AI for Small Business: Part 2

Posted on June 25, 2024

group of marketers using ai for small business

Last month, we took a bit of a technical look at what makes artificial intelligence tick. While a look under the hood may be a bit of a mindboggle, it hopefully gave you a small understanding of how AI works. With that out of the way, though, it’s time to get to the “good” stuff: How to implement AI for small business.

From automating routine tasks to getting insights into customer behavior, there are plenty of ways to use AI. Let’s explore the practical applications and other benefits!

Benefits of AI for Small Business

In knowledgeable hands, AI can be a powerhouse of a marketing tool. We’re not talking about the low-quality engagement farming and spam posts you see on Facebook. We’re talking about the companies who grow with the help of AI used in thoughtful ways. Let’s dive in.

Improved Efficiency

No business is free from tedious and time-consuming tasks; after all, invoicing, scheduling, and inventory are important parts of most companies. AI-powered tools can be implemented to handle those things so you and your team can focus on projects and other tasks that drive growth.

Enhanced Customer Service

Chatbots generally induce eye rolls at their mere mention, but a high quality, AI-powered one can provide real value to your customers and enable you to step in when need be. It means 24-hour support that provides answers to common questions and minor issues. These tools can even analyze and learn from previous customer interactions to be more effective in the future by establishing a “knowledge base”.

Data-Driven Insights

Customer data is readily available. It’s knowing how to use it that’s the real trick. Sometimes, though, there’s simply too much data available, to the point where it’s a huge task just to take it all in. With artificial intelligence, the analysis can be taken care of without taking up the time of you and your team. Tend to more pressing tasks while your customer data is organized in a way that helps you strategize, develop products, and improve customer service.

Cost Reduction

Time is money, which is why freeing up your employees’ time is so vital. When they’re not tied up with menial tasks, they’re able to help in significant ways, leaving the tedium to the AI that truly doesn’t mind doing those “bland” chores. We guarantee the fees for even the best AI tools out there will be significantly less than paying an employee to do these same tasks (and take much longer to do them). Put your people to work doing things that inspire them! The technology will handle the rest, with monitoring of course.

Practical Applications of AI in Business

The potential uses of AI for small business goes beyond answering queries and taking care of tedious tasks. If you have a deep understanding of how to implement it, you can take advantage of some impressive potential.

Operations and Inventory Management

Do you constantly struggle with inventory issues? If you don’t order the right amount of inventory, you take a hit. Empty shelves mean dissatisfied customers and packed ones represent money your business wasted. With AI, you can predict future inventory needs using market trends and other data. Additionally, it can help plan supply chain routes and schedules to minimize shortages.

Finance and Accounting

Data entry and other bookkeeping tasks can become quite time consuming and tedious. With the help of technology, you can free up time and reduce errors. Furthermore, AI can be utilized to detect unusual activities in transaction patterns to help combat fraud. When your finances are protected this way, it makes financial planning much easier.

Marketing and Sales

AI has the ability to analyze any data presented to it. We touched briefly on this while discussing data-driven insights above, but it goes deeper than that. It can take in client behavior such as social media activity to help you identify your target audience. Additionally, it can segment your customers for personalized marketing pushes. And of course, it can provide a big assist in creating content that your customers find valuable.

Human Resources

Say you’re in the middle of a hiring push and you’re sitting on hundreds or even thousands of applications. It’s a good problem to have, but a problem, nonetheless. With artificial intelligence tools can screen resumes and identify top candidates, which speeds up the hiring process and helps you select the right person for the job.

Steps to Implement AI in Your Small Business

Knowing the benefits of AI for small business, it’s time to implement the tools themselves. But how do you do that? If you need some pointers, we’re always happy to help, but here are a few tips for making sure you’re handling it correctly.

Identify Areas for Improvement: When you know where your shortcomings lie, you’ll have a much easier time with implementation. If you struggle with inventory, start there!
Research AI Tools: Not every AI tool is the same. Some are built for small businesses, and others are for more personal uses. We suggest opting for something that’s scalable and user-friendly.
Pilot Projects: Don’t trust your new AI software with your biggest project. Start with a small project to measure effectiveness, and trust it with incrementally bigger tasks as you get comfortable with it.
Training and Development: AI is useless if 90% of your company doesn’t know how to use it. Take the time to train your employees and make sure they understand the tools.
Measure and Optimize: Keep track of how the AI is doing. If you have the data to back up performance, it’s easier to make adjustments or leave it as is.

Challenges and Considerations

With every new technology comes reservations and distrust. We’re already seeing a good amount of it in regards to artificial intelligence. Understanding what AI is and does can help to dispel rumors about it being the “boogie man” of the tech world, but there are considerations to take into account that aren’t black and white.

Budget Constraints

AI can offer an appealing return on investment, but that doesn’t make the up-front cost of some tools less intimidating. Take some time to evaluate the long-term benefits posed by AI and make your decision based on your findings. Try out the free level of some tools for a taste before fully jumping into a paid subscription.

