It is expected that AI is going to change how users discover information. In past users had to know what they wanted, search for those things on Google and Maps and then chose. This is going to change drastically in coming months. We are going to see how and what you can do about it in this article.
Your lead generation is going to change forever
Whether you are a coffee shop or a car dealership, you have relied on many sources to find yourself customers. One of the biggest source today is search engines like Google. People make searches and somehow end up on your business listing. This could be a tired driver searching for "find me a coffee shop nearby" to a smart user trying to buy artwork for his house.
LLM and AI has changed this. Today users are asking AI to design their room and plan their road trip. Today users are directly passing the responsibility of doing a lot of intelligent work to AI. For example: Plan a road trip from X and Y and find a lunch spot on the way at around 2pm.
How do you make sure your restaurant can show up on such queries ?
We did find some tech savvy users to see how they are already using ChatGPT and Google Gemini for their day to day activities.
Case Study : Samantha buying perfumes
I have always bought a lot of perfumes for every occasion. Something for work, something for Gym, something for a romantic date and so on. Generally I like to keep changing the perfumes. I typically go to physical stores like Macys to try out new perfumes and pick something I like.
However Gemini changed how I bought perfumes. I simply asked Gemini to recommend me some perfumes based on my mood and it did.
I bought one for my outdoor activities and I love it.
Chloé Nomade Eau de Parfum Naturelle:*This scent is a celebration of travel and adventure. It features notes of date, jasmine, and vanilla for a warm, slightly sweet, and natural aroma ideal for exploring the world.*
Case Study : Jonathan buying cars
I wanted to buy cars. I never considered Hyundai as an option. Only when I tried asking ChatGPT about what cars I might like based on my usage, it recommended me Santa Fe by Hyundai. It also told me that Hyundai offers 100K/10Y warranty. That convinced me to take a harder look at Hyundai.
What we learn from this ?
There is a good chance Google Search is not the only way people will discover products to buy. Search while remaining important, there will be lot of AI interfaces that will proactively recommend products to us. Unlike SEO there is no good way to optimize for LLM prompts and we still don't have a good way to advertise on LLMs.
Contextual content generation
One problem to solve here is to general high quality contextual content about your products and services with lot more embedded information that LLMs could learn from. LLMs are being trained today on various data sources including your website. A website designed for just SEO is not enough. LLMs are smart enough to read reviews, youtube videos and various other sources.
Which means your business needs to have a very robust online presence and high quality multi modal content (text, audio, video, photos) that the LLMs can be trained upon.
Prompt targeting
You need to understand "why" of why your customers visit your store. May be you did not care about it in past but now it is very important. Once you figure that out you need to guess what prompts might your customers could be using you need to generate content around those prompts so you could get featured for those prompts when used by your users.
Prompt Monitoring
You also need to constantly monitor how the latest and popular models are giving results for prompts that you care about. Since new model versions are being rolled out frequently you need to stay on top of them.
Conclusion
This is an evolving field. But Wiseland Inc. has been at the top of the game for AI and its impact on small local businesses. We can help with prompt targeting, monitoring and crafting a good unique bespoke strategy for your business in a budget that you can afford.