Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How AI is Changing Branding & Marketing with Chris Carr

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How AI is Changing Branding & Marketing with Chris Carr · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  If you are a company that's not willing to adopt that technology, if you're an individual
• 0:04
  who's not willing to to adopt that technology, there's a chance you will get replaced by
• 0:08
  somebody who does.
• 0:09
  Because this technology is not small.
• 0:12
  This is probably the most monumental thing I've seen in 22 years.
• 0:15
  And if we were to have this show 3 months from now, I could be talking about AI in a radically
• 0:20
  different way.
• 0:21
  3, 2, 1, 0, ignition I left off.
• 0:30
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:32
  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
• 0:38
  Emerson.
• 0:39
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure.
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  And she'll give you the information you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
• 0:47
  Now here's your host, the small Biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
• 0:56
  Hey there.
• 0:56
  Have you always wanted to start your dream business?
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  Well, now is the time.
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  boss.
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  Welcome back to the small fish chat podcast.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, your host, and hopefully you're listening to us or you're watching us On
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  my small biz lady Facebook page or my small biz lady YouTube channel, please be sure to
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  subscribe, share, and leave us a comment if there is a topic that you want us to address on
• 2:03
  small biz chat Let us know, and I'll be sure to track down the right person to share guidance
• 2:09
  with you.
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  Alright.
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  Now it's time for me to introduce my next guest We're gonna be talking all about online
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  branding and AI.
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  My next guest, his name is Chris Carr.
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  Chris is a successful Digital entrepreneur.
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  He started his company, Ferrotech, over 22 years ago, and it's a comprehensive digital
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  marketing agency located just outside of Philadelphia.
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  Ferrotech has made the 85,000 list of fastest growing small businesses as well as the Philly
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  100 list.
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  Hey.
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  I made that list too.
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  He also he's at the forefront of AI and host of podcasts called digital marketing master class
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  with Andy Crestionna.
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  Featuring some of the top names of the world with marketing.
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  For more information, you can check him out at pharotech.com.
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  Chris, welcome to the small bishop, our guest.
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  Thank you very much.
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  I'm honored to be here.
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  Alright.
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  So tell me, how did you get into online marketing and branding?
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  I don't think you would believe it.
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  This is 1999.
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  I just broke up my girlfriend in college, and I thought that the way to win this girl's
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  hardback was to She was an artist to take her art and put it all online on a website so that
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  she can show everybody around her.
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  And what happened was Building websites in 1999 were extremely difficult.
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  I tried to hire a number of companies and they couldn't do it.
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  So I went and tried to do it myself.
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  And so that was about 6 to 8 months later.
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  I the girl was pretty much an afterthought by then.
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  I'd already kinda fell in love with coding and all that stuff.
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  And, that's sort of
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  how the company was born.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  So what is the main problem that people had building a strong brand reputation, especially
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  online.
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  Yeah.
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  I I think that there's a number of different things.
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  I think one of the things that they that we don't do is we don't take the the time and
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  energy to understand how to get the right message to the right client at the right time.
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  And so what happens here is is that without a plan and without a strategy, What happens here
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  is is that it's very easy to develop one marketing campaign or one marketing presence or
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  one marketing like message and just kind of send it out to everybody.
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  And what we found is is that when companies that find ways to build hyper personalization
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  into their marketing, they succeed a whole lot better.
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  So why do you feel like You know, how can branding, like, starting with branding lead to
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  better model y?
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  Well, I mean,
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  I think one of the things you have to do is you have to kind of say when I think about my brand
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  and I think about my products and my service, my mission and my values, the things that I
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  wanna know are what makes me different from my competition And when I know what separates me
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  from my differentiators, when I know what my differentiators are, I focus my brand on what
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  makes me different because if if It's just a commodity and you can get it at every single
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  corner or any single website.
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  You're just kind of, like, in the same bucket as everyone else.
