Artificial intelligence and digital transformation go hand in hand. Companies like Google and Amazon are using this technology to optimize their workflow and outperform their competitors. Media companies like Netflix and Spotify use machine learning every time you use their appin order to offer more relevant suggestions.
Small business owners, on the other hand, are often scared of implementing AI. Maybe they are worried that their budget is too low or that the benefits are too small compared to the initial cost. This doesn’t have to be the case! Let’s examine a couple of areas where AI can be a huge benefit for small businesses:
Streamline your marketing campaigns
If you’re running any cost-per-click (CPC) campaigns, you know how important it is to secure a high return on your investment (ROI). You could attempt this task manually, but that will quickly deplete your resources.
AI can save you time and money by automatically analyzing your budget and spending. These reports allow you to quickly identify which campaigns are profitable, which campaigns are flopping, and which campaigns need some fine-tuning.
For example, Tumi uses machine learning to pull data from email campaigns and customer responses. In order to get to know their clients, Tumi uses AI to organize their data categorically, thus helping them define marketing strategies that would better suit their real-life customer.
Basically, by utilizing AI to automate and adjust your marketing campaigns, you can effectively manage your ad spending without having to hire an expensive team of experts (or attempting to do it yourself).
Classify and manage significant amounts of data
Has your mass of emails and support tickets become unmanageable? AI is excellent at classifying emails and sorting out other types of big data. With AI support, you can spend your response time more effectively–choose to focus on the most urgent emails or focus on emails with quick response time.
Another AI process that benefits small businesses is automatic order tracking. Rather than trying to tackle this on your own, try a modern accounting solution by implementing AI. While those are primarily for classification, some AI technologies even allow you to automatically issue an invoice as soon as the order is processed, as well as track when the invoice is fulfilled.
Keep an eye on your own market
As a small business you are regularly monitoring the market: tracking market conditions, customer needs, and competitive trends. You need to know where your niche market is headed in order to adapt your offerings to the target customer.
There are many AI-powered products that help you keep an eye on your vertical–Crayon is one of the most famous examples. For example, you can use Crayon’s intelligence tools to get alerted as soon as industry prices are altered. By identifying the dynamics of your market, you can adjust your development strategies to respond to customer needs and stay ahead of the curve.
All in all, small businesses are starting to benefit from affordable AI solutions. Machine learning is even a part of our business, ZipBooks. As a cloud-based accounting software, we have utilized AI technologies to help small businesses improve their invoicing processes and track success with our smart insights and automatic recommendations.
If AI is still intimidating to you, start small. Try using machine learning to track and retarget your ad engagement or to monitor sales conversations and generate the viable leads. Whatever you do, just start somewhere. If your business is not open to integrating AI solutions, you will quickly fall behind in the market.
Have you implemented AI technology already? If so, how are you benefiting from it? Let us know.
Related: Canadian Business