Data Privacy and Security

One reason many of your customers have for sticking with you is their trust in you. That’s why it’s important to maintain that trust throughout the AI implementation process. If you’re using AI in business, it’s important you comply with data protection regulations and have good security in place so you can safeguard your customers’ sensitive information. Your business location and where you service customers have a large impact on your ability to utilize data, so be sure to check into regulations and restrictions.

Skill Gap

AI isn’t necessarily an “Easy” button. Technical expertise is required to use it, so investing in training and hiring professionals could bridge this gap.

Change Management

Change can be scary for employees who have gotten used to their roles and the tools they use within them. When you’re getting ready for AI implementation, have a change management strategy in place. Be ready to communicate, train, and take other measures that will ensure a seamless transition to whatever new processes are presented.

The Future of AI in Small Businesses

AI is growing at a rapid pace, constantly shaping the landscape of countless industries in the process. It will continue to evolve by helping with customer insights, automated processes, and advanced analytics. This means your business capabilities will be enhanced, but you’ll need to keep up to stay competitive. If AI implementation never happens at your business while others thrive with it, it can be tough to regain your footing. No matter your thoughts on this technological behemoth, it’s part of our world now. Just as the internet shaped the professional landscape, this is doing the same.

Embracing AI for Small Business

New tech can be intimidating, but the benefits AI offers are undeniable. Improved efficiency, enhanced customer service, data-driven insights, and cost reduction are all benefits made possible by AI, and approaching them in a careful, intentional way can help you keep up and see your business thrive.

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, trust a business that has taken the time to use artificial intelligence in an effective way. Get in touch with ArachnidWorks and let’s set our sights on the future!

AI for Small Businesses: Part 1

Posted on May 6, 2024

business partners on a laptop

What is AI? We’ve seen it in countless TV shows, movies, and books. From R2-D2 and C3PO wandering the desert to Arnold Schwarzneggar’s T-800 declaring, “I’ll be back,” intelligent machines have long been a staple of science fiction—except now, the “fiction” part is becoming a thing of the past.

Unless you’ve been living off the grid for the last few years, you’ve heard the term “AI” (or Artificial Intelligence) frequently. After all, it’s taking the world by storm and shaking up industries in some pretty significant ways. The entertainment, restaurant, industrial, and even marketing fields are being affected by it. People are utilizing AI for small businesses wherever they can to improve processes and products, and why wouldn’t they? It can be a huge time saver and help you run your business! But as with any technology, how to use AI for small businesses is a skill that requires practice as well as trial and error.

It isn’t just about typing in prompts and using exactly what AI spits out. It’s about making the effort to learn the ins and outs so you can realize its full potential for your business. Using AI for the sake of using AI won’t help you in the long run, so let’s go over the knowledge you’ll need to know how to use AI—more specifically, how to use artificial intelligence for businesses.

How It Works

We don’t want to bore you with too much technical stuff, but a general understanding of how these systems work can help you utilize these tools better.

Machine Learning

Machine learning enables computers to teach themselves using data and its patterns. Say your friend is trying to perfect a cake recipe, and they’re using you as their test subject. They bake several cakes that are slightly different. Some have more sugar, while others use different icing.

After you try out each cake, your friend asks for your opinion. You give feedback like, “This needs more sugar,” and your friend adjusts the ingredients to take that into account. With enough recipes and feedback, they refine their recipe to make the perfect cake. That’s the general process the machine learning model uses.

Deep Learning

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on neural networks that are modeled after the human brain. Essentially, it goes through a learning process similar to our own. There’s a lot of trial and error that helps it learn and improve based on its mistakes.

Say you want to teach a computer how to play Pac-Man. Before deep learning, you’d have to tell all of the rules in excruciating detail. Now, you’d simply tell it to play the game until it got the hang of it. It would start out moving randomly, collecting a few dots by accident and getting killed by the ghosts. But it would learn from those experiences; eating dots is good and ghosts are bad. Eventually, the computer would get really good at the game. It would develop strategies to avoid the ghosts, learn the ideal routes to take, and teach itself how to maximize its score.

The processes that drive this kind of AI learning come together to achieve a huge array of things. Image and speech recognition, healthcare diagnostics, and natural language processing (NLP) are all able to be handled by a deep learning model. Speaking of natural language processing…

Natural Language Processing

Using AI for small businesses relies heavily on Natural Language Processing (NLP). This is how computers are able to understand and generate language in a way that makes sense. If everything we’ve discussed so far is what powers C-3PO’s “brain,” NLP is what helps him speak his mind!

In order to understand Anakin Skywalker (his creator), C-3PO used data available to him to learn things like sentence structure, word classification, and implied meaning and generate coherent words based on them. His artificial brain formed thoughts as data, and that data was translated into audible words that Anakin could understand. Thus, they were able to have conversations!