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  But when you focus on your branding and you figure out, hey.
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  What makes us unique?
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  How do we do this process better than everyone else?
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  How are we more efficient?
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  How do we make you more money?
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  Those are the things that people go these are the companies people go to because they're
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  trying to solve a problem.
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  And usually when you try to solve a problem, you're in 3 different stages.
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  You're either in awareness, consideration, or decision level stage.
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  Awareness is, hey.
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  You know what?
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  I know I have a problem.
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  I need to fix it.
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  Consideration basically is saying, hey.
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  You know what?
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  If I am gonna fix it, like, what avenue am I gonna go down?
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  And then finally in decision, I'm saying if I have to choose one provider, what makes one
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  better than the other?
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  And what I find is is that we spend very little time.
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  Maybe companies like HubSpot tell us to put in a whole bunch of energy into awareness, and
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  then we have a contact us page.
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  And we live in this world of, like, kind of vomiting our message and saying buy now, buy
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  now, buy now, but we don't we don't mean to sound like that, but that's exactly what we're
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  communicating.
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  So how can we if I want to build a successful brand online and you're saying we're we're and
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  you're saying, okay.
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  We're just vomiting a bunch of content out here and then saying, oh, by the way, buy now, what
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  should we be doing to build a successful brand online?
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  Well, first off, what
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  I would wanna do is is I wanna try to understand your target personas.
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  Who are the actual clients that you're trying to market to?
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  And I wanna segment them into different buckets.
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  And then what I wanna be able to do is I wanna be able to figure out what are my lead
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  generation processes to reach each of these target audiences because they're not that are
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  commonly not always the same.
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  Sometimes they're finding you through SEO, social media, or paid ads.
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  Other times, you have to interrupt their pattern if they're a disruptive industry,
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  You're gonna have to do that.
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  You're gonna have to interrupt people's patterns because they didn't even know that
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  problem could be solved.
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  And then there might be other different target audiences as well, but each each approach and
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  each audience is different.
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  So it's not like a different stroke.
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  It's not it's not a different idea or campaign for each company.
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  It's literally almost a different campaign for each persona.
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  I like that.
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  I like that.
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  So let's talk about AI.
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  Right?
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  Cause AI is what buzzing around.
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  Everybody is talking about about AI right now.
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  And I really wanna understand what do you think companies should be doing to leverage AI right
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  now.
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  I I I found a great new website called there's an AI for that.
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  So there is an AI for, like, everything.
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  Right?
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  But what should people be doing to effectively, you know, leverage AI in their branding and
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  marketing process?
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  The first thing they have to do is they have to ask the question.
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  And what I mean by that is is that when you think of AI, everyone is sort of scared of the
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  doom and gloom that this take my job and it absolutely could.
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  And here's what you have to kinda say is is that you have to say say I'm your writer, I'm
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  not gonna lose my job to AI.
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  I'm gonna lose my job to a writer who uses that technology.
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  If you're an individual who's not willing to to adopt that technology, there's a chance you
• 8:11
  will get replaced by somebody who does.
• 8:13
  Because this technology is not small.
• 8:16
  This is probably the most monumental thing I've seen in 22 years.
• 8:19
  And if we were to have this show 3 months from now, I could be talking about AI in a radically
• 8:24
  different way.
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  Literally, it's it's like a rocket ship.
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  And I have used it to catapult our business in how we message how we communicate, how we
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  brand, how we analyze.
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  So if you, you know, how do you identify and target You know, when you now have all this
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  great technology that can help you do it faster, are you targeting differently?
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  Like, are Like, how are you maximizing your brand visibility against these tools?
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  Well, I'm using with these tools.
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  So I'm saying is let's say hypothetically I'm developing a content marketing strategy.
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  I know that I can write content.
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  I'm probably gonna get about a 30% improvement on efficiency with content.
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  Would that allow me to use that time and energy to make higher quality content?
