Local Business Marketing with Ai

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Hey, my name is Jeff Harrison, and today I just want to share some ideas with you. If you're a local business.

That'S a pretty broad thing. And one of the things we talk about here at Swingpoint Media is narrowing down or niching down to speak to your audience. But what I want to share today is pretty good across most platforms or across most businesses. And I just want to share some things with you. We're a digital marketing agency that like most of you who have a local business, you might be evolving from, you know, you know, you might be moving out of newspaper and magazine to TV to radio into using digital marketing. And now we have AI that has come onto the market and it has, it has really taken the market by storm. And I just wanted to spend a little time today sharing some thoughts about how we're using AI, how you could use AI and what it will do for you. This is a live show, it's interactive. So please, if you have a question or a comment, I'd love to have you chime in. I can see the, the comments here.

Here's the, here's the biggest thing with AI. You know, when we first started talking about this with, you know, some of the mastermind groups that I'm in and whatnot, networking groups I'm in, one of the biggest things was the concern that it was going to have people lose their jobs. Well, I'll tell you what we've, what we've really noticed with the use of AI and we use it pretty extensively with our clients and is we see it as something that makes what we do happen faster so we can do higher volumes at work in a fraction of the time. And let me just give you an example. Our company typically will create content for our clients and that means usually we'll write one article a week that is very well written, it's in depth, it's been heavily researched, and it's a blog post that goes out and then we take that same idea and turn it into a video. So we then take that and cut it into little pieces and put it in, you know, we hear called shorts, but we call them snippets. And we put that throughout several platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, those type of places to help get that product distributed and also to keep our customers in possibly in view of their potential customers. So that when something comes up and they need a plumber or they need a air conditioner repair, which is the niche we tend to work in, then our, our clients will be the top of mind and they May pick up the phone and call them. We play in an area. Well, let me keep going. So, so creating that content takes time. Now what we have done is a couple of things. One is we now use, you know, AI to help us write content. No, we don't use chat GPT to write the articles we use. Another actually use three different types of AI. But what's happened with the, the staffing situation is we've seen people's roles actually evolve, not be eliminated, but evolve. And let me give an example. And this is not my term, but this is a term that we use. They're called AIOs, and that's artificial Intelligence Optimizers. Now what that means is we may use these three different artificial intelligence to help us write the content, but then our writers are now becoming.

Editors and they're optimizing that content. So what happens is typically a artificial intelligence will tend to write things in the same length and the same.

I would say the same tone, if you will, or same pace. And it's almost like listening to someone who is very monotonous. They have a monotone voice, but you can listen for a little bit, but not very long and your brain drifts off. Well, that's what AI does. It tends to write things in very uniform ways. So what'll happen is our writers will go in who are now optimizers, and they'll, they'll make it be more human. So maybe it's one of those things where out of that article, now they're writing and rewriting maybe 20, 25% of that article or adding, adjusting and things like that. They're also making sure that, that all the content is accurate. I know we've had instances where attorneys have turned in work and cited case law that didn't exist. And, you know, kids turning in homework papers that didn't. Those, those, those links didn't exist. Those pieces of reference didn't exist. Well, we want to make sure that when we put the content out for our clients that if it's referencing something that we've already checked it out, make sure it exists and the link is accurate and, and it works. So that's a couple of the roles that, that our people play in there. The other piece is creating visual content. You know, we see that when you open up an article and it has, you know, it has an image or two in there, those are all created human by our staff. That's still that creative size. No, we're not using Dall E or we're not using Mid Journey. I don't think those are quite ready for that commercial use. Our graphic artists are still busy. They're not being replaced by that. Now, I'm not saying in time that.

