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Lately, there's been a buzz surrounding a particular AI program that's been making waves in the world of small businesses—ChatGPT. From online forums to industry webinars, entrepreneurs and business owners alike are buzzing about the transformative potential of this AI program.
But what exactly is ChatGPT, and why has it captured the attention of so many?
In this episode of Priority Pursuit, Victoria is joined by Treefrog Marketing’s Chief Strategist Kelly Rice and Content Director Angel Tobey as they break down what ChatGPT is and how you can use it to both save time and better serve your customers as a small business.
What is ChatGPT
For those who aren’t familiar with this AI software, ChatGPT is essentially a highly intelligent chatbot. We know what you’re likely thinking. We’ve all experienced chatbots where you more or less have to push buttons until you can talk to a real person to actually get help. But, ChatGPT is designed to understand and generate human-like text and is actually very impressive.
To use this chatbot, all you have to do is go to chat.openai.com, create an account, and do one of two things: ask a question or give the program a command or prompt. Then, in a matter of seconds, ChatGPT scours the information available on the Internet or in its database to either give you an answer to your question or to complete the task you instructed it to do.
To give you a few examples, you can ask questions like, “If my target audience is small businesses with an annual revenue of $5-$8 Million, which social media platforms should I be using?” or, “What can I make for dinner using [insert the ingredients you have in your fridge]?” And, ChatGPT will give you answers.
In terms of prompts or commands, you can tell the program to do things like, “Write a script for a podcast episode about how small businesses can use ChatGPT” or, “Give me a meal plan for the week that includes gluten-free meals that I can make in 30 minutes or less”—and the software will draft a script for you or give you the meal plan you asked for.
Whether you ask it a question or give it a command, ChatGPT’s responses are a result of this software being able to very quickly scour the Internet—or its database in the case of the free version which we’ll discuss later—and give you concise answers or content based on its findings.
As if this wasn’t impressive enough, you can have a continuous conversation with ChatGPT, meaning you can ask it clarifying questions based on its last response or refine your commands if the answer it provided wasn’t sufficient.
For example, if you tell the program to write a podcast script about how small businesses can use ChatGPT but the tone doesn’t fit your brand, you can instruct it to make the tone more conversational or to explain the concept in more simple terms.
In short, ChatGPT can save small businesses a lot of time. We’ll get into different ways you can use and leverage the software in a bit, but for most small businesses, time is their most valuable asset. And, whether you’re stuck on something and need inspiration; need a quick, straightforward answer; need content developed; or could benefit from having an AI virtual assistant, ChatGPT can—at the very least—help you get started and likely save you and your team hours of time for little to no cost.
Ways to Use ChatGPT for Small Businesses
Kelly, Angel, and Victoria all play very different roles at Treefrog. Kelly oversees client strategies as a whole; Victoria does most of our SEO work; and Angel oversees all of our clients’ content.
As a result, they all use ChatGPT a little differently, but when you run a small business, you have to wear a lot of hats. So, we’re sharing all of the ways we use ChatGPT in hopes that you’ll discover a few ways you can leverage this tool to save time and be more effective in your own small business.
1. Brainstorming Ideas
First of all, we use ChatGPT to brainstorm across departments. Sometimes, you just need to bounce ideas off of someone, and while we do a lot of that with the Treefrog team, that isn’t always possible. Thankfully, ChatGPT is very human-like and always available.
So, whether we’re brainstorming new ideas, researching industries, or writing Marketing Guiding Statements and need help making a sentence more concise—or need something reviewed and want suggestions—we use ChatGPT.
And, because this program contains and has access to so much information, something we’ll often do is ask it to review something in reference to a book or give suggestions based on best practices from a specific resource. And, most of the time, it can give a starting point or a different perspective.
Basically, we use ChatGPT as a sounding board to flesh out ideas to complete further research and improve our work.
Whether you want feedback on something or you just need to bounce marketing, business, or any other ideas off of someone, this program is a great place to start.
2. Audience Research
We also regularly use ChatGPT for audience research. We think it’s safe to say that most small businesses have a good idea of who their ideal client is; however, ChatGPT can help you really get in your audience’s head.
For example, when Kelly onboards a new client, she’ll tell ChatGPT who our client is and who their ideal customer is:
My business is an auto detailing shop that offers a wide variety of auto detailing services, including auto details, paint protection, window tint, and auto accessories such as running boards, floor mats, and more. My main audience is those who fit within the category of affordable luxury customers.