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  I can use the AI technology through companies like companies like Spark Touro or BuzzSumo or
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  things like that to understand where are the influencers where the people in my industry and
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  how can I reach them more effectively?
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  I can use AI integration for lead nurturing and marketing automation so I can drip market to
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  them more effectively than I could even 6 months ago.
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  And I can use analytics.
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  Like, the the things that I can what I could show you with analytics right now, there's
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  something that we all have now.
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  If you have chat There's a beta, a version of something called code interpreter.
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  And code interpreter is like having a master's level data analyst literally right in your
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  pocket.
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  And so what the world should be doing right now is finding ways to export their data from all
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  their softwares.
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  You talked about spy food.
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  You can export from that.
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  It's SEM rush.
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  You can export from that.
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  Google analytics, you can export from that HubSpot, collect all of that information into a
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  spreadsheet, and upload it into code interpreter, and talk to your data.
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  If you have multiple clients imported into one document and then talk about at the macro
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  level, the information you wanted to know about all of your clients I'll give you an example.
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  I might say, well, you know what?
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  My keywords are not ranking effectively, and I would say, oh, is that just for my small health
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  care clients?
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  Maybe is it for my small health care clients whose website's only three years old?
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  Is it only for the ones that have I don't have a point of contact that I'm only speaking with
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  their leadership team?
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  Is it for the ones that only blog twice a month?
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  Is it for ones that not doing a social media campaign?
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  So if I know that all about one client and I am saying, oh, wow.
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  That's kind of like this anomaly.
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  I can ask I can ask code interpreter.
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  Is this affecting all my clients?
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  Just my large clients?
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  What about the ones under this account manager?
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  All of this stuff is all in data format, but you literally had to go lane by lane, client by
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  client, and trying to get correlation causation is it was nearly impossible.
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  Now, like, literally, if you can think of the question, the date is there, and it spits the
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  answer right back out to you, and it is It's it's it's shockingly effect.
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  Wow.
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  You're like really, really dropping pearls out here.
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  Tell me this.
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  Before we go to commercial break, how is SEO being affected by these new tools?
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  Like, is SEO still all need to be investing in or because we know more information about our
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  clients of where they're hanging out online, do we still need it?
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  Well, you absolutely need it.
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  You absolutely need it.
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  I mean, I think it's something like 70% of all non referral based leads originate from the web
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  if you're not in a disruptive industry.
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  What I mean by that Either you ask a friend or you go find it yourself.
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  And the only place to really go find it yourself commonly is through search.
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  That's for the seekers.
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  Everyone else has been interrupted.
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  You've been interrupted by an ad.
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  You've been interrupted by something on social media.
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  You didn't go to social media to find out, oh my goodness.
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  I need to gutters.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Like, you just didn't you didn't go to Facebook hoping to find that information out.
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  It hit me, and I'm like, you know what?
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  I actually think I could actually use new gutters.
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  It's been a while.
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  Do you know what I mean?
• 12:07
  So back to your SEO question, couple different factors you have to think of.
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  When you do SEO, right, we used to if you were not a great SEO, companies like HubSpot and
• 12:16
  things like that would say, let's go after keywords that high visibility, but low
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  competition.
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  Now that companies can build content and volume, that low comp those low competition
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  keywords now have competition.
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  So you actually have to be good at SCO.
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  The next thing you gotta worry to after that is something that Google's putting out called SGI.
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  So imagine that I go to the search engine results page and I expect to see 10 blue links
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  of possible options, but at the very top is literally chat GPT that says, I'm looking for
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  new gutters, and it says, these are 3 companies These are 3 companies that offer gutters, but I
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  can chat right into the search engine about.
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  Do any of these companies offer free installation?
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  What about financing?
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  And literally at the very top of your page, you haven't even gone to any of the ten links that
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  we all need to grow our business on.
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  You could stay right at the top, but I can talk forever on this topic.