Identifying Your Business Needs

Now that you have a basic understanding of how AI works, let’s take the first step to utilizing it to help your business. Before you even begin to type AI prompts, you need to identify what your business goals actually are.

Assess Your Challenges

What does your business’s current landscape look like? What are your pain points and where could you improve? Consider all of these things and imagine the possible solutions you could implement with the help of AI. Whether it’s improving your processes, better understanding your customers, or bolstering your product offerings, there’s a use for AI here!

Define Your Objectives

What do you want to achieve by implementing AI? SMART goals are probably something you’re familiar with, so let’s start there. Make sure your objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. As an example, you could set a goal of increasing customer engagement by twenty percent within four months by using recommendations from AI.

Blend AI With Your Overall Business Strategy

AI initiatives should never replace your processes. Rather, they should be used to bolster your existing ones and align with your business strategy. Integrating it into your big vision helps it become a valuable addition rather than a pet project.

Next Month: Implementing AI for Small Businesses

The inner-workings of artificial intelligence are complicated and technical. We hope you stuck with us through that, because in part 2, we’ll get to the even better stuff! You’ll learn to use your understanding of AI to improve your processes!

In the meantime, we’d love to answer any questions you have about artificial intelligence for businesses or marketing in general. Reach out and strike up a conversation!

Email Marketing Best Practices: What You Should Know

Posted on March 29, 2024

marketer on her laptop in a coffee shop

Let’s say you’re getting ready to launch an exciting new product, but you haven’t yet nailed down how to get the word out. Sure, you have social posts drafted and you’re running a few digital ads, but there’s still more you could be doing to really get people excited. This is where email marketing comes in.

This marketing route is a perfect blend of personalized communication, efficiency, and effectiveness. It’s a super handy tool to help you connect with your audience regarding not just new products, but anything else from business updates to upcoming sales. With that said, more than 347 billion emails are sent and received every day. There’s no magic “Email” button that you can press and expect fantastic results, so let’s take a look at some email marketing best practices for getting your content in front of the people who matter!

Segmenting Your Audience

When the internet was younger and simpler, many companies took a “one size fits all” approach. One piece of content was sent out in the same form using the same contact list. Recently, though, more and more customization options have allowed businesses to segment their audience and tailor messages to different groups. This tailoring can separate recipients by things like demographics, shopping behavior, and interests.

Why do you want to incorporate this into your email marketing best practices? Let’s think of it this way: You wouldn’t grab a megaphone and announce on a busy street that you’re selling baseball cards. You may get a few mildly interested people, but wouldn’t it be so much better if you knew everyone you were making the announcement to was a baseball fan or collector? That’s the beauty of emails! By segmenting your audience, you can ensure your content is being sent to people who will care about what you have to say.

Not sure about the best way to handle audience segments? We know a few people who could help out.

Personalization Techniques

You’ve probably noticed that many marketing emails that pop into your inbox address you by your name in the subject line. Or maybe you’ve realized that ever since you bought that pack of baseball cards, you’re getting more emails about baseball cards. That’s no accident. That’s a company following some great email marketing best practices to maximize leads.

By personalizing your consumers’ experiences, you’re giving yourself a significant boost in engagement and conversions. Utilizing dynamic content and customer data can help you build a deeper connection with your audience, which goes a long way toward gaining repeat customers! And if you need a little help, we’re pretty good pickup artists when it comes to emails.

Automation

We get it. Crafting an email probably isn’t at the top of your priority list, but there’s no denying its effectiveness when done right. So why not take advantage of some automation tools? Automated email workflows will allow you to streamline repetitive tasks like:

Welcome sequences
Abandoned cart reminders
Re-engagement campaigns
Birthday or anniversary emails
Post-purchase follow-ups
Event reminders
Feedback and survey requests

In addition to maximizing email deliverability, these automated processes ensure timely communication with your audience and let you guide them through their customer journey with ease.

Nurturing Leads and Driving Sales

You may be sending a lot of promotional emails, but that’s just the surface goal of effective email marketing. A valuable advantage of a quality, consistent email marketing campaign is building relationships with your customers. When you provide them with valuable content, they’ll see you as a trustworthy and knowledgeable company who takes the time to value them. By establishing this credibility, you’ll gain customer loyalty and develop a great reputation.

And let’s not forget metrics… The more emails you send, the more data you’ll receive. Taking the time to review open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates will help you make data-driven optimizations. As time goes on, you’ll learn which strategies are effective and which ones should be scaled back or abandoned entirely.

Conclusion

When it comes to email marketing best practices, an understanding of your audience can be the most valuable tool in your arsenal. Utilizing that understanding to segment recipients, personalize your messaging, set up automation, and nurture leads will boost you towards success. If you’re looking for a team that will support your email marketing campaign efforts with a strategy-first approach, you’re in good hands with ArachnidWorks. Our email team will help you get the leads and conversions you’re looking for!

The baseball fans are there. Let’s go sell some cards!

