, a sponsored ad up there. So even that is taking second seat to AI. Why? Well, quite frankly, I think it was last week that ChatGPT exceeded over 900 billion users that are using it to say I'm going to use it as my search engine. In fact it was even talked about that has ChatGPT become such a huge commodity or excuse me, a huge resource that it's almost a new operating system because we can go to it and do whatever we want. And now with 5.2 come out that now we can go, you know, we can make a video, we can create these amazing images, we can write articles, we can do emails, we can do research, anything we want. We can now learn things on there like it is the system we go to. Well, it's attracting more of us. And on the other side, Google, who is got so much money and resources, they're not going to sit on the sidelines, they're going to continue to push this out. Gemini 3, you know that is an amazing platform, but again that's like Google being a giant search engine and Bing 92%, 7% or 3% of all the search traffic, they've kind of come late to the priority but they have a tremendous resource called Money and compute that's gonna, that's gonna challenge that. But the bottom line, us as business owners, how are we gonna get our messages out there, how's our customer, how are our customers gonna find us with content? So that's how we attract customers, right? That's how we attract customers with content. We're going to be answering problems because we're not using keywords. We're now using those phrases. Like I said, why is American air conditioning blowing warm air? You know, why does my Tesla make this noise? Why does, you know, I'm going to. And this is very, very actual here we just passed Thanksgiving just a couple weeks ago is like, hey, I'm going to run in a turkey trot. I'm looking for a pair of tennis shoes that give me really support that if I run the three mile that it's good, it's gonna be something I like and I need it in size X. That's the kind of search stuff we're now putting in, in to the chat, like chat GPT to come back and it will research all of this and say, well, it looks like, you know, case with or whatever, converse is going to be the answer for you. And we love answers that say, it's almost like saying, where do you want to go for lunch? The worst answer is somebody saying, I don't know, where do you want to go for lunch? We just want to give them an answer. But if I say, hey, where do you want to go for lunch? And it says, well, let's go to Del Taco, let's do that. And I'll say, okay, let's go. It's an answer. Well, that's how we all, or I should say the vast majority of us are, we just want an answer. Give us an answer. And if Chad GPT can give us an answer, it's probably going to win our attention and we're going to win that business. So what does that mean? It means the content we're writing has to contain more of these I'm going to call it long tail questions that our ideal customers may be asking about our product or service. It's no longer saying, well, I'm going to put a lot of keywords in this article or on my website and that will get all the traffic. Doesn't work that way. 7 Now it's, it's, it's now 10 months ago. I've been saying seven months, but it started in February of 2025. I even started telling my SEO guy said, Listen, we need to start optimizing for artificial intelligence optimization. Called it aeo. Now you may hear it, it's called geo. We need to do that back then. And so what we saw is our traffic for our clients kept going up, kind of going up. And we saw as we monitored. And you could go to, like Neil Patel as an example, you talk about the drop off of sometimes as high as 40% of organic traffic because of this change, because it's all going to that longer search term, not keywords. And it made a big difference. So we started doing that and it's made a big difference. And now my SEO is not only SEO, but it's AEO ready. All the content we make at Swing Point Media for all of our clients since February of 2025 has really been optimized for not only Google search, but and not only Gemini search, but also for ChatGPT. So you would show up. So that's how you get your customers. You can no longer hope and pray that they're going to find you on the Internet. Because here's the thing. If you put in your. Where's my phone? If we put in, if we put in the phone, a person we might put in there who's the best air conditioning company in. And I live in Palm Springs area, Coachella Valley, and I do that in Chat GPT. Let's just, let's just do this live. Let's see what it says. And I say, let me get to my Chat GPT and I'm going to use the voice option. Hey, I'm looking for the best air conditioning repair service in the Coachella Valley, specifically in the Quinta. Can you help me out with that? And then it's going to come up and I'm going to spend that. I'm going to spin that out there and you're going to see what's going on here. It's thinking and it's about ready to give me an answer. And so what it's doing, it is, it is now looking at all the content, all those digital footprints for all those clients. And it's saying, okay, who's that going to be? Just put that in there again. All right, so it says it's searching for top air conditionings. Here it comes. Now, here's what it says. Standout picks around La Quinta and Coachella Valley hides air conditioning. Now this is again, now this is a shift because it's now gone to ChatGPT 5.2 hides air conditioning. And it gives the reference Timo's Air Conditioning Comfort Air and Anthem Air Conditioning and Plumbing. Former client of ours, Lots of content. Next level air. Next level air conditioning. And then it gave some additional things. Now it says because AC issues often strike at the worst times, like 110 afternoons. No kidding. It's smart to ask someone same day service. So it goes through that and it says hides is really your best choice when it says something about same day service. Now this is what it gave me back and this is the advance that it has from 5.1 to 5.2 and now gives me a map. And if you notice this map, it has their star ratings on that and it highlights the one it thinks is best. How cool is that? Well, what that did is it