Crush local digital marketing with AI

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Yeah, no, that’s awesome to hear. Obviously, we know each other from a digital hospitality like industry group that Shawn and you and others host on LinkedIn every week. So I really wanted to bring you in cause I know that you’ve got a wealth of knowledge with regards to digital marketing and social media specifically, lots of AI tips and tricks you’ve been handing out. So I thought it would be good to get some of those insights in front of our audience. But maybe first we could start with how you got into digital marketing.

Heather Cox
Yeah, for sure. So for those who don’t know me, my name is Heather Cox. I own Heather Cox Codes. I’ve been a social media manager and strategist and WordPress website designer for almost 15 years. I’ve also been integrating a lot of AI into my marketing strategy. I also love search engine optimization and social media search engine optimization, like you said, two time TEDx speaker. 

And also I’m finishing up my certification course, my fourth one at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for managing marketing in the hospitality and tourism industry. My finals next week. So fingers crossed. Thank you. 

But how I got into digital marketing back when Facebook kind of really started to come to the forefront and people were starting to use it more, I signed up when you needed a edu email for Facebook, it was just for college kids. So when I signed up with my old University of Delaware.edu email, just to see what it was all about, and when I got in there, I was like, this has huge potential because we’re able to target and speak with and converse and communicate with our customers and clients and potential customers directly. 

And so that was a game changer because now we’re able to talk to the customer directly, but also gain insights from that customer directly through the data of social media. So I made a Facebook page and they didn’t even exist yet. They only had Facebook profiles at that time for individual people. But I made a Facebook page under a profile for the company that I was interning at. 

They told me to take it down, of course, but, you know, that was, it kind of just solidified that. Yeah. Like this is kind of where and what direction I should go in. So, you know, kind of after going back and forth working at different places, I just quit and was like, I’m just going to start my own business. So at the age of like 21, 22, I was kind of out there in the trenches, just starting my digital marketing firm and it was, yeah. So ever since then, it’s just been growing and growing and growing.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Very cool. So you started with it. Like you came up, started from the bottom. Now you’re here, in the words of Drake.

Heather Cox
Yes, for sure.

Justin Ulrich
Well, very cool. So I guess you’ve got a lot of clients, you’ve done a lot of testing, you’ve done lots throughout the years. What would you call out as being one of the more critical things from a local marketing standpoint?

Heather Cox
I believe everybody misses this piece, and that is to really utilize Google My Business, as a social media platform, not just changing your hours and putting your, you know, Doordash ordering link in there. You really should be utilizing Google My Business with your short form videos, your text, your images, your reviews, all of it. You really should be posting on that platform every single day because it directly relates to your Google My Business listing ranking, but also relates to Google search in itself. So I mean, you’re going to make Google happy if you use Google’s platform. 

So that is one of the social media platforms that whenever I’m working with a local company, if it’s a brick and mortar, if it’s a, you know, if they have multiple locations, making sure that the t’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted in regards to everything on your Google My Business profile, but also making sure that you’re adding that social media element, you can post every day on Google My Business, just like Facebook and Instagram. And so utilizing that, I believe is a lot of people miss out on that and they should be utilizing Google My Business as a social media profile for their business.

Justin Ulrich
So the more they post on this profile, the more content they’re feeding Google with. That’s all searchable. So from an organic standpoint, it helps to bring their location up if someone’s searching for a location near them based on content that they’ve been feeding into the, into the platform.

Heather Cox
Yeah. So if somebody is going to search, and we all know they love, we love this term in the restaurant and hospitality industry, “restaurants near me”. Everybody loves that keyword, but you have to understand that. So do the big stores as well. Applebee’s, Chili’s, you know, like Outback Steakhouse, like they’ll all use that “restaurants near me” and pay buco bucks just to be on the top, you know, ranking granted, it’s sponsored. 

But you know, so, so utilizing those type of keywords in your marketing, but also like posting, like, let’s say looking for a gastropub near me. Let’s check out ABC Pub. You know that putting that type of copy in your Google My Business listing posts are actually going to help you get found, in my opinion, easier than it would be if you are just somebody posting that on Facebook. Not everybody has social media. Not everybody uses social media. So utilizing this outside the social media platforms and it directly relates to Google is, I think, a huge thing that people should be looking at.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, I think many times it’s easy for us to just start creating content about our business. But I think what gets overlooked is when folks should be incorporating like think about the customer’s journey and what it is that they’re going to search to get them to content about your business. So if they’re searching for that term, like you’re talking about “restaurants near me”, how do I plug that into content organically and naturally to get them to find me based on the things that.

Heather Cox
They’re searching for, for sure. And you know, a lot of the times, restaurants, restaurant owners, managers, they don’t have time to be posting on the normal social media platforms. So here’s a perfect case in point. I was going to the beach to, it’s about 2 hours for me. And I loved, I loved the beach, but one of the restaurants I love to go to, they are closed on the off season. So they were closed. 

So I went on to their social media and they were not posting for months. And I was like, okay, are they even open? I don’t know. So then I went and looked on Google Maps, and Google Maps is directly related to your Google My Business listing. That’s where all the reviews are. That’s where all the posts are. So I went there and it stated that they were closed for the season. I was like, oh, okay, cool, that’s great, but where am I going to go to dinner? 

So I was like, all right, well, let me look in Google Maps and Google search as to what restaurants may be open. So I found this really awesome french cuisine restaurant, lefable downover Hoboth. It’s amazing. But I went to their social media. They haven’t been posting for a good month or two. And I was like, oh, man, is this going to be closed? 

