How Small Businesses Can Use ChatGPT for Marketing Tasks

In this article: some of the ways a small business owner could use the ChatGPT A.I. tool to help with marketing-related tasks.

Small business owners wear many hats. And sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. But what if there was a secret weapon that could help take your marketing efforts to the next level?

Enter ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (A.I.) language model that’s taking the world by storm in 2023. From writing website copy to conducting market research, ChatGPT can help small business owners handle marketing tasks with less hassle and greater efficiency.

What Is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a cutting-edge technology developed by OpenAI. The GPT part stands for “Generated Pre-Trained Transformer,” whatever that means.

It’s a type of “language model” that uses advanced machine learning algorithms to generate text, based on input provided by humans. This artificial intelligence leverages a massive amount of data and can understand and respond to a wide variety of questions. Because of this, ChatGPT to interact through text-based platforms like websites and messaging apps.

So, what does this mean for you, as a small business owner looking for marketing support? In short, ChatGPT can help you with a variety of marketing-related tasks. It can answer questions, generate content for your website or newsletter, provide suggestions for search engine optimization, and more.

The technology is still evolving and will likely become even more sophisticated over the coming months. But even in its current form, ChatGPT offers a lot of marketing help for small businesses.

How to Use It for Small Business Marketing

We’ve been experimenting with the ChatGPT artificial intelligence platform to see how it might help small businesses with their marketing strategies and campaigns. Based on that research, here are some of the areas where it might prove useful.

1. Producing blog content

ChatGPT can help small business owners create content for their blogs or websites. It can help you brainstorm article topics, outline articles, and even write the actual content. As you might already know, blogging and small business marketing go hand-in-hand. ChatGPT just makes it easier by generating ideas and content for you.

A word of warning though. Based on our experience, we’ve learned that it often provides lackluster content that needs a lot of editing. ChatGPT has a way of generating repetitive sentences and writing with a clumsy kind of rhythm. And it loves to use stiff, professorial phrases like “in conclusion….”

Even so, it could save you a substantial amount of time when it comes to small business blogging and website content creation. Specifically, ChatGPT could allow you to switch from a writer role to more of an editor type of role. The A.I. generates content, and you edit and format it for your blog or website. A huge time-saver!

2. Conducting keyword research for SEO

Is search engine optimization part of your small business marketing strategy? (Hint: it should be!) And this is another area where ChatGPT can give you a hand. The A.I. chatbot can help you generate a list of keywords relating to your products and services, which you can then apply to your SEO strategy. It can also help you turn those keywords into article topic ideas, for business blogging and other purposes.

3. ‘Chatting’ with your website visitors

Using a chatbot on your website can bring more interactivity, while also helping your visitors find what they’re looking for. This makes it a useful tool for small business marketing applications.

With ChatGPT, you can build a helpful and interactive chatbot for your website or messaging app. Customers will be able to get answers to their questions in real-time, and you’ll be able to focus on more important tasks. But like any kind of software or technical application, you’ll want to conduct a thorough round of testing before pushing it live.

4. Supporting your email marketing campaigns

Many small businesses use email as part of their overall marketing strategy. That’s because it works. When you build an email list, you have a direct line of communication with current and potential customers.

ChatGPT can help you with this small business marketing task in several ways. It can generate personalized email content, subject lines, and even entire campaigns.

But again, the same caveat applies. You’ll want to review any and all content it generates, prior to publication.

5. Creating e-books, white papers, etc.

A lot of small business owners create informational products to generate leads online, or to position themselves as an authority in their fields. These can include e-books, white papers, educational guides, etc. This is another aspect of small business marketing that ChatGPT can turbocharge for you.

You can use this artificial intelligence to create an outline for an e-book, and even generate the content for you. This allows you to take off your “writer” hat and replace it with an “editor” hat. You’ll be able to generate informational products in half the time — and with a lot less typing!

6. Writing ad copy and headlines

Do you use traditional advertising as part of your small business marketing strategy? Or perhaps pay-per-click advertising? ChatGPT can help with this function as well.

We put it to the test by having it generate some ad headlines for us. We gave ChatGPT some limited information about a fictional product, and asked it to create some ad headlines. Here is our input, followed by the actual headlines the A.I. generated…

Our input:

“I have a software product that helps small business owners develop marketing campaigns tailored to their specific audiences. Can you offer some ideas for an advertisement headline?”

ChatGPT’s output:

• “Small Business Marketing Just Got Smarter with TargetMarket”
• “Tailor Your Marketing to Your Audience with TargetMarket”
• “Say Goodbye to Generic Marketing and Hello to TargetMarket”
• “Take Your Marketing to the Next Level with TargetMarket”
• “The Personalized Marketing Solution for Small Business Owners – TargetMarket”
• “Get Results with Customized Marketing Campaigns from TargetMarket”
• “Stop Wasting Time on Generic Marketing – Try TargetMarket”
• “Connect with Your Ideal Customer using TargetMarket”
• “Unlock the Power of Personalized Marketing with TargetMarket”
• “Get the Most Out of Your Marketing Budget with TargetMarket’s Targeted Campaigns”

We were able to generate even more headline options just by typing the word “continue.” Granted, not all of these headlines are winners. Some are wordy and bland. But a few have real-world potential.

In our experience, this is where ChatGPT really shines. Within a small business marketing context, it can be a useful brainstorming tool. It can help you come up with ideas and outlines for all kinds of marketing-related content. It can generate the actual content as well, but that’s where you have to step in with editing and oversight.

7. Creating social media posts and campaigns

Many small businesses rely on social media as part of their overall marketing strategy. And for good reason. Social media allows business owners to reach a potentially huge audience without a huge investment. In fact, some small businesses use social media at no cost whatsoever, aside from their time.

This is another aspect of small business marketing ChatGPT can simplify for you. It has the ability to generate social media posts, respond to customer inquiries, and even monitor for brand mentions. This could free you up to focus on other aspects of your business operation, like customer service or product development.

8. Writing product descriptions

ChatGPT also has an uncanny ability to write effective product descriptions. You can supply it with specific details about your product(s), and ask it to generate descriptions. You can prompt it to “continue” to get even more material.

Here again, ChatGPT’s artificial intelligence can give you a head start on an important aspect of small business marketing. It can save you time by providing initial drafts, which you can then tailor as needed.

9. Conducting market research

As mentioned earlier, ChatGPT has access to a tremendous amount of data and information. It’s like an interactive encyclopedia that generates information based on your input.

Because of this capability, ChatGPT can help small business owners with market research and related tasks. It can do quite a bit of the heavy lifting, to save you time and energy. It can also bring things to your attention you might not discovered otherwise.

ChatGPT can generate reports and analysis on industry trends, consumer behavior, competitors, etc. It can give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the game.

The Bottom Line

These are not the only ways small businesses can use ChatGPT for marketing projects and campaigns. Far from it. While experimenting with this artificial intelligence, we’ve learned that it can handle a surprising array of tasks and requests.

So use your imagination. Experiment. Fool around and have fun. See how you might be able to use ChatGPT for your marketing goals and needs. You might be pleasantly surprised by its capabilities.