Those processes may evolve and we may start utilizing them to create those images for us. But I think what we'll do is we'll still have our graphic artists now, just like our writers, they'll evolve into that so that there can still be a human eye in there. You know, last thing I want to do is we want to put out an image that is showing maybe one of our clients, their ideal customer, and they have one too many digits on their hand. They have six fingers instead of five, or they have two thumbs instead of one. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but they'll catch those kind of things and clean that up. Until then, we're going to continue to, you know, keep our staff employed and busy and doing their thing. So the big thing about artificial intelligence, as I was saying earlier, is it is allowing us to do more in a shorter period of time for many things, from a brand new client to onboarding, to creating the customer value journey, which is now understanding, hey, what. Who is their ideal customer? What are those traits? You know, sometimes we think, when I'll ask a customer, they'll say, I'll say, well, you know, tell us a little about your ideal customer. Well, you know, they're male or female, they're 35 to 40 years old or 50 years old, and you know, they live in this kind of a neighborhood. And that's about where it stops. So what we do is now with the use of some of our artificial intelligence, we can drill way down on this and we can do it with a lot less, I'm going to call it friction or resistance or difficulty for our customers. Because let's face it, you as a business owner, the last thing you want to do is, is is have more and more time trying to figure this out on your own or even with us. Because, you know, and let's face it, in your mind, that's why you've hired us. We'll be the ones who dig this out. Well, normally in a customer journey or an ideal customer profile, we call it an icp. An ideal customer. While, you know, that may take, that may, that may take 15 to 20 hours manually of digging through because we're looking at saying things like, hey, what kind of shows do these people watch? What kind of stores do they shop in? What kind of movies do you like? What kind of books do they read? What Kind of cars do they drive? You know, when they go to movies, what do they watch? It could be, you know, where do they shop for clothing. All these kind of things help us understand who we are speaking to. And in that process, now we can be better for our customers because now, instead of casting a really wide net and hoping to catch our client's ideal customer and convert them into a paying customer, we can now be very specific. And this could be something as simple as the language. If someone, if we notice someone, I just pop in my head here. I don't even watch the show. But third, Rock from the sun is an example. A show that was very popular at the time. If that's something that they enjoy and we create references within the content that we put in there, that helps people to recognize and to create that. That connection that wouldn't have been there if it was bare. It's more, I'm going to call it more sterile content. So these are things that are helping with us. The other thing is the customer value journey, like what happens through the process. And each one of these processes, which a lot of folks, you know, quite honestly, sometimes don't understand this, but everybody enters or is at a different place in the customer journey. But they all start somewhere. For most of the time, Swingpoint Media has played in what we call the tofu or the top of the funnel. These are when people are. Maybe they're just beginning to think. Think about, or they're not even aware that our customer exists. And so what will happen is those people might have questions. And again, I'm going to dive back into, just to have an example here for our ideal customers. Let's say, for instance, somebody has an issue with a toilet that runs at night because we have heating and air conditioning and plumbing or audio customers. And maybe it's like, how do I stop my toilet from running? Well, these could be things where people, they're not thinking about calling a plumber, they're not thinking about replacing a toilet. They're not thinking about any of that stuff. They just want to solve that problem. Well, that's at the top of the funnel. Right. Nobody's making a buying decision yet. And so what will happen is people will enter our customers. I'm going to call it thoughtmosphere, at that top of the funnel level. Now, when that happens, we're starting to get those people who probably might be our ideal customer, and I say, might we start to get them familiar with who we are, meaning our customer? The other thing, that's a beautiful Part about playing at the top of the funnel, there's a couple things. One is we're not wasting any time or money on people who are probably never going to be our customers. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean it's one of those things that's like, you know, I have a dear, I have two dear friends who are both. They could fix anything. I don't care what it is. They could fix anything. They're not afraid to tear a toilet. Me, I need to call somebody. Usually I call one of them, but no, I need to call a plumber or my air conditioner. Same thing. Well, what happens is at the top of the funnel, those people are never coming in to the next stage, which is the middle of the funnel. Mofu. And this is more of the top of the funnel is called awareness. And the second part of the funnel, the middle part is called consideration. They're starting to make decisions. You know, they're starting to think, hey, maybe I should, maybe I should replace this. I'll give you a perfect example. This happened to us. We're recording this live on a Monday, June, what is it today, the 19th. Yesterday my wife and I went over and we bought a new refrigerator. We finally, I finally got tired of like my wife saying, and I don't mean this a negative way is she'd say, hey, it looks like the, the temperature on the freezer is going up again. And I would call and the thing repaired and, and you know, it would last for a couple months. And here we are again. I finally said, okay, that's it, we're going to do this. So we went over and we're in, we're past the consideration page. I've been thinking about the considerations stage. But in that stage we're starting to do a couple things. We're starting to check out some models, we're starting to, to read some reviews, we're starting to get some testimonials. We're reading about, we're doing some, maybe some comparisons side by side. You know, is, should I look at a model or is it a side by side or is it top and bottom? In other words, I'm really starting to get involved in this. Well, that's a total different type of content than up at the top, which is what I'm going to call problem solving content. This is where again, how do I fix my toilet from leaking? Why, why am I hearing the rattling in the wall with my plumbing? All these kind of things. And so we move to that Next stage. As we move from each one of these stages, it gets more and more expensive to.