The Role of User Experience in Effective Marketing

Posted on February 5, 2024

young woman wearing glasses and green sweater smiling on laptop

Imagine a company launches a new and highly anticipated app with some fantastic features. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a very good UX design. It’s complicated to use, and the menu is hard to navigate. The app will probably get bad reviews and low ratings, and the initially robust rate of downloads will quickly drop.

It’s important to realize first impressions hold considerable weight, and user experience (UX) stands out as a cornerstone in shaping how a brand is perceived. By working with marketing experts like ArachnidWorks, businesses can utilize experiences that are tailored to their brand’s unique messaging and values. This creates a useful and engaging customer journey that leaves a lasting positive impression. We can help your business optimize its digital presence and create valuable customer interactions. Let’s explore why UX design can be such a game-changer for you.

What is User Experience?

UX design, or User Experience design, focuses on crafting positive and meaningful interactions between users and products or services. It encompasses understanding and addressing users’ needs, preferences, and behaviors during their interaction journey. But what exactly does user experience entail? At its core, it is a holistic approach that considers how a person thinks, feels, and reacts when engaging with a website when searching for a product or service. An effective UX makes the product or service not only easy and enjoyable to use but also ensures that your website efficiently fulfills the user’s needs, resulting in a satisfying interaction.

The scope of UX design is broad and multifaceted. It integrates elements like form, function, usability, accessibility, and overall user satisfaction. The Interaction Design Foundation defines UX design as ‘the process by which design teams create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users.’ This process includes designing the entire spectrum of acquiring and integrating the product, encompassing branding, design, usability, and function.

The UX journey begins the moment a user encounters a website or digital platform, like an app, influencing their perception from initial discovery to final interaction. It’s not just about the aesthetic appeal of a product or its interface; it’s about creating a seamless, intuitive, and engaging online experience that resonates with the user on multiple levels.

Why is User Experience Important?

It’s easy to see how UX design can make or break a customer’s experience and ultimately impact a company’s bottom line. Imagine a customer trying to buy a product on a website, but the navigation is confusing and the checkout process is a nightmare. Frustrated, they abandon their cart and go to a competitor’s site instead. A good UX design on the other hand ensures accessibility for a wide range of users, including those with disabilities. Additionally, this can lead to cost savings by minimizing the need for redesigns and updates in the long run. At ArachnidWorks, we work with you to give your potential customers easy ways to find and interact with you without any headaches.

The Impact of UX and Marketing

Despite all the shiny new marketing strategies the internet has introduced, word of mouth is still powerful. Think of the last great movie you saw. You probably told your friends about it, and they may have told their other friends about it, and so on. It’s the original version of “going viral,” and it’s just as important as ever. Similarly, a seamless and enjoyable website experience leaves a lasting positive impression, significantly influencing the brand’s perception. Those who have a positive experience thanks to your app or your website’s UX design will likely tell others about it, which can really boost your reputation. This powerful word-of-mouth marketing can make a brand more visible and trustworthy online. Consider this: Wouldn’t you be more likely to buy something online if your friends told you how easy their site made it to find exactly what you wanted?

Increasing Customer Engagement

When a website or app is well-designed and user-friendly, navigation is effortless. This allows the user to quickly find the information they need while having a stress-free experience. The significance of this extends beyond immediate satisfaction; it increases the time potential customers want to spend on the site and subsequently boosts their engagement.

This also creates a sense of loyalty. When people consistently have satisfying interactions with a brand, they’re more likely to come back. This lays the foundation for long-term customer relationships. Take a look at how we’ve helped our clients increase their customer engagements.

UX Elements in Marketing Strategies

In an era dominated by mobile devices, optimizing websites for a variety of screen sizes isn’t merely a UX design choice, but it’s a necessity. Mobile responsiveness gives a company a broader reach and resonates with a diverse audience accessing the site with many different types of devices.

Mobile responsiveness can significantly impact a website’s search engine rankings, as search engines like Google prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their results. Furthermore, having a positive mobile experience leads to higher user engagement and conversion rates, because visitors are more likely to stay and interact with a website if it’s easy to navigate on their phone or tablet. Ultimately, prioritizing mobile responsiveness shows a dedication to providing a user-centered experience, which can build a company’s brand reputation and credibility.

How to Build Your Content for UX

Nobody wants to see a wall of text on a homepage. People don’t typically read long pieces of content. Today they typically just skim. This means the copy has to have visual elements and white space to break up the text. Remember presenting information clearly and concisely is pivotal. There is an art to giving users enough information without boring them, but it’s an art worth perfecting. By avoiding unnecessary jargon and providing easily digestible content, businesses give their customers a positive experience, fostering a sense of clarity and satisfaction.

It’s not all about text, though. An ugly site will turn away legions of potential customers, regardless of the content’s value. Visual elements can boost the effectiveness of a site or app by expertly framing important text and leading the eye through the content. These visual elements can be images, videos, or buttons, just to name a few.