I want you to act like you are a potential customer of my business. What questions are you asking yourself when you are considering booking the services I offer or another business like mine? Tell me what your thoughts, questions, and concerns that are holding you back from purchasing—and state what customers want out of their auto detailing experience from both a professional and personal manner. Please format your response in a markdown table.
From there, she’ll continue to have a conversation with ChatGPT regarding its responses—especially asking if there is anything else about the audience or industry that she should be aware of.
To be fair, sometimes the information is great, and sometimes it’s a little off. But, this program can certainly help small businesses better understand their audiences.
And, by now you should know how important clarifying your audience is as we’ve discussed in many episodes of Priority Pursuit. In order for your marketing to be effective and to serve your customers well, you have to know:
- Who your ideal client is and thoroughly understand what they want to accomplish
- The problem they’re facing
- How this problem makes them feel
- What success looks like to them in relation to your product or service
You can get a great start on answering these questions with help from ChatGPT.
3. Keyword Research
From an SEO perspective, we often use ChatGPT for keyword research. For example, if we’re working on a web plan for a client or doing keyword research for a blog or another piece of content, we’ll ask something like, “What are five strong long-tail keyword options for a blog about why small businesses should use ChatGPT?” And, it will give us five options.
Now, just to clarify, we never use one of their keyword suggestions without doing further keyword research. And, if you’re interested in learning more about how to identify strategic keywords—which is a crucial step in improving your Google rankings—be sure to check out our keyword guide, which walks you through exactly how to choose and use keywords as a small business.
4. Content Topic Suggestions
Another way we use ChatGPT in SEO work is for blog topic suggestions. For example, let’s say we have a veterinarian client based in Indianapolis, and we know that the client needs to rank well for “downtown Indianapolis veterinarians,” we might ask ChatGPT, “If a veterinarian wants to rank well on Google for ‘downtown Indianapolis veterinarians,’ what are blog topics they can consider?” or something similar.
To be fair, sometimes these suggestions aren’t great. You do have to use common sense and make sure that the content you produce is actually helpful to your audience, but this is a great place to start.
5. Content Development
As we said before, we highly recommend utilizing ChatGPT as a small business because it can help you save time, and this is especially true when it comes to content creation. Whether you need inspiration for a blog, social media post, email, or other piece of content or you literally want a first draft written for you, this program can help.
One of the ways that our content team regularly uses ChatGPT is to create outlines. Outlining a piece of content before writing is great for developing a clear direction, and while our team can—and often does—create outlines on our own, ChatGPT is a great tool for getting outlines started.
As an example, if we need to write a blog post for one of our clients, we’ll tell the program who the client is and who their ideal client is, and then ask the bot to outline a blog about whatever topic we’re writing about. And, ChatGPT gives us an outline in a matter of seconds.
We typically need to adjust the outline a bit to make sure the blog or piece of content works well for the client—but, ChatGPT gives us a good start and sometimes even gives us points or ideas that we hadn’t considered but should be included in the content.
While outlines are helpful, ChatGPT can also literally develop content for you. You can instruct it to write blog posts, social media posts, podcast scripts, video scripts, email subject lines, and nearly any other form of content that you need.
It’s important to note that while this program can help you produce content, the content ChatGPT generates should very much be looked at as a first draft that helps you get started.
We’ll discuss why in a bit but do not copy and paste this content to your website, on social media, or anywhere else and just call it a day. You are going to want to make adjustments, but having a solid first draft can still save you a lot of time.
Also, when you’re developing content with ChatGPT, remember that you can continue conversations with this program. As a result, if you don’t like the content the bot produces or it isn’t quite right, you can tell it things like “Try again,” “Give me another option,” “Make the tone more casual,” or give it any other instruction that you would give a person, which can help you save even more time by giving you a stronger first draft.
6. Repurposing Content
Another way the content team uses ChatGPT is to repurpose content. The program doesn’t just produce content; it can also understand the content you give it.
For example, if we get the transcript from this podcast episode, we can copy and paste it into ChatGPT and ask it to create a coinciding blog post to summarize the episode, use the information to write five separate Facebook posts, or give us copy for an Instagram carousel.
Repurposing content is always a great way to save time and get the most out of your marketing efforts, and ChatGPT makes repurposing content even easier. Again, you will need to fine-tune this content and think of it as a first draft, but this is super helpful.