Get that client to come to our. To our customers. And the reason is because if you think about this, think about a funnel, as you work your way down, what happens? It gets smaller. Well, as it gets smaller, the amount of people who are competing for those, for those clients become much more dense, much more condensed. And so people are willing to pay more for it at the top. Very inexpensive. Very inexpensive. Most people aren't playing up there because most, most people are saying, hey, I need customers today. I need to be in the consideration or the next stage, which is bottom of the funnel. These are people who said, hey, my, my toilet is broken and it's flooded. I need a car. I need a plumber right now. And they're looking for somebody. And it's like a 911 call. And we have a client like that as an example. He is. He's out of our normal, but he is a great client, and he is a credit repair. And typically people do not think about calling and getting in touch with him until it's a 911. They need to get a car. As an example. They go to buy a car and they get denied because their credit's not right. Well, that's a 911 situation because they were going to pay all this money to have their car repaired, and they thought, well, we'll just replace it. It'll be about the same amount of money as far as my monthly outlay. But they can't do it. Well, that's a 911 situation. So the content we put down there for him is a little different, and it keeps evolving. So backing this up, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel. By the time you get to the bottom of the funnel, these are the people that are paying for keywords. And it could be very, very expensive. But these are people that have a higher intent to make a decision. So, example was somebody like my wife and I when we went out yesterday. When I left the house, I was prepared to make a buying decision. I had the intent of replacing that refrigerator, so I didn't have to worry about it being a problem anymore. Now, did we get the one we wanted? Well, we got the one my wife wanted because it matches our other appliances. Now, for me, there's a level of, like, relief because I don't have to worry about that anymore. Now I bring this up because artificial intelligence, once we have the ideal customer and we have their value journey put together, can really lay out with, I'm going to say extreme accuracy. Hey, what type of content would work best in each one of those positions? Top of the funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of the funnel. So whenever somebody says, hey, I need business today, and I tell one of my customers, I said, a lot of times what I am. I said, I'm a farmer. We grow vegetables or we plant trees that grow fruit, that once it's up there, it's evergreen. It'll keep creating. It'll keep creating positive results. But some customers say, some of our clients say, I need customers today. We need to pull the trigger today. So our communication, our voice, the content we put out is much different. Artificial intelligence helps, like I said, with extreme accuracy, to say, if we're playing in that bottom of the funnel, these are the type of pieces of content that we need to create for our client. If you notice in each one of these, there's still a human involved. So going back to the original piece, is it replacing jobs? I don't think it's replacing. It's evolving jobs. It's helping people move from one stage to the next because it creates new opportunities that now people jump in and, well, we're already doing this. Let's learn how to do this other piece together. Now. I want to. I want to kind of put a little star here for a second. Hey, I'm a practitioner. And what does that mean? Well, I'm not a guru, meaning I don't know all the answers. I am a practitioner, meaning I'm figuring this stuff out. And the reason is because pretty much it's new, you know, every day. You know, there may be between 1 and 300 new artificial intelligence tools that hit the market, and it can be very overwhelming. We use about four, three or four tools specifically that get the job done for all of our clients. And I don't see that changing a lot. Maybe if, if, if artificial intelligence shifts to create videos. Like, there's one that I'm watching is called Steve AI. And I'm watching a little bit, and it's okay, but it's not quite there yet. It's rough. So we'll keep an eye on that. And I don't mean that negatively against Steve. It does a great job. If you've never done any video and you're on your own, probably a good solution. But if you're creating content for clients like we are, it wouldn't quite get the job done. So today I just wanted to jump in and say, hey, here's some reality about artificial intelligence. And local marketing. I truly believe that if you don't adopt it, you could be in trouble. And here's why. Here in about, oh, 35 minutes, I have a meeting with my, with my admin and she's a phenomenal gal. And we talk about what can we do. Well, it's evolved a little bit where that, remember I said we make one article a week for our clients. Well, now we would post, you know, one to three times a week. Now we post three times a week and we can write up to three articles for our clients in the same time frame for about the same cost.