Personalization and Customer Journey

Preference-based customization is the foundation of providing personalized and meaningful interactions. Understanding user needs allows businesses to tailor their offerings effectively, establishing a deeper connection with their audience.

A great user experience, guided by intuitive design, allows customers to seamlessly move from one stage of interaction to another. This guidance ultimately helps them accomplish their goals on the website, contributing to an overall positive result. If you’re looking for a marketing company that will help you achieve these goals, check out all the ways we can help you help your customers.

Achieving Success

Serving as the very foundation of effective marketing, from building a positive brand image to increasing customer engagement, every facet of UX plays an important role in a brand’s online success.

Businesses that prioritize and invest in creating something users can easily take advantage of, stand to gain a substantial competitive edge. People can be pretty picky about the websites and apps they interact with—after all, their time is valuable. So, if a brand wants to do well in the digital age, it needs to make sure its online presence is simple and enjoyable to use. It’s not just a good idea—it’s a must for any brand that wants to keep succeeding.

Ready to improve your website’s user experience? Contact ArachnidWorks. We’re a full-scale digital marketing agency. Let’s chat about how we can help take your brand to the next level.

Works Cited

Interaction Design Foundation – IxDF. (2016, June 1). What is User Experience (UX) Design?. Interaction Design Foundation – IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design

Marketing vs. Branding: What’s the Difference?

Posted on November 29, 2023

marketing team brainstorming marketing and branding ideas

If marketing and branding were people, they’d be best friends. After all, best friends complete each other! Let’s jump in and discuss how they play off of each other to make a business truly great.

Marketing Defined

Marketing is the strategic approach to quickly sell your products or services. It sets you apart from the competition by making what you offer more appealing to customers. With creative advertising and compelling promotions, this adrenaline propels your business forward.

Marketing efforts include social media ads, email marketing, and pay-per-click advertising. These tactics are designed to promote awareness and create an immediate demand for your product or service.

Branding Defined

Branding is all about crafting a distinct and lasting identity. This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon focused on building long-term customer loyalty. You want your brand to be what people remember even after the buzz of initial marketing campaigns fades away. By developing a lasting impression customers will not only choose you initially, but they’ll continue coming back for more.

Examples of brand-building initiatives and relationship-building efforts include maintaining a consistent visual identity, having high-quality customer service, and establishing a continuing relationship with your clients and community. These tactics build trust and loyalty which ultimately leads to increased sales and a strong reputation in the market.

Key Differences

Time is the main player here. We can liken this to the race from Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. Now, just imagine if instead of competing, they were runners on the same team, working together. In this analogy, Marketing acts as the hare, sprinting to quickly close deals. Branding, on the other hand, embodies the spirit of the tortoise and steadily commits to long-term relationships. While the fleeting nature of a coffee date can’t compare to the enduring dedication of a long-standing partnership, both strategies are essential. In business, marketing provides quick wins, and branding cultivates lasting connections.

Partners for Success

Marketing and branding are similar efforts working together to achieve business success. One without the other isn’t sustainable, though. A great marketing campaign will work wonders in the short-term, but without proper branding, its memory will fade from customers’ minds. Conversely, great branding is nothing without a good marketing campaign putting it in the spotlight. However, a company will need to expertly utilize them both in order to become a truly thriving powerhouse.

Conclusion

In business, marketing and branding are different ends of a seesaw. It’s important to find the right balance that embraces both strategies to achieve optimal results. Always remember that just like the seesaw, if you remove one of these areas, the other tumbles to the ground.

When it comes to mastering this delicate dance, ArachnidWorks has your back. You can rely on us for all your marketing and branding needs. Get in touch with us today.

Printed Materials Can Effectively Elevate Your Brand

Posted on September 26, 2023

business owner using print marketing materials at expo

In today’s digital age, where everything seems to revolve around clicks and screens, the enduring power of print marketing often gets overlooked. However, it can elevate your brand and make a lasting impression on your target audience. Here are some essential materials to help you stand out.

Brochures & Informational Kits

Brochures are perfect for delivering informative and engaging content about your products or services. They use compelling graphics combined with persuasive text to tell your brand’s story and can visually bring the concept to life with personalized, human images that provide more meaning and impact. Well-designed brochures and informational pieces help to educate your potential customers and leave them eager to learn more about what you offer.

Flyers and Posters

When it’s time to promote an event or even a special offer, flyers and posters can serve as go-to print materials. When creatively designed, eye-catching visuals and concise messaging should grab attention and drive interest in a quick and concise manner. Effectively distributing them where you know your target audience will be helps to ensure they have maximum impact.

Direct Mail Messaging

Direct mail campaigns add a personal touch and while they are often thought of as “junk mail”, there are many ways to elevate a direct mail campaign to stand out from the array of mail it may come alongside. We are often bombarded by emails all day, every day, so getting something in the mail is actually seen by some audiences as unique or special. Your potential customers may pay more attention and be more likely to respond to a personalized piece that is creatively and smartly designed, versus an online campaign where saturation is overabundant. Including individual customer codes printed on coupons or asking respondents how they found out about you allows you to track success and analyze return on investment (ROI). This empowers you to refine and target your marketing strategy for better results.