7. Feedback
We also often use ChatGPT to get feedback on copy. For example, if we’re not sure about a subject line for an email, we’ll give it to ChatGPT and ask if it has any suggestions to make the subject line stronger.
This also applies to strategy and SEO. For example, if Kelly is writing Marketing Guiding Statements for a client and struggling with wording, she’ll give ChatGPT the statement and ask it to make the statement more concise or to give other wording options.
Likewise, during keyword research, Victoria will even give ChatGPT a few long-tail keyword options and ask it which it thinks is the strongest or if it has other suggestions.
That being said, it’s important to note that the program doesn’t necessarily always know best.
Sometimes, it gives over-the-top ideas or content or wording that just isn’t right for the client’s messaging, brand, or target audience. And, as we discussed, that’s one of the reasons that it’s so important to only use ChatGPT for inspiration and first drafts. It’s a great tool, but you still need to make sure you’re using common sense, abiding by best practices, and staying true to your brand and messaging.
8. Responding to Emails & Other Messages
At this point, we’ve focused on the marketing-specific ways to use ChatGPT for small businesses. However, this tool can also aid in customer service.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to determine how to respond to emails, inquiries, comments, or reviews, and while having templates can help, occasionally, something will throw you for a loop, and you just won’t have a template to work from.
For example, if you’re a service-based business, you’re occasionally going to receive inquiries from prospects who just aren’t a good fit. Perhaps their inquiry includes some red flags, and as a result, you know that working together won’t be good for you or them.
You want to be respectful, but it can be difficult to know how to respond to these messages. Thankfully, ChatGPT can draft an email for you. Simply explain the situation to the bot and ask it to draft a response for you—with some tweaking afterward, of course. This can save you time and headaches and still allow you to quickly and easily respond to these kinds of inquiries.
On the flip side, ChatGPT can also help you draft more positive emails, comments, or other responses. As a small business owner or leader, you can’t afford to live in your inbox or spend all of your time responding to messages. So, if you’re stuck on how to respond or just need to respond more quickly, use ChatGPT. But again, don’t just use it word-for-word. Take what it gives you and then make sure it fits with your personal or brand tone.
9. Website Chatbot
Another way you can use ChatGPT to improve your customer service is to use it as a chatbot on your own website. Essentially, you can integrate ChatGPT into your own site and train it to understand your products, services, and how you want it to respond.
Now, as a reminder, ChatGPT isn’t your typical, frustrating chatbot. It’s highly intelligent, and as a result, it’s capable of serving your customers and answering their questions well.
You can learn more about how to do this by checking out this article on Hubspot, but if your customers would appreciate a chatbot, utilizing this ChatGPT feature is a great and affordable way to serve them.
10. Get Straightforward Instructions
Another way you can use ChatGPT is to break down complicated processes. For example, when Victoria got a new Macbook, she could not get it to connect to her external monitor, and the instructions Apple provided weren’t any help.
Not wanting to set up a call with Apple’s customer support, she asked ChatGPT how to connect the external monitor. It gave her instructions, let her ask clarifying questions, and ultimately helped her get the monitor to connect.
Because ChatGPT is able to scour the Internet for essentially any and all information, within reason, it’s a great tool when you need help or instructions—even if it’s for something really specific.
11. App & Plugin Integrations
Last but not least, countless plugins, apps, and other tools have started incorporating ChatGPT. And, as a result, there are likely tools that you use regularly that you can now utilize even more efficiently.
For example, Canva has a ChatGPT integration that allows you to literally tell the chatbot what you need created and to give it edits so you can have a graphic designed in moments. Zapier also has a ChatGPT integration, which allows you to tell the bot what apps need to be integrated, and it will take care of this for you.
Google Calendar has an integration you can use to add appointments to your calendar, which essentially makes the program a very affordable virtual assistant. Even Instacart has an integration that can give you recipes and then add the ingredients to your cart.
More and more companies and tools are integrating ChatGPT all the time, so if you’re using a tool regularly, it’s certainly worth seeing if these tools now have time-saving AI capabilities as a result of ChatGPT.
Long story short, this program can save you time and even help you improve your marketing, customer service, and other aspects of your life and business, so if you haven’t tried it or aren’t leveraging it to its full potential, be sure to try a couple of these uses.
Free vs Paid Version of ChatGPT
On that note, there are two ChatGPT options: a free version and a paid version.
Honestly, you can do much of what we discussed in this episode by going to chat.openai.com and registering for a free account. However, at the time of this episode, ChatGPT Plus is only $20 a month and does include some key features that are worth paying for.