is, it changes everything on how we attract our customers. So you need to be ready for this. You, it's like that saying is you can either be crushed by the wave or you can surf the wave or you can totally miss the wave. I'm going to encourage you to learn how to surf the wave by making good content. And, and here's the other thing and I'm going to just, you know, if you wanted to, you could go back to chat GPT and put in your business and say, hey, I'm starting to do content marketing for, for my business. Here's all the information about my business and even my website. Can you tell me what content I should be making that's best for my website to attract ideal customers? And it will tell you and then you can take it the next step and you can say, okay, I'm going to make it from there. Keep in mind you still have to do the work. You could call us at Swingpoint Media and we could help you because we do all that. We have a content accelerator program that actually creates all your weekly content every week. So that's how you attract your new customer. You have to have a digital footprint. Now. What can this mean? I'm going to go back a few years and we're talking about H Vac companies. There was a customer, his name is Rick Kubas. He owned a company called Preferred Air Conditioning and Preferred Services and he hired us to give him a digital footprint because he had a three year plan. He was going to sell his business, but he needed to have a digital footprint nine months into the project because we were making so much content for him, weekly videos, weekly content posts, social media, that he got a call and somebody bought his business. It condensed that time from three years down to nine months and he sold his business and he told me it was because of his digital footprint. So if you're thinking, hey, long term, what is, what could this do? It could get you found by somebody who may want to buy your Business. That's pretty cool. All right, so now how do you use content to keep or to convert your customers? Well, I want you to imagine, and it doesn't matter where you're at, there's probably a freeway where you live. And if you're driving down the freeway, imagine that's traffic. That is traffic. Right? But imagine that's traffic coming to your website. And if they're driving, they're just happy. But all of a sudden there's what you see. What, a billboard. A billboard out there. And do all billboards get your attention? Of course not. I don't care about, you know, like dermabrasion for my face. Okay. My wife says you should, Jeff. Well, my point is, it's not of interest to me, but let me ask you this. What if. And we're going to stay with that, that air conditioning company, what if on Anthem heat and air conditioning, which if you went there it is there. There's an article about why is my air conditioning blowing warm air? There's also one in there. Why is American or my heater blowing cool air? And let's say I saw that and I went to their website. What probably happened in my world that made me want to even research that? I probably turned on my heater, I'm air conditioning, and the air coming out of the vent was not like it's supposed to be. And I don't know the answer. So I googled it or I went to chat GPT and it gave me that reference and I went to that, that website and I'm reading it. Guess what? Each one of those articles, that piece of content that you use to attract customers is, can now be used to convert customers. Because guess what? I'm gonna. I'm going down the road. I say, oh, geez, my air condition not blowing or is not blowing cold air. I read that article and now guess what's on that article. Oh my gosh. There's a coupon for a tuneup or there's a coupon that says, hey, is your air condition blowing cold air? You want us to come check it out? And maybe there's an offer there. Now, do you think that billboard is one that's going to get my attention? Excuse my expansion expression, but hell yeah, it is. Because it's going to solve my problem, right? It gives me that next thing. So that's how you use content to convert your customers, is you say you treat each one of those pieces of content like its own little freeway. And everybody who comes off of the main freeway, the Internet or chat GPT comes to that. What are they doing? They're trying to solve a problem they're dealing with right now. And when they see that you have a really good article or a video or both, and they watch and read that, and then you also have an offer, doesn't it make sense for them to possibly click through to your offer and become a customer of, in this case, Anthem Heating and Air Conditioning or whomever you are? 100%. So that's how content can now become a converting machine. Right now, what about nurturing how to keep and retain those customers? Well, here's the thing. If I spend money with your business, let's hypothetically say we're about ready to, you know, trade in one of my cars. And let's say, for instance, the car company I deal with had never even stayed in touch with me while I bought the car. Would, would my mind be open to other alternatives? Because now it's been a period of time, three, five, whatever, years, 100%. So I would be more open to other alternatives. But let's imagine that every week when I write a blog, I make a video. I also send it out to my current database of customers that have already voted with their wallet and said, I trust you, here's my wallet. Come fix or give me whatever I'm looking for. But now I send something out to them and I know there's, wait a second, I hear it. People say, oh, Jeff, email is dead. Email is still one of your most powerful sources of new customers that can ever imagine. I have one client that that's all we do. I think we've been working together, Geez, I think it's been seven to eight years. And all we've basically done with a small piece in there where he would send out a postcard and everything else was nothing but email marketing. And his business does very, very well. That's all he does. We create a weekly email. In your case, if you're making using content, I would put that email out using that same content because then it might be one of those situations like, hey, I just