Creatively-Designed Business Cards

These tiny ambassadors for your brand give potential clients a physical representation of you and your company. Be sure to leave them with the best impression by investing in custom-designed cards made from quality paper, and unique touches to the finish and design. A well-crafted business card not only carries your contact information but also reflects the professionalism and uniqueness of your brand.

All the Benefits

Effective print marketing materials continue to play an important role in brand elevation. They provide a tangible and memorable way to connect with your audience, complementing your digital efforts. You can increase your success by combining digital and print strategies for a well-rounded marketing approach. The power of print marketing can catapult your brand to new heights.

If you want assistance with your brand’s print marketing efforts, reach out to ArachnidWorks. We’re an experienced, full-service marketing company in Frederick, MD, and we’ll create complete marketing campaigns to build your brand!

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Digital Marketing

Posted on April 10, 2023

In marketing, AI can improve various processes. It can be used to target potential customers and respond to feedback from existing ones.

AI first started being used in the 2000s. However, it was on a small scale. Only recently has it taken hold as a marketing tool. Today, thanks to the development of more powerful algorithms combined with improvements in data processing capabilities, AI is becoming a much more sophisticated, effective, mainstream marketing tool.

As technology has grown, the role of AI in marketing has become much more prominent. Now, AI is capable of performing repetitive tasks automatically, making it beneficial in creating stronger marketing campaigns at a much faster pace.

The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

AI makes it easier to personalize a company’s marketing efforts by analyzing vast amounts of data quickly. Such information helps generate customer-tailored experiences and messaging.

AI increases the output of valuable marketing efforts by performing jobs that would have previously taken up valuable user hours. Naturally, this frees up employees to perform other tasks.

AI’s capability to process such large amounts of data quickly and accurately makes it an ideal tool for optimizing decision-making. By analyzing a customer’s past behaviors and preferences, and using that information to make informed predictions about that customer’s shopping habits, it can provide customized recommendations and deliver relevant content.

All of this leads to greater customer satisfaction and continued loyalty, demonstrating that Artificial Intelligence is a useful marketing tool, which will continue to benefit both businesses and their customers now and in the future.

AI-Driven Marketing Techniques

AI relies on data rather than opinion. This provides an easy way to understand complex data about customers, including their preferences and habits. Using AI may also help highlight emerging trends within a business or industry.

All of these concepts can be challenging for humans to comprehend and interpret accurately, but AI can grasp these ideas in mere seconds.

Marketing techniques that are driven by AI make it possible for businesses to leverage large amounts of data and gain a deeper understanding of each customer. They can then use that information to target marketing efforts more productively with personalized messaging. This also results in better customer satisfaction because there is greater anticipation of a customer’s future needs, trends, and behaviors.

Let’s Chat About It

One of the most commonly used forms of Artificial intelligence is the AI chatbot. This is a software program that simulates conversations with human users in order to provide customer support or information.

The benefits of AI chatbots in marketing are These chatbots provide benefits like improved customer engagement, 24/7 availability, and cost savings, to name a few. However, there are some drawbacks.

Despite the impressive tech, there is still a possibility of communication errors, and regular maintenance and updates are essential. Additionally, AI takes away the personal touch that many customers prefer over automation.

Content Creation

AI manages tasks such as writing, editing, and optimizing content created for better search engine rankings, with the goal of creating high-quality content that meets user intent and adds value to their search results.

Voice Search Optimization

AI voice search optimization makes it easier to find relevant content using natural language queries, but it also requires a different approach to SEO and content creation to ensure visibility and relevance.

To optimize for an AI voice search, businesses should focus on creating conversational, long-tail keywords, providing succinct answers to frequently asked questions, and ensuring that their content is mobile-friendly and easy to access.

AI and Social Media

AI benefits social media management by improving its performance and accuracy, but one possible drawback is the fact that it lacks both the nuanced understanding and empathy needed for honest and beneficial communication with customers.

The Right Balance

The challenge with AI lies in finding the right balance between automation and the needed human touch. Using AI poses potential data privacy and security risks, as sensitive customer information is continually collected and analyzed.

However, marketing businesses can balance and negate this by prioritizing ethical data practices and cybersecurity measures. Implementing robust data protection policies, training employees on data privacy and best practices, and staying up to date on regulatory requirements is a great start!

Such methodology can be financially rewarding. Integrating AI with other marketing strategies can enhance a company’s profit margin by giving businesses a better understanding of their customer’s behaviors, leading to more successful marketing efforts.

More Advanced AI Systems

There isn’t simply one form of AI. It’s becoming a vast network many people are already engaging with, and they may not even be aware of it. Some commonly used forms of AI include:

Chatbots: These use natural language processing to engage with customers and provide specific recommendations.
Salesforce: This is a customer relationship management platform using AI to make improvements to sales and marketing processes.

