ET MSME Day 2023: How new-age small businesses are using AI, automation as part of their marketing strategy

A recent LinkedIn report highlighted that 90% of small businesses in India are using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to stay resilient in the face of uncertainty and challenges. Technology adoption has increased among all kinds of businesses since the pandemic. Further, in the era of social commerce, the new-age, tech-savvy small businesses in India are not shying away from taking the help of emerging technologies like AI and automation for various purposes, including marketing.

Mayank Jain, co-founder of Gurugram-based Scalenut, which helps companies automate their search engine optimisation (SEO) workflow, says a lot of small and medium businesses struggle with content for their platforms and websites and look for freelancers or agencies. “But AI platforms like Scalenut help to automate the entire content strategy and workflow. AI can help you with the right keywords and show you what similar small businesses or your competition is doing,” he says.

Scalenut, which has clients from all over the world, has 20% of its user base in India, out of which 80% are small businesses.


The LinkedIn report also mentioned that four in 10 SMBs are implementing new creative solutions or technology in marketing.

Himanshu Gupta, Co-founder & CEO of QuickReply.ai, a WhatsApp marketing automation platform, says that since the pandemic, there has been an increasing trend among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) using AI and automation for marketing. “AI technology has become more accessible and affordable, enabling SMBs to automate tasks, gain insights from data, personalise campaigns and enhance customer experience. These technologies help SMBs streamline operations, reduce costs, and make data-driven decisions,” he adds.

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QuickReply.ai helps D2C brands and online stores with hyper-personalised customer engagement via WhatsApp. It tracks buyers’ interaction with a brand across a range of touch points and uses this data to create unique customer personas. For example, if a buyer is looking for a floral-print top on an apparel site but bought nothing, QuickReply.ai will initiate a WhatsApp conversation to understand the reasons she did not purchase the top, and try to convince her to make the purchase.

Gurugram-based HR Tech firm Culturro started working with Scalenut in February 2022 through a reference and has been using its services, Cruise Mode and Keyword Planner.

Ashish Manchanda, Co-founder, Culturro, says Cruise Mode has helped them with content creation because it can streamline the process while ensuring quality and focus on SEO optimisation. “On the other hand, the Keyword Planner feature allows us to conduct comprehensive keyword research and analysis. It also helps us to do a competitive analysis for the keywords we are targeting. I think AI gives small businesses an edge to compete with funded or bigger companies with a lot of resources. We are competing with some well-established content brands, such as HBR. AI tools can help small companies like ours scale up their efforts across the entire content spectrum,” he says.

Gupta of QuickReply.ai says that SMBs can achieve significant reach by using AI and automation in their marketing efforts. Apart from content generation and personalised marketing, it can also help small businesses with social media management — scheduling and publishing posts across multiple platforms, engaging with followers, and analyzing social media performance.

“AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can handle customer inquiries and provide support 24/7. They can respond to common queries, provide product recommendations, and assist with purchase decisions. Also, targeted advertising. AI can optimise ad targeting based on user data and behavior, allowing SMBs to reach their desired audience with precision. A 10-member team leveraging AI is as productive as a 100-member team not using AI,” he says.

Talking about how easy and early can these technologies help in getting results, Jain of Scalenut says that it can be as early as two weeks to one year. He explains it will depend how much you have already done and what your competition has done. “If you are in a very new space, when there is not so much competition, you can start ranking quickly. But if you are in a very old industry, it will take some time since there are a lot of leaders in that space.”

He says it is now more important than ever that small businesses start focusing on SEO because the top positions on Google will only become more important for marketing and engagement. “Let's see if X percent of people have adopted AI today. In one year or two, this number is going to be a hundred percent. Everybody will adopt AI. The amount of content that is being published on the net is increasing heavily pretty much daily,” he adds.