Chris spoke recently to an audience of business owners and marketing managers when he joined a panel of experts to brief a Wolverhampton Business Week event audience on key marketing topics, featured here to help you plan your next move:
The pressure on marketers has never been greater. You are expected to act as a publisher, constantly feeding content across multiple channels.
Every business is competing for attention and there is an expectation that everyone should be an influencer adds another layer of complexity. AI tools are appealing as they promise to raise quality while saving precious time. But their speed only tells part of the story.
Audience appetite for news
The statistics tell an interesting story. Analysts McKinsey found that AI is being used in marketing and sales more than any other business function, with 42% adoption across all sectors.
Meanwhile, 69% of marketing professionals respondents to a SurveyMonkey study felt genuinely excited about AI technology and its impact on their jobs.
Yet 57% of people of respondents to a Click Consult survey said they trust human-generated content more than AI-generated content.
We all believe we can spot AI implementation, whether that is images that look oddly blocky or unnervingly computer-generated or news posts that read like “word soup”.
People you know to be quiet away from a screen may issue social media updates that chat away endlessly without saying anything meaningful, sounding nothing like their real world selves.
If audiences prefer real content you may end up working twice as hard to build engagement.
News brings opportunities
Imagine your business being well-known enough that prospects already have positive associations before you meet or picture your customers speaking so well of you that they naturally introduce new business.
Envision your networks or partners from memberships of groups such as chambers of commerce actively recommending you, and your social media content generating genuine engagement.
By sharing your news consistently, you can build such connections but it will have to be rooted in reality rather than wholly AI generated.
Before you generate a single word, ask yourself: What story do I want to tell? What will my audience actually want to know? What makes us relatable and credible? What’s my schedule of activity?
A simple but powerful strategy for every business is to share one news update every three weeks.
Tell it the way you would share exciting news with a friend or family member. It should not be over-written, not stuffed with keywords, and most importantly, genuinely NEW.
The stories to tell
The best content comes from real business activities:
These stories work because they’re authentic. They give AI something real to work with, rather than asking it to fabricate relevance from thin air.
If you want to appear authentic do not give AI a licence to generate imaginary content. Think strategically, act decisively, and communicate positive news in a structured way, using AI to enhance your effectiveness and efficiency.
While your competitors generate obvious AI content that audiences scroll past, you publish authentic stories enhanced by AI tools. Your content sounds like you, reflects real events and achievements and builds genuine trust.
You publish this content on your website, share it across social media, monitor what resonates, and share relevant news with media contacts, networks, and associations.
Over time, you grow an audience that believes and trusts you—because you’ve given them genuine reasons to do so. AI is a powerful tool that’s improving month on month.
The opportunity to create professional content at speed is real. But tools are only as good as the craftspeople who wield them. Be strategic before you generate and you will grow audiences who believe and trust you.