Adobe Sensei: This AI framework powers Adobe’s creative and marketing products.

Ethical Consideration in Marketing Using AI

Businesses using AI in marketing must prioritize ethical considerations such as safeguarding privacy, avoiding bias, and respecting consumer autonomy.

While AI can perform certain creative tasks, it lacks the ingrained humanity needed for true creativity to flourish. So, AI is unlikely to replace creatives, and it’s more likely to enhance their work in the future.

Future of AI In Marketing

As technology continues to evolve, the AI future looks promising. Advancements in automation, personalization, and data analysis offer businesses new opportunities to connect with customers.

No Fear In Artificial Intelligence

AI is simply a set of tools designed to enhance human capabilities while improving productivity and solving complex problems.

With the proper solutions in place, AI is poised to be of great benefit to the marketing world. Hesitation over this new technology is natural and understandable, but a responsible marketing agency can use it to benefit every client in a meaningful way.

What You Need to Know About the Shift to Google Analytics 4

Posted on November 30, 2022

computer showing google analytics

When Europe updated its privacy and security laws in 2018 aka GDPR, Universal Analytics (UA)
essentially became illegal. Many other countries followed suit in updating their privacy
legislation including New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, and even the state of California. This change in
policy resulted in Google announcing the rollout of Google Analytics 4, offering up increased
privacy, security, and control over your data.

What is Google Analytics 4?
Google Analytics 4 (or GA4) is a completely new version of Google Analytics replacing the
current Universal Analytics. It measures website and app traffic together, instead of being
tracked separately.

How is GA4 different?
GA4 and UA differ in how they view and track page views and screen views, user sessions,
content groupings, custom dimensions, and more.

Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics: What’s Changing?

Data collection
With the advent of omnichannel e-commerce, GA4 collects data from both web and apps to let
businesses see unified user journeys and customer life cycles across different platforms.

Event-based tracking
UA measured users by tracking sessions on platforms and devices. This resulted in missed
opportunities and data loss when switching devices. Now, GA4 uses an event-based data model
to track user behavior. Using user IDs and unique Google signals, it’s much easier to follow
users along the customer journey.

With the shift to event and parameter tracking, GA4 introduced engagement metrics such as
engaged sessions, engaged time, and engagement rate. This is a big shift from how you were
able to track metrics in UA.

Data control and privacy
In the wake of data privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA, GA4 offers new data controls for users
to keep their privacy. These data privacy options include the user's ability to:

● Control how their data is collected, retained, and shared.
● Decide whether the data collected can be used to deliver personalized ads.
● Delete Analytics data by submitting a request to Google.
● GA4 only stores data for 14 months and doesn’t carry over historical data from UA.
When you switch to Google Analytics 4, it only collects data going forward, so
transitioning early is critical.

No IP Collection
Unlike its predecessor, GA4 does not collect IP addresses or store cookies.

Machine learning
GA4 applies machine learning technologies to fill in data gaps versus first and third-party
cookies with UA. Predictive analytics finds trends in user behavior, allowing you to provide
more intelligent insights and create forecasts.

In-depth Reporting
GA4 introduces Explorations, which lets you access data and analytical techniques that aren’t
available in UA’s default reports. These features give you a more in-depth look at your data to
answer complex questions.

Expanded integration
GA4 was designed to work better with other products such as Google Ads, and Google Data
Studio.

I need help making the switch to GA4.

The Digital Team at AW has been hard at work transitioning our clients to GA4 to ensure
historical data is recorded and future data collection is started early.

If you need help in making the transition, ArachnidWorks is here to help. Contact us today!

Why Your Website Needs a Blog and How to Start One

Posted on September 29, 2022

Let’s cut to the chase––you need to start blogging.

Blogs are not just for those ranting because the sour cream was missing from their grocery order. Starting a blog doesn’t mean you must spill the tea on why you will never wear parachute pants again, but we’d love to read it if you do (#welovethe80s). Blogging is one of the most powerful marketing tools business owners can wield to grow their audience, boost sales and establish a brand voice. By the way, all kinds of fabulous content can help you stand out from the crowd. Yet, for this piece, we’re covering the OG.

At ArachnidWorks, we know a thing or two about blogging. You’re kind of reading one now, right?

Right!

So, we gathered our collective marketing brains to share why your website needs a blog.

Three Little Letters: SEO

A quality blog can boost your entire website’s SEO ranking. Here’s how.