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  It it's very complex.
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  Chris, you're making my head hurt.
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  You're scaring me.
• 13:10
  Alright.
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  So listen.
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  We come back from our commercial break.
• 13:13
  We're gonna talk more with Chris Carr about AI, branding, your business, and what we all need
• 13:19
  to be doing online.
• 13:20
  Stay with us.
• 13:21
  We'll be right back.
• 13:23
  Are you ready to become a boss?
• 13:25
  Hi.
• 13:25
  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady.
• 13:27
  Click the button below and take my free boss quiz.
• 13:31
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• 13:35
  model for you.
• 13:36
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• 13:40
  Yeah.
• 13:40
  That's you.
• 13:44
  Welcome back to the Small Beach chat podcast.
• 13:47
  I'm Melinda Evers and your host, and we're talking with my guest, Chris Carr, about Hey.
• 13:52
  I'm branding all that stuff.
• 13:54
  So, Chris, listen.
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  If everybody's now using chatty PT to write all their content, How are you gonna stand out?
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  How are you gonna be original in the marketplace?
• 14:02
  Well, there's 2 different things.
• 14:04
  One is you're using AI to do 3 different things.
• 14:08
  1, to sound like you and your brand, 2, to understand your audience better, and then 3, to
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  be a utility.
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  I probably don't have enough time to talk about 2 and 3, so I'm only gonna talk the first one.
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  How do you make AI sound like you and your brand?
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  Nine times out of 10, we jump onto a chat you know, something like chattyBT, and we start
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  doing and say, hey.
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  Write me a 1500 word blog about new gutters for my house.
• 14:30
  I don't know why I'm stuck on gutters, so please ignore that.
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  But anyhow, new gutters from my house, What the chat doesn't know is, are you an installer, or
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  are you someone that's gonna have it for your house?
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  Do you have a budget for this, or how old is your house?
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  You know, it doesn't know any context whatsoever.
• 14:45
  Alright?
• 14:46
  And so what you have to do is you have to do something called chat priming.
• 14:50
  And what Chad priming essentially is is that you develop a document that is everything about
• 14:55
  your buyer personas, everything about your brand, about your values, your best selling,
• 15:00
  your best performing blogs, your best performing social media, and then you you take
• 15:05
  testimonials, case studies, and you put that all into one document.
• 15:08
  And then you import that into the chat before you even begin working with it.
• 15:12
  And the first question you say is, I'm going to develop content Please only reference the
• 15:18
  information that I put above, and then we can fill in the gaps from there.
• 15:23
  So what you've done is you sort of haught the ai how to think and act like you because if you
• 15:28
  don't do that, it's gonna sound like ai.
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  And I do believe that It's just a matter of time before humans can smell AI and just see
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  it.
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  And they're like, that's a machine, and that's not genuine.
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  I can actually already do it.
• 15:42
  But but, honestly, so let's so let's talk about, you know, we've talked a lot about AI
• 15:47
  and all this stuff what about branding?
• 15:49
  Cause branding still has a lot to do with this.
• 15:51
  If you don't have a brand, you don't use JPG all you want to, it won't matter.
• 15:56
  Well, the first thing I wanna do is I wanna talk about the importance of brand.
• 16:00
  Obviously, I'm not the only marketer in the world that talks about brand, but here's what
• 16:03
  I'm gonna tell you.
• 16:04
  Is this that Let's say hypothetically AI does change the game.
• 16:08
  If that happens, there's a very good chance that people are gonna come to your web less
• 16:12
  people are gonna come to your website.
• 16:14
  It's just until you can figure that out.
• 16:16
  So every second counts.
• 16:19
  Okay?
• 16:19
  So the thing is is that if you're gonna have less traffic to your website, When they get
• 16:23
  there, they have to have an very enriching experience that they know that they're solving
• 16:28
  your problems, that they know that you have an authentic promise.