want to share an example of something we deal with pretty often this time of year is people turn their heaters on. And again, we're December 17, 2025, we turn our heater on and you know what? It comes out? Cold air. That's the last thing we want to have happen when our spouse looks at it and says, hey, there's cold air coming out of our our heater. And it's 66 degrees in the house. We don't want that happen as a surprise. So what happens is I receive as an email, I'm thinking maybe I should have my. Maybe should have a tune up done. So maybe the difference is not. Not. Here's a fix. It may be one of those things to prevent this from happening. What we have for our trusted owners is a twice a year maintenance program that you can sign up for and here's a discount for that. Call this number now and reference this and we'll get that done. And it prevents this kind of thing from happening. Oh my gosh. Now we're nurturing these customers and we're also not one of these things. Hey, the only time they hear from us is when we want them to spend money. No, we stay in touch with them weekly. You know, the whole thing about relationship is what be consistent. And I know there's some of you out there said, oh, wait a minute, you know, there's somebody that I haven't seen for 10 years and the first time we get together, it's like we never missed a day. Yes and no. There are a lot of things in 10 years, a lot of things that happen that now it gives you things to talk about, but you have this recollection of when you were close. But if you're constantly staying in front of your customers and some of you say, well, you know, my open rate is only 35, 40%, but you know what, your inbox appearance may be 100%. And I see like, okay, one of my clients and also somebody who takes care of our house is Fraser Pest Control. And I see that inbox and, and I'm going to open it. But now if somebody says, hey, I'm looking for, I'm looking for a pest control company because I bought a new house, I have termite inspection. Oh, you got to call Joe. Joe and Julie Fraser at Frazer Pest Control. I become a referral partner of them, whether I realize or not, because I am, I am present. So today, what I really wanted to share with you is the power of content marketing. Not to just attract customers, not to just convert customers, but to also nurture customers. It can be all three. Just know that the information in each one of those is just a little different. Right? One is answering your unknown customers problems. And they say, these people know what they're talking about. The next one is saying, oh, while I'm there, they've got a deal that solves my problem and I'm going to save some money. How cool is that? It's an easy it's an easy flip of the switch, right. It's almost like if I go to play pickleball and somebody sees a problem with my backhand, they say, you know, I've got a backhand class going in 15 minutes and, you know, because you're already here and I'll have to hunt you down or pay advertising for it. I'll give you the half price. Are you interested? Heck yeah. I want a good backhand. So the timing was right. He didn't talk about, you know, I notice your shoes are untied. I have this shoe tight. No, I'm not interested in that. Worried about my backhand. Right. So it's, it's timely and it's appropriate. The other thing is turning your current customers into referral partners as well as new, new services. Because every time you send out an email, you have some kind of an offer or call to action if you'll do that. That is content marketing, building a digital footprint in its finest. That's not going away as AI comes on to the marketplace more and more. And somebody who's a bit of an AI geek and has been doing this for now, again, I thought it was seven months. It's more like four years that I've been really consuming it. I am actually drinking from the fire hydrant when it comes to AI and understanding, because it's important for me to know this for my customers, right, that it's not going away and we need to know how to surf that AI wave. Well, the good news is you've got a really cool instructor and a lot of times I'll surf it for you and you can just run your business. Right? So I just want to say thank you for joining me today. If you, if you like this program, do me a favor, just give it a, like, share it with somebody and say, geez, this made sense. And check us out. We have a client, we have a program on our. Our website is called the Content Accelerator and a Content Accelerator, something I built. Now it's been three years. Yeah, three years. I saw this AI stuff coming. I said, well, what if we used AI to help us build a lot of this stuff? And AI is great for speed and it's great for consistency and it's great for structure. So I built that three years ago and we've just continued to refine it, make it better and better because the models get better. And so what happens is now we can have you come on as a customer and we gather some details, put it in the machine, and the machine every week spits out a blog with all, you know, artificial intelligence ready to go and SEO. It has the image for it, it has all the tags and everything that needs to go with has a video. It makes a video for you. We also create all the social media posts and if you'd like, it's an option, you can have the email. Some people come along and they say, I don't have a database yet. Well, for them an email isn'. But then there's other people like my, my barbecue cleaning company. They've got a database of, I think it's about 3,400 people. They need to be communicating with their people every week. The content accelerator does that. So if you're interested, please go to h. Excuse me, swingpointmedia.com check it out and then reach out to me. Let's talk about it and see if it's a fit for you. In the meantime, I want to say thank you for joining me. My name is Jeff Harrison, it's called the Local Voice and if I don't talk to you before, have a great, great solid ending of 2,025. A super holiday if you celebrate Christmas. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, totally. Have a great holidays and we'll see you in the new year again. Thank you so much. Take care.