Content & Keywords – Blog posts are a form of content. Content adds keywords to your site. Search engines crawl through your site and read your content to determine what your business offers. That helps search engines find your website over others. Nice, right?
Relevancy – Blog posts are a deep dive into a topic. They help you gain traction and position your content in front of more eyes, leading to more conversions. And with Google’s latest algorithm update, there is a heavy focus on intent––your relevancy––which provides value for the posted content.
Tag, You’re it! – Categories and tags are metadata mysteries that are not so mysterious. They tell search engines where to find your website and drive users to it.
Stay Awhile – A quality archive of material keeps people roaming your site longer. Extra dwell time on pages tells search engines people loved hanging out with you because your content was on point and fabulous.
Internal Links – Links, links, and more links within a blog to your previous posts equal more clicks on your content. It’s all a part of strategic thinking to help users find your brand and message.
Share & Share Alike – Think of it as the more the merrier. Internal linking in posts means more opportunities for other websites to find and link back to your site. The more websites linking to you as a source, the merrier, right? Right! And when you tag and repost your blog on social media, you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, you’re going to have more eyes on your content.
Where the Heck Are You? – Tagging locations to your post is a must for location-based businesses. For the local donut shop that needs those eclairs to fly out the door, you want donut-lovers to know where to snag the best in town.

If You Write it, They Will Come

You want to set yourself apart as an expert in your lane. It helps customers get to know you and build trust. It’s not a matter of just writing content for content’s sake. You want to give the masses material that solves a problem, gives them actionable steps, and shows them YOU are the one who feels their pain (points).

Who Are You?

You have a brand to define for the masses. That starts with creating a voice people recognize. You immediately know when you see that circular, green sign that it’s calling you toward caffeine. That smirk on a cardboard box? Something special is on your doorstep, right? These companies have defined their brand to the point that you don’t even need a name on their logo to know who they are. You know their voice, identity, and how they improve your life with their services. You can get there too! It starts with becoming an industry expert who builds rapport and connects with others.

My People!

You can’t grow your audience without content, and content helps you grow your audience. You want traffic to be bumper-to-bumper on your site to generate new leads. These leads mean you’ve found your people! A great way to keep the interaction alive on your site is to include a call-to-action (CTA) that offers them a little something. You know what we mean by CTA. Things like:

But wait, there’s more!
Free gift just because you’re fantastic!
Act now. Space is limited!
Sign up today, and you’ll receive an invite to my virtual bad holiday sweater party!

Other CTAs we love include:

Free eBooks
Downloadable whitepages
Fact sheets
Video lessons or webinars
Free trials
Donuts. The ones with sprinkles.

Okay, maybe not the donuts, and it’s obviously sugar-rush snack time at ArachnidWorks HQ, yet you see where we’re going with this. Anything you can offer users to jump into that funnel and start a relationship can drive long-term results.

Ready to start that blog? Awesome! Want to turn to the Frederick, Maryland, marketing pros who can help you get it done? Even better! ArachnidWorks is a multi-disciplined design collective dedicated to bringing clients strategic marketing, top-quality design services, and SEO strategy that gets businesses noticed. Let us help you make some crazy-cool content. Reach out, and let’s get started!

5 Signs Your Website Needs a Refresh

Posted on April 20, 2022

Bouncing is good for rubber balls and inflatable castles, but when it comes to your website? Not so much. If you’re finding high bounce rates and low conversions on your site, it’s time for a change.

Here are five things that could be holding your website back:

1. Navigation Nightmares

User experience (UX) is a crucial factor in website design. If your potential customers can’t find what they want on your site, they’ll leave and most likely never return. An effective website is optimized for the user experience, whether it’s on desktop or mobile.

Part of this experience is page loading times. Customers expect a seamless website experience with a loading time of two seconds or less. A recent survey found that half of all visitors will leave a site taking more than six seconds to load. If potential customers can’t find what they need on your site or leave before it loads, you’ve already lost them.

2. Do You Need Pest Control?

Bugs aren’t popular, whether they’re crawling on the ground or invading your website. If you find you’re spending too much time fixing issues, or if visitors are complaining about crashes and other issues with the site’s functionality, it’s time to upgrade to a new site.

3. Google Doesn’t Like You

If your site isn’t showing up in the search rankings on Google, it isn’t optimized properly. The best-performing sites are on page one. If you don’t see yourself listed there, consider it a sign that you need to step up your game.

One of the most important parts of a professional website upgrade will involve technical SEO audits and optimization.

4. Old Site, New You?

Some businesses evolve over time, whether it’s through their audience, culture, or the goods and services they offer. If you fall into this category, make sure your website evolves with you.

Some signs that you’ve outgrown your site can include:

Inquiries about products you no longer carry
Inquiries that are not related to your current business model
Google lowered your rank
You’ve taken no actions to align your business and site since a major change
You’ve seen a drop in sales and conversions after rebranding

5. Your Website is Unappealing

Like it or not, browsers are judging you by your website. If your website screams “1990s,” it may be time for a new coat of paint (and probably a look under the hood). Updating graphics, changing fonts, improving the UX, and streamlining navigation are all ways to make a website more appealing to browsers.

Is it Time for a Website Redesign?

We’re marketing experts with a personal touch; we listen to your needs and align your website design solutions to your business. It’s not one-size-fits-all, it’s a personal and highly customizable journey for each of our clients. Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us now and let’s get started.