• 16:31
  That there's proof that this is not the first rodeo and an offer where I can get started, but
• 16:35
  it's not like buy now.
• 16:37
  It's like, hey.
• 16:37
  How do I take the first step?
• 16:39
  All of these things are absolutely critical and they have to hit them right in the face and
• 16:42
  they have to not make them think.
• 16:45
  So many times we're trying to make their website look so cool that they get there.
• 16:48
  I've seen this a million times.
• 16:49
  It's like super cool website.
• 16:51
  What do you do again?
• 16:52
  It happens all the time.
• 16:55
  So here's the deal.
• 16:56
  Here's what we do as a company.
• 16:58
  When we work with a company, we do not give you a quote.
• 17:01
  You'll say, well, hey, man.
• 17:02
  How much does the call do our marketing campaign.
• 17:04
  I'm like, I'm not even gonna give you a quote.
• 17:06
  Here's what we do.
• 17:07
  This is that we do a 10 week deep dive into your marketing, and we develop a 1 to 3 year
• 17:13
  roadmap on how to scale your business.
• 17:15
  And this includes your brand.
• 17:16
  So if you wanna grow by 10,000,000, I need to know how many sales does it take to get the
• 17:21
  10,000,000?
• 17:22
  And then if I wouldn't know how many sales, I need to how many leads do I have to get?
• 17:25
  If I know how many leads I have to get, I need to know how many visitors I have to Therefore,
• 17:28
  because I've worked backwards, I essentially know how many visitors it takes to look at your
• 17:33
  content to get to 10,000,000.
• 17:35
  A lot of times, marketing companies literally are like, Well, read just to haven't had the
• 17:39
  growth 1.
• 17:39
  I got you a bunch of Facebook likes.
• 17:45
  Well, I told people he bought likes all the time.
• 17:47
  Like, Ben, you need email addresses.
• 17:48
  Likes is not gonna Yeah.
• 17:49
  I I know.
• 17:50
  That's the same way I am.
• 17:52
  At all, like, emails trackable, boo, Right.
• 17:55
  Get up.
• 17:55
  Yeah.
• 17:57
  Chris.
• 17:57
  We as good as your database.
• 17:59
  All day.
• 17:59
  All day.
• 18:00
  But, listen, what is the best business advice that you've ever been given.
• 18:05
  Well, I mean, just as a person like myself, stop trying to degrade at all things.
• 18:09
  Know your lane.
• 18:10
  I've 2 really great business partners,
• 18:12
  and I've got an amazing team behind me.
• 18:14
  And I tried to be the greatest leader possible, the greatest thought leader with the greatest
• 18:19
  product developer, all those things.
• 18:20
  Pick 2, be really, really, really good at 2, and then build a team around you that can do
• 18:25
  the rest and go to bed at night knowing that you're good at year 2 because if you try to be
• 18:30
  all things, it's you're gonna go nowhere.
• 18:32
  I love it.
• 18:33
  I love it.
• 18:33
  Thank you so much, Chris.
• 18:35
  You have really imparted so many amazing gems and I can't wait to get the response from my
• 18:42
  listeners from hearing your interview.
• 18:44
  So thank you so much.
• 18:45
  And when we come right back, we're gonna be talking about branding and building an
• 18:51
  authentic brand because they're 2 very different things.
• 18:53
  You're watching the small biz chat podcast and we will be right back.
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  If you're ready to start your dream business in 2023, do not delay sign up for this course so
• 19:28
  that you can start off the new year as an entrepreneur, head over to
• 19:32
  smallbizladyuniversity.com, and you'll get all the details to sign up for become your own
• 19:38
  boss.
• 19:38
  The live course starting again on October 10th, 2023.
• 19:45
  Thanks for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 19:49
  Subscribe to this podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 19:54
  more fan tastic information and interviews.
• 19:57
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 20:02
  website succeed as your own boss.com.
• 20:05
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.