First, with the paid version, you are guaranteed access to the bot, and you get faster response times. The free version is a little slower, and if the bot is too busy, there may be times when you can’t use it and will have to try again later.
Paid subscribers also get access to new updates and capabilities, have the ability to create custom chatbots (like how we discussed that you can add chatbots to your website), can utilize images (meaning it can understand both images and text), and have access to the Internet.
Now, Internet access is arguably the most important reason to upgrade. Because the free version doesn’t have Internet access, at the time of this episode, it only contains data and information available in the bot’s database, which only includes information up to 2021.
As a result, it doesn’t have access to the latest news and data, and as you can imagine, this can be problematic for content development—especially if you work in an industry that changes quickly or where data matters—like marketing.
Again, you can do a lot with the free version of ChatGPT, but for a small fee, you can do even more. At the very least, be sure to give the free version a try.
Things to Consider When Using ChatGPT for Small Businesses
As you use ChatGPT for your small business, there are a couple of things you want to be cautious of—other than the obvious like not sharing your social security number or other private information with the bot.
In case we haven’t said this enough times, if you’re using ChatGPT to develop content—such as a blog post—please don’t simply copy and paste the content it produces. We say this is for a few reasons.
Accuracy
First of all, while ChatGPT is highly intelligent, you need to verify that the information it provides is accurate. As we discussed, ChatGPT provides answers by scouring the Internet or its existing database in the case of the free version, which only has information through 2021 (at the time of this episode).
Because the Internet contains inaccurate information and because the free version of this bot doesn’t have the most up-to-date information, ChatGPT can give false or outdated data.
For example, in the content we produce for Treefrog, we do our best to back everything we produce with numbers and data. As a result, we’re sure to check every percentage or data point that ChatGPT gives us to make sure we’re only providing accurate information and marketing advice.
So, use ChatGPT to help you produce content, but make sure you check the information it gives you against reliable sources and update the content accordingly.
Voice and Tone
In addition to updating content to make sure it’s accurate, you also need to ensure that it doesn’t sound robotic and is true to your brand and messaging.
For example, sometimes, we’ll tell ChatGPT to write a social media post for a client, and while we give them the client’s information, target audience, and an example of their tone, the program will give us something that doesn’t sound anything like the client.
While we can give ChatGPT instructions to edit the post, it’s often more efficient and effective to use what the program produces as a basis and then update the post so that it sounds more like the client and is true to their brand.
In addition to making sure the tone is correct, you’ll also likely need to update the content so it sounds more human-like. ChatGPT often produces content that sounds a bit robotic, and if your content sounds spammy and forced, we can almost promise you that prospects will not engage with your content.
Also, ChatGPT tends to use a specific format that makes its content easy to recognize, especially when it comes to social media posts. The technology is helpful, but your audience wants to hear from you and your team—who are experts. If your audience can tell your content has been produced by a bot, this is a red flag for them, as well as a red flag for Google.
SEO
As we’ve discussed in past episodes about SEO, Google’s goal is to provide its users with the most relevant and helpful content as quickly as possible.
And, because Google knows that people don’t want to engage with content that sounds robotic or spammy, if Google notices that your content is less than helpful and clearly AI-produced, your SEO is likely to be harmed, not helped. In fact, according to Neil Patel, 94% of the time, human-created content outranks AI-created content.
While ChatGPT knows a lot, you and/or your team are experts in your field. So, for the sake of your SEO and to serve your audience well, it’s important to think of ChatGPT-produced content as your first draft.
To write your next draft, use what ChatGPT gave you and make it sound more natural and true to your brand, and add your own expertise. Again, you’re the expert in your field. While this program can help you get started and save you hours of time, you know more than ChatGPT, so use this AI program to save time, but use your expertise to produce great, truly helpful content.
ChatGTP is a free—or at least very affordable—tool that can help small businesses better understand their audiences, produce content more efficiently, better serve their customers, and so much more. So, if you aren’t currently using this tool or you aren’t leveraging it to its full potential, visit chat.openai.com to give it a try.
Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Start Using ChatGPT Today
- How and Where to Integrate ChatGPT on Your Website: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook
- Save $20 on Your First order from InstaCart of $35 or More
- Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services
- Join the Priority Pursuit Facebook Community
- Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
- Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
- Follow or DM Victoria Rayburn on Instagram
The Priority Pursuit Podcast is a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
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