Over this past week because of some evolution of our knowledge. Because again, we are practitioners. I throw this idea out and it's not a for sure deal. But one of the things we want to do is we want to create a, I'm going to call it a 50 or 60 day cycle of education. And remember the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. This content will take somebody from the very top and move them through to the very bottom and it will be frictionless. And what will happen is that cost of acquisition will go way down because I'm never competing for those people that are, that are, that are trying to get people in the middle or the bottom of the funnel where it gets more expensive. I met them at the top, created a, create a, a relationship that we gradually move together and then they just will naturally say, well, of course I want your product, of course I want, if I have to replace my air conditioner, why would I go anyplace else? You've provided me all this value all along the way. You've proven that, that your product, customers love you and that your service is great and the reviews are strong. Why would I go anyplace else? So in this journey it means now we're going to create at scale about 50 pieces of content in probably just a couple of days. And what this is, and I'm still toying with this a little bit, it's still, it's, it's like soft clay. It's not quite fit together yet. We're going to talk about this, like I said, in about 30 minutes now, 35 minutes away. And what happens is that'll go on multiple, multiple platforms. So what does that mean? Well, if we create, if we create 50 pieces of content and we put it out on five different pieces of, of or five different platforms, that's 250 times our customers are now being exposed over that, over let's say a, a, a 30 day period. Well, now we're we're going to see a tremendous uptick in visibility. Now, I live in an area called the Coachella Valley. If you're watching someplace else, I know you know, this is, this happens for you. We have a couple of businesses here in our town that have dominated the airwaves and whatnot for a long time, before Internet and before, you know, artificial intelligence came out. And so when we say something like 760-777-7777, we all know who that is because they've created a brand. Well, here's the thing. He's everywhere. Like, I'm going to a hockey game tonight. And yeah, he sponsors part of the hockey game. He's everywhere. Well, that's what we're doing. So if you don't get involved in utilizing artificial intelligence, you could be left behind. Because what'll happen is if our customers are going out there because what we're doing and they're getting a 250 to one, or let's say even you have 10, 250 posts to 10 posts, people are going to remember you here. They're going to think, geez, these guys are everywhere. Why would I go anyplace else? And again, remember, it moves them through that whole journey. So I would really recommend taking some time and say, hey, how can I use artificial intelligence to help my customers? It could be as simple as this. One of the things we're working on right now, and I haven't released any clients, so if they're watching, that's fantastic, they'll see this coming down the pike, is I would love to put a customized chat GPT on their website. Now. What does that mean? Well, that means that now if I were going to someone's website and I wanted to ask a question and the answers were on the website, the AI chatbot would already have known everything on that website and been able to answer that client's question as if it was a human answering that question. Statistically, all we want as clients or customers is we want an answer and we want it fast. Like, you know, the old tree on the phone. We used to love that idea, except that now it takes too long. Well, this process now could be seamless. And I heard, what was it last Thursday done right? And I can't even imagine. I'm sure there's some businesses out there, but it could handle up to 1600 conversations simultaneously. One of our customers, very good customers, at the end of the day, they've gotten so many phone calls that could be answered by this chat feature that at the End of the day, they still have phone calls that they have to call people back on, where if we can get all that activity to go through the chat feature, all those questions could be answered. And I suspect that we'll probably tie that into a scheduling program that will also schedule them for the work they're looking to get done. I could go on and on and on. I'm not. I just wanted to kind of jump on here today. I had. I had a filming set up today that. That was supposed to take place with one of our clients up north in Fresno area about solar. And it had to be shifted till tomorrow. And I was already set up, ready to go. So I thought, hey, why not get on here and share a little insight kind of behind the scenes of what's happening in the world of local business marketing using artificial intelligence, especially for a digital marketing company. You know, when it first happened, it was a little bit overwhelming. Now it's like we have a framework and we have a process that works through, and there's just those times where I come up with some additional ideas or thoughts that we change that or alter it. But that's kind of who I am. I'm always looking for is there a better mousetrap for our customers. And that's what I do. And then, you know, we'll write some processes and then get our staff involved. If you'd like to know more, please holler at me. My name is Jeff Harrison. You can get a hold of me at Jeff at Swingpoint Media. Jeff at Swingpoint Media. Just like it says on the screen. I'd love to answer your questions. And until next time, have a great, great Monday and let's have a great week.