How AI tools can save time & money for early-stage business projects

TL;DR

Small early-stage startups may be stuck with marketing execution because of limited resources AI tools can save time & money.

Modern AI solutions can be used for:

• A/B testing
• Demand generation
• Increasing awareness
• SEO
• Logos, design & visuals
• Websites and landings

It is essential to understand that AI tools can’t substitute human expertise.

When it comes to early-stage products and startups, it’s common for the team to focus heavily on perfecting the technology behind their solution.

However, it’s equally important to go to market quickly and test the solution to find product-market fit and customers. This is where marketing comes in, and it can be a challenge for small teams that may not have the time or money to devote to it.

Startups typically have limited budgets and may need to prioritize where they allocate their funds. They usually lack the resources to build an in-house marketing team and have to outsource certain marketing tasks to freelancers or agencies (which is costly).

Well, here, early-stage projects can leverage modern AI tools. They can help early-stage startups save time, increase efficiency, and improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, which is crucial for their survival and growth in the competitive market.

It is also essential to understand that AI tools can’t substitute human expertise and decision-making. As it is an in-house expert who sets up and describes the task, creates a strategy, and defines the company’s goals and objectives. But AI tools can be powerful assistants. Let’s see which tasks it may help resolve.

A/B testing

Testing is a way to optimize a startup’s website, marketing campaigns, pricing model, etc, and see what is most effective and adjust accordingly. Here ChatGPT may help you write different headlines, calls to action, product descriptions, and multiple versions of the same email or social media post so you can test them to see which performs best.

Demand generation

First, tools like ChatGPT help create content for lead generation sequencing when you try to engage the customer through different channels. Second, it can automate certain aspects of your demand generation sequence, such as follow-ups, which can save time and resources. Of course, you’ll need to add a personalized touch, but it may save time.

Increase awareness

Making potential customers aware of your product is important, especially when you take the first steps. Depending on the strategy, you may need to create and distribute various content through different channels like social media, ads, events, YouTube videos, mass media, etc. It takes a lot of time to prepare all the posts, press-release, presentations, and scenarios. It also takes money; you need to find the right people to perform these tasks. Or you can use AI. I’m not talking here about GPT only, as you may want to try: copy.ai, rytr.me, copysmith.ai, or something similar.

SEO

It happens that there is a need to write a lot of SEO-optimized blogs and landing pages as a part of the inbound strategy. AI tools can assist with researching topics, coming up with headlines, and optimizing content for search engines. The tools I mentioned above are great for these tasks.

FAQs

Let’s go back to ChatGPT, which can help generate answers to frequently asked questions. Integrating it with customer service platforms such as Zendesk or Salesforce is also possible.

Logos, design & visuals

“We need to find a designer and pay for the logo and identity.”

No, you don’t. At the early stage, you need to test the market to be sure your product fits the customers’ needs. So, generating a logo through AI like looka.com or an alternative is absolutely ok. If you need customization, use canva.com. MidJourney works for illustrations (well, they may be too much unique).

Websites and landings

As an early-stage project, you may need to create a lot of different landing pages to run some tests and try different value propositions. Website builders with pre-made templates work well. Or you can try an AI site builder like bookmark.com or similar. An additional plus is that it’s much easier to make changes.