Can AI really save your small business money on marketing?
When the economy is facing challenging times and business feels uncertain, cutting costs is a natural response.
You start looking at what you can do yourself and where you can make savings to maximise your profit.
Fortunately, in today's world, we have the benefit of AI. It's cheap, readily available and can make a real difference to your time and budget when creating marketing content.
Compared with paying a copywriter, designer or other creative professional, it can feel like an obvious way to save money.
And used correctly, it genuinely can be.
But there’s a difference between using AI to make your marketing budget work harder and asking AI to make the decisions a professional should be making.
The question isn’t whether you should use AI
I use AI in my own business.
It helps me develop marketing copy, organise my thoughts, refine ideas and write up documents more efficiently.
But it doesn’t decide what my brand stands for. It doesn’t decide who I want to speak to, what I want to be known for or how I should present my business.
And when it comes to the work I create for my clients, I'm always using my own skill set, experience, and creative thinking.
AI supports parts of my process. It doesn’t lead it.
And I think that distinction is becoming increasingly important for small businesses.
One thing's for sure, starting up my business alone without the help of using AI as a tool would have been far more challenging.
And being a brand designer and having worked with marketing teams has put me at an advantage because I can set AI to work with a clear understanding of what I need it to achieve, while using my own knowledge and experience to judge whether what it gives me is actually right for my business.
If you don’t have a clear brand strategy, asking AI to create your marketing can quickly become a bit of a lottery.
Like many, you may ask it to suggest content for your social media, design your logo or even create your website.
However, without a clear understanding of your audience, positioning, brand personality, tone of voice and visual direction, you’re still having to decide whether any of those suggestions are actually right for your business.
And more choice doesn’t necessarily make marketing easier. Sometimes it just gives you more things to feel confused and unsure about.
Having a brand strategy gives you something to judge those ideas against.
Instead of asking, “Do I like this?”, you can ask:
“Does this sound like us?”
“Will this connect with the people we want to reach?”
“Does this support what we want to be known for?”
“Is this consistent with the rest of our brand?”
Knowing the answers to these questions makes AI a much more useful tool.
People still want to connect with people
I saw a post recently from a window cleaner who was fed up with seeing increasingly polished AI-generated adverts.
So he rebelled and did the opposite. He drew his own advert using stick figures of him washing someone's windows.
It was deliberately basic, funny and creative. It resonated with viewers so much so that the response was immense, with over 600 likes and comments of support and agreement, asking for his services.
That desire for something more human isn't just something I've noticed.
Recent research from Canva found that 70% of consumers surveyed said they can usually spot AI-generated advertising because it feels like something is missing, while 87% believe the best advertising still requires a human touch.
However, I'm not saying we should all throw away our professionally designed branding and reach for the felt-tip pens.
In fact, just a few days later I saw another business using a very similar stick-man drawing idea.
And this is the point worth sitting up and paying attention to.
The stick figures weren’t what made the original work.
It worked because it felt unexpected and authentic to the person posting it. Once other businesses start copying the idea, it risks becoming another formula much like using AI generated content.
Whether the trend is beautifully polished AI imagery or deliberately scruffy stick people, blindly following what everybody else is doing isn’t a brand strategy.
What should you protect when budgets are tight?
When your budget is tight, it makes sense to review your expenses and the general running of your business to make sensible commercial decisions.
But rather than asking, “What can I replace with AI?”, it may be more beneficial to start with the core foundations of your business and ask:
“How can I invest what I have to create growth and longevity in my business?”
Your positioning, audience, brand personality, messaging and visual identity form such a foundation.
They influence who notices you, how people perceive you, whether they understand why you’re different and whether they remember you later.
Once those foundations are clear, AI can potentially help you do more with them.
You can give it your tone-of-voice guidance when developing content. You can use your messaging strategy to give it better direction. You can assess its ideas against your brand rather than accepting whatever appears on the screen.
And in doing so, you can maintain the human side of your business that people connect and resonate with — without the need for a stick-man drawing.
In other words, strategy gives AI boundaries. It helps you use the tool while maintaining the human connection and relatability that makes your brand yours.
Keeping AI where it belongs — as a tool and not the leader.
Making your marketing work harder
AI can be an incredibly useful tool for a small business. It can save you time, reduce costs and help you get more from the resources you already have.
But those savings only really matter if the marketing you're creating is helping your business move forward.
Having a clear brand strategy gives purpose and direction to your marketing. It helps you understand who you're trying to reach, what you want to be known for and how to communicate that consistently — so the time and money you do invest has a better chance of creating results.
And when your marketing is working harder for your business, you're in a stronger position to build recognition, attract the right customers and create sustainable growth.
So perhaps the real opportunity with AI isn't simply finding more ways to spend less.
It's having a strong brand strategy first, so that you can use AI to help you maintain a coherent and consistent brand that connects with the right people and makes a stronger impact.
Want to give AI better direction?
Understanding your brand personality is one part of building a clear and consistent brand.
My Brand Archetype Quiz is a simple starting point to help you uncover the personality behind your brand, giving you more direction when creating content yourself or using AI to support you.
Your archetype won't give you a complete brand strategy, but it can help you make more intentional decisions about how your business communicates, connects and shows up.
Further reading
Through thoughtful brand strategy and identity design, I help female founders craft confident brands that feel aligned and connect with their dream customers, without the overwhelm, because they deserve a business that truly thrives.
