As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Today on episode 66 of the Be A Marketer podcast, it's another Ask Dave episode, and I'm answering your questions about how AI can make repetitive content fresh every time. This is the Be A Marketer podcast. My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact. And I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business even if marketing is not your thing.
Dave Charest:No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you, and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:It's an Ask Dave episode, which means I've got a Kelsi Carter here. Hello, Kelso.
Kelsi Carter:Hi, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for asking. Kelsey, what's going on with you these days? You got any new marketing related type of things that have been you've been recognizing in your world?
Kelsi Carter:Trying to think. I feel like I've been seeing a lot of trends on TikTok of company specific, like, you know, car like Toyota, Honda, have been doing those TikToks where someone is about to get hurt, and then they transition into them, like, selling the car, like doing an ad for the car. And that's been something that I've been seeing, but it's been doing so well. Like, the engagement has been crazy. Like, they've been getting millions of views.
Kelsi Carter:But it's, I think it's just the comedic element of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's just someone's just like, I'll go visit that, dealership right now.
Kelsi Carter:I'll go buy a car that I know you said to me people in the comments. And I just think that's, like, a funny thing that I've been seeing a lot.
Dave Charest:That's hilarious. So I'm not a TikToker, so I I don't usually follow TikTok mainly because I'm just I I don't know. I don't know. I I wanna get sucked in. Right?
Dave Charest:Like You will. I know. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm okay. But, that's funny.
Dave Charest:I think that's interesting, right, where you've got that thing because that is one of the things that I've noticed that, like, people really get sucked into, like, oh, someone's about to, like, fall or slip on the ice. Right? Like, they're supposed to do something. So that's actually interesting to, like, way to pull people in.
Kelsi Carter:Oh, it'll be like someone about to slip on ice and they're, like, slide into this deal. So it is actually really funny.
Dave Charest:Oh, but there you go. See, I think that brings up that point of really, like, trying to lean into what are the things that are working on the particular channel? What are the things that are, again, human things? Right? What piques somebody's interest?
Dave Charest:What pulls them in? And then using that in a way again, and this this isn't a fun way to do that. Right? To, like, make turn it into something that's marketing for your business or or raise awareness for your particular business. And so, you know, I was I was having a conversation a few weeks ago with we we were having this conversation about, you know, many times what you can do as a small business owners is pay attention to what sometimes, like, the bigger companies are doing, and then look for ways that you can kind of do that at a smaller scale, of course, but, oftentimes you can lean into some of the things that they're doing to use for your business as well.
Dave Charest:So I like that. That's pretty cool. What we do have a question today, do we not?
Kelsi Carter:We absolutely do. Today, we have a question from Carrie, which is actually my mom's name.
Dave Charest:Oh, okay.
Kelsi Carter:She's a marketing manager at a farmer's market. Carrie's question is, what if you have the same emails you send out all the time? Can AI change them and make them fresh every time?
Dave Charest:Well, I think that's one of the cool things about AI. Right? That's a good use case there that you can actually do that. And so I think, if I'm looking at this particular scenario, right, we've probably got Carrie's in the situation where you've got this ongoing event, right? It's essentially the same every time in many instances with a few minor differences, of course.
Dave Charest:And so let's say these are things that are happening, like, right every weekend. And so you kinda do. You wanna mix it up a little bit because you're often going to that same list. Of course, that list is growing. You're getting more people on there.
Dave Charest:But, you know, if you're particularly in a place where you're in one location, you're really kind of sending reminders about these things. And so it's interesting to kind of mix it up a little bit to keep it interesting and exciting, and you can add other things around that. But, essentially, what you're doing is you're you're trying to tell people each time, like, hey. We want you to come to this thing. Here's why you should come to this thing, and then, here's why you should come again if you've, you know, you've already been.
Dave Charest:And so it's one of those things. And I think what the AI, and I'm thinking specifically here about the content assistant within Constant Contact, of course, but what you're able to do is, like, kind of put in the things, you know, hey, come visit us. You know, we have I'm making things up here. Right? We have some live music.
Dave Charest:We have strawberry and asparagus are in season right now, and we're gonna be here from this time to this time. And so you can kind of put in those, like, bullet points. You can feed that into the Constant Contact content, assistant, and then it's gonna give you a few options on, like, different ways of saying that kind of each time you do that. And if you don't like those, you can get some more, but you can kinda take that and edit that and do what you want with it. But what it means is that you really don't have to rack your brain for trying to figure out another way to to say that.
Dave Charest:It does that part for you. And so, I mean, when you think about it, what maybe would have taken you 30 minutes of procrastination because you were like, oh, I gotta try to come up with another way to do this, and then maybe another hour to start to kinda pull that together. You don't have to procrastinate because you know it's gonna be easy, and you can just put in the 3 sentences of the things that you wanted to do, and then it's gonna plug that in, and then bam, you've got a whole bunch of options to kinda choose from. And then I think, you know, what I like about this as well is that, I mean, this is the promise of a m AI in many instances is that you can spend the rest of that time that you had dedicated to doing that thing on either doing other value added things within that email itself. Right?
Dave Charest:You can add graphics or you could maybe play around with some other things with the extra time that maybe you wouldn't have done at a poll or or something like that, engagement type of features. Or maybe there's just something else that you'd rather be doing or something else marketing related that you've wanted to do that you didn't have the time for before. AI kind of gives you some of that back. And so I think that's the nice thing about AI in a scenario like this, that it gives you more time to do other things. And so the short answer is yes.
Dave Charest:AI can allow you to do that. But I think the big thing is that, yes, the AI content assistant in Constant Contact can help you come up with fresh ways. And I love that she used that term. Farmers market, fresh food. Here we go.
Dave Charest:Fresh ways of saying things. You can stop procrastinating because you know it's going to be easy and then use that extra time to do something else that you'd rather be doing. So here's my challenge for our dear listener. If you haven't played around with the AI content generator in your Constant Contact account, really do yourself a favor and check it out. Yeah.
Dave Charest:I think you're gonna be really, delighted with how it really helps you solve that blinking, cursor problem, you know, and it really gives you options that you can use or edit as you see fit. I also wanna send a reminder to any new Constant Contact customer listening that make sure you check out the new customer hub. This is where you're gonna find resources that get you started, give it the ability to connect with other Constant Contact customers, and you can even drop into a live ask the trainer session and get instant help and pro tips. Kelsey, if someone has a marketing question for me, how do they send that in?
Kelsi Carter:Dave, if you're a constant contact customer, you can hand her right on over to the constant contact community to post your question for an upcoming ask these episode. You'll find that link in the show notes.
Dave Charest:Alright, friends. We'll see you next time.
Kelsi Carter:See you next time.
Dave Charest:I hope you this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to rate this podcast dot com /bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's rate this podcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.