It’s no secret that small business owners need all the help they can get when it comes to increasing sales, saving money, and streamlining their daily operations. Recent reports have shown that nearly half of all small businesses have turned to AI to help their businesses run more efficiently. While AI may or may not be for your business, we’re showcasing six ways small business owners are using AI to boost their bottom line.
1) Keeping Shipping Costs Low
Close to 20% of all US retail sales are based around e-commerce businesses. That means an e-commerce business needs to manage the cost of shipping products to a customer’s front door. For many businesses in the e-commerce space, shipping logistics can eat into their profit margins. But with AI platforms that use predictive analysis, these business can find the cheapest and most efficient way to mail products to customers, ultimately reducing waste, saving time, and improving profit margins.
2) Analyzing Sales Data
It’s no secret that running a small business leaves you with precious little time to yourself. And if you do get a day off, do you really want to spend it going over monthly sales reports and writing up an income statement? AI changes all that. Instead of plugging in numbers weekly or monthly, AI keeps up with sales as they happen, making it easier for you to see how the business is performing on a quarterly, monthly, and even weekly basis.
3) Using Website Chatbots
Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human conversations. You’ve probably interacted with one while shopping online. Chatbots don’t sleep. Day or night, if a customer has an urgent question they need answered, your website’s chatbot will be there, ready to assist. In terms of using an AI chatbot as a marketing tool, recent studies have shown that chatbots are three times more successful than emails at converting a website visitor to a customer, and websites that install chatbots have reported sales increases of nearly 60%.
4) Implementing Dynamic Pricing
While retail prices often fluctuate (ex: a gallon of milk might be $4.19 one week, and $3.99 the next), dynamic pricing allows businesses to change the prices of their products in real-time. While dynamic pricing may not be for every type of business (we’re looking at you Wendy’s), AI’s advanced number-crunching capabilities allow business owners to respond to changing market conditions by adjusting prices up or down accordingly. Hotels and airlines have been using dynamic pricing for decades, but now with AI, this type of pricing is being used by grocery and retail stores, and even e-commerce. AI-set pricing can help business owners keep up with market fluctuations.
5) Create Effective Marketing Content
Creating persuasive content (videos, blogs, and images) for a business takes time, creativity, and most importantly, trained employees. AI marketing content generators free up time and resources to allow business owners and employees to focus on other essential tasks. AI can edit videos, create images of products, write blogs in seconds, and even post to social media. But don’t fire your marketing team just yet. AI (at least when it comes to content generation) isn’t 100% reliable. AI generated photos don’t always look realistic, the video editing isn’t always precise, and written content is generally easy to spot and not always acurate.
6) Streamlining Recruiting and Hiring
Business booming and you need to hire? AI can do that for you. AI platforms can help small businesses find and attract the best people for the job. Instead of spending your time sifting through mountains of cover letters and online resumes, these programs scan applications for key words, skills, and qualifications. Some AI programs can even decide how well a candidate will align with your company’s values. The decision on who to hire won’t be taken out of your hands, but with AI, you’ll be able to more confidently approach the hiring process, and save time doing it.
Should Small Business Owners Use AI?
That’s really up to you, but small business owners shouldn’t welcome their AI overlords just yet. AI can be costly, and it shouldn’t be relied on to replace human oversight and analysis just yet. Whether or not a business would benefit from employing AI solutions is a decision that each business owner needs to make on their own. However, there is little doubt that in many cases, using AI to streamline your business operations can save time, reduce costs, and in some cases boost sales.
AI can save you time and money, and so can Nortwest when you hire us to start your business. We’ve got everything your business needs in one place, including registered agent service, annual report filings, mail forwarding, website and domain services, and more.