Generative AI has changed the marketing landscape, enabling business owners to generate text and images on demand for their marketing. But it hasn’t necessarily changed the landscape for the best. With low-effort AI “slop” being the new baseline for small business marketing, it can be easy to hate it. Before discarding it for your own use, you need to ask yourself the question, “What do your customers think of AI marketing?” and put your own personal bias aside.
Experiencing AI-Generated Content Fatigue
Are you scrolling social media feeds, browsing blogs, or reviewing emails and feeling bombarded by AI-generated text, images, and video? AI marketing slop is very real, and it can be depressing for business owners and marketers alike to see the low-quality marketing content AI can produce. This can make you skeptical of using generative AI in your own marketing, as you’re worried about what your customers might think.
Remember: You are Not Your Customers
This is an important concept we have to remind our clients: you are not your customers, especially the new ones you’re hoping to attract with your marketing. Many people who see AI content online treat it like any other content, either not knowing or not caring that the marketing content is AI-generated. It’s important to do your market research and learn what your customers want. We suggest the following reading:
- Identifying Your Ideal Client Profiles
- Turning Motivations into Marketing: Understanding Customer Behavior
- The Information Needed to Find and Target Your Business’ Customers
Using AI as a Tool—Not a Replacement
Another goal when using AI to generate content is not to produce “AI slop.” Instead of treating the AI-generated output as the end stage, use it as a jumping-off point. That way, you get better content with the AI’s help, instead of worse content by letting AI take over. Some tips below:
- Use AI to Jumpstart Your Marketing: If you’re currently not doing any marketing, the biggest hurdle is to just get started. Ask AI what you should do to market your business, and then assess if you have the tools to do it yourself or need help.
- Use AI for Brainstorming: Not sure how to write daily posts about your business on social media? Ask AI to suggest some ideas and then run with them yourself. Then ask AI to review it before you post.
- Treat AI Like an Intern: If you are going to get AI to make content from you, you need to treat it like an intern. It needs review to make sure it’s speaking in your voice, but also to apply common sense—AI doesn’t think; it just generates.
AI can do a lot of things, but if you rely solely on it, you’ll eventually start producing the content you’ve disparaged as AI slop. If you’re not ready for a dedicated internal marketing team, it’s time to think about outsourcing. Contact Vision today to start with a strategy before you bring in the AI tools. Want to learn more? Check out the rest of our Vision blogs, our enVisioning Success podcast, and our downloadable Marketing Strategies Playbook.
