Cracking the AI code: Growth hacking marketing strategies to follow

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming ubiquitous and is integrated into most of the tools we use today. It's simply a type of technology that mimics human decision-making. This makes it a fantastic ally for small businesses with little access to manpower.

Our capacity for innovation and creativity is multiplying daily as we continue to upskill and use all the new technologies at our disposal. It's hard to stay ahead with so many businesses seemingly stepping up overnight.

While my last blog gave an overview of nine tools to build out your AI marketing team, here I cover the strategies that will help you skyrocket to success.

Unleashing the power of AI

Leveraging AI can give your small business a competitive edge, helping you identify untapped market opportunities, optimise marketing channels, and boost customer acquisition and retention.

Watch this webinar for practical tips on using ChatGPT to optimise your content creation process and maximise engagement with your target audience:

1. Identifying untapped market opportunities

As business owners, we believe how transformational our product can be. This sometimes can be to our detriment as we can pigeonhole our ideas.

By harnessing the power of AI, you can uncover hidden patterns and trends within your target markets, identifying untapped opportunities. With a data-driven approach, you have a new perspective and new markets you may not have considered.

In traditional marketing, some of the ways we have identified trends would be to:

• outsource to a consultancy firm

• keep up-to-date with industry news

• carry out competitor analysis

• run surveys and focus groups with customers

• do internet research

Used in combination with traditional methods to detect customers' needs and desires, AI can help you gain an edge over competitors. With the power to analyse vast amounts of data, it's capable of understanding new emerging trends, as well as gaining valuable insights into untapped markets.

There are already a huge number of different market intelligence platforms available to suit your financial capacity. Brand24, INK, Google Analytics, and Customers.ai are some examples of AI-powered tools that businesses can use for growth hacking.

2. Optimising marketing channels

AI for growth hacking can offer several benefits, including:

• increased efficiency

• personalisation

• improved decision-making

• A/B testing

You can optimise marketing channels through automated market research, chatbots, and recommendation engines.

By leveraging AI, you can streamline processes, improve decision-making, and gain insights that would be difficult to obtain otherwise. With the ability to analyse vast amounts of data at lightning-fast speeds, AI can help you identify patterns and trends that can inform your business strategy.

Additionally, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can enhance customer service and support, giving your clients a more personalised experience.

AI-powered analytics tools can evaluate the performance of various marketing channels, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. By analysing data on customer engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI), AI can help identify the channels that yield the highest results.

This level of personalisation enhances the customer experience, increases engagement, and ultimately drives higher conversion rates. Overall, integrating AI into your business operations can help you stay ahead of the curve and achieve greater success in today's rapidly evolving marketplace.

3. Boosting customer acquisition and retention

In the fast-paced world of business, staying ahead of the competition requires adopting cutting-edge technologies.

Customers.ai, chatbots, recommendation engines, automated market research, and personalisation are some examples of AI-powered tools used for customer acquisition and retention in growth hacking. Here are two ways you can make sure you're mastering your growth:

• Enhanced customer targeting

You can create targeted campaigns that will be more effective in reaching and keeping customers.

AI enables you to refine your customer targeting strategies. For example, by analysing demographic data and customers' online behaviour and buying history, AI algorithms can create detailed customer profiles. These profiles give you valuable insight into customers' preferences, interests and buying behaviours.

Armed with this information, your business can craft highly targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with your ideal customers. The result is acquiring customers at higher rates, as well as lowering your marketing costs, as you're spending less on ads for irrelevant audiences.

• Intelligent customer relationship management

AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) systems have revolutionised how businesses manage their interactions with customers.

These systems can automate various aspects of customer support, including:

• chatbots for instant customer assistance

• personalised recommendations based on past purchases

• proactive outreach to prevent churn

Embracing AI is no longer a luxury but a necessity for small businesses striving to achieve sustainable growth in today's highly competitive landscape. So, if you're a small business owner looking to leave your competitors behind, don't overlook the transformative power of AI.

Relevant resources

• A small business owner's guide to using AI tools

• AI-powered marketing: Revolutionising business growth

• Is your business ready to embrace AI?