So I went to Google My Business listing, and I saw a five star review come in the day before stating that this place is amazing. We ate here last night, and you have to go. And I was like, great, cool. They’re open on the off season. So I made a reservation based off of that information that I found in that review, found on Google My Business, stating that, hey, yes, they were open on the off season. 

So again, Google My Business is a great resource for those who aren’t on social media, but also to find more information when the other people, like the restaurant managers and owners, are not posting themselves for their entity on social media.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. And there are tools out there that can help you to update certain things outside of content with, you know, your hours and make sure, like, you want to make sure that stuff’s up to date, because, like you said, you were looking for it, you couldn’t find if they were open or not. And it’s like you happen to see it on a review that someone happened to write about, and it was very timely.

Heather Cox
Right.

Justin Ulrich
So there’s tools for that, but there’s also tools for content creation. I know a lot of times we have, you know, local operators that just think to themselves, like, it’s just so hard to get started. There’s so much to do. They don’t have enough time. Content is just a daunting task to think about undertaking. There’s strategy involved. There’s prep work, there’s planning. 

What would you suggest folks could start doing to maybe take advantage of some tools that are out there to help them create content? Maybe more quickly, more easily at scale?

Heather Cox
Yeah, for sure. So I actually did a talk called Plate to Pixel at the Delaware Restaurant Association this past month, and we actually went through the content creation steps on how to gather the content to save the content. What type of topic are you going to be talking about then the tools, then the posting. So we went through the whole process. 

And one of the great tools that I really love to use is CapCut. I know that may be just so you know, everybody said that, but CapCut desktop allows you to co work with about five other people within your cloud system. So I have about three people working on my video content creation side of my agency. And so they, you know, I’ll see a TikTok trend that has that CapCut, you know, attached to it. I’ll just copy the link to that TikTok and I’ll put it in the video chat and I’ll send it over to them and then they’ll create that video for me within CapCut. 

And I will say though that some templates for CapCut mobile are not available on CapCut desktop. It’s not as seamless as Canva is. You know, if you do something on the phone with Canva, you see it happen on the computer. Not so much with CapCut, but with CapCut desktop, they have so many different professional templates, so many AI tools within it, and then you can also cowork. So if you have yourself and your marketing team or you know, your content creator, they can just drop it right in there and you can co work with them. 

And it’s just so quick and easy, especially with the template section on CapCut. So if you’re looking for short form video and you’re looking for those templates, definitely CapCut mobile. But also if you’re co working CapCut desktop cloud.

Justin Ulrich
Very good suggestion. You mentioned Canva, so there are going to be some listeners who don’t know about Canva, but if you, if you don’t have graphic design skills but you need to create some stuff, maybe you could tell us a little bit about Canva and how that can help.

Heather Cox
Yeah, so Canva is a woman owned and operate, well, not operated but woman owned graphic mobile, browser based graphic design tool. And it has so many different AI tools in it. It also has the ability to create documents, magic write, kind of like that ChatGPT, and then it also has the ability to create courses. So you can create a whole folder system with one click of a button. You can turn that whole entire folder system into a course. 

But a lot of people utilize Canva for graphic design, for content creation, you can type in and they also have a text to image, so you can type in short form video real estate. It will then use the AI to generate AI real estate video templates for you. So then you just click that template, it’ll import it to your document. Then you can edit the images and the videos and the text to your entity, and then you can add music right in there and then just download it. 

So Canva is great for videos, for images, for documents, for copywriting, for even image hierarchy organization. So instead of using Google Drive for all my clients images that we utilize in content creation, I actually created a folder hierarchy system within the project section which I’m then able to categorize per client, put in their images.

And then once you know, oh, okay, I need to make apply now images for Miss Delaware USA. Well, now I have all those images in the folder so that I can just import directly into my document instead of being like, okay, now I need to go to my Google Drive, download it, then upload it, then put it in. It’s just a lot of time. 

So streamlining those processes with Canva, I love Canva. Been using it since the jump. And if you’re not using it, you definitely should at canva.com.

Justin Ulrich
No, very cool. Yeah, I came up using the creator suite from Adobe and it’s complex. And so if you don’t know it, it’s hard to get into. Canva makes it so easy. Anyone could just go in and create assets. It’s incredible. I’ve used it on teams in the past with folks who don’t have the background I do, and they’re able to produce stuff that’s on par with what I’m able to create. So it’s a great tool. 

Let me ask you, you talk like we meet weekly on these calls, these industry calls. We talked about digital hospitality room and LinkedIn. Every week it seems you give a new tip around AI tools, like leveraging AI to do things, to create processes, to reverse engineer certain things. Can you maybe talk a little bit about some of the tools that are out there and how you use them?

Heather Cox
For sure. So I am a huge, like, I love Chat GPT. I don’t care what anybody says. And a lot of people say, oh, well, Chat GPT is going to go away because this platform is going to show up and this AI tool is going to be used. Well, if, and I am someone who’s like, if you find something that works, don’t reinvent the wheel every time just because there’s a shiny new AI object out there, right? 

So I love utilizing Chat GPT for custom captions, custom hashtags, reverse engineering things in regards to, you know, so let’s say I have somebody, I have a real estate agent who messages me and they’re like, hey, I have a new listing. Well, I’m writing the copy out of that huge description that they give with like, you know, usual real estate and houses. Like, that’s crazy. 

So what, what I do is when I get that really long description, that listing, you know, it’s really difficult to every time, “Okay, great. Now I gotta make this caption. Now I have to create this content. Now I have to find the hashtags.” It’s just so whenever I have a task that is given to me all the time, weekly, I’m like, I can’t do this, or I don’t have time to do this. 

So what have I done, I’ve created a custom GPT and this is for my Chat GPT for premium users only, though, because you have to pay for it, obviously, if you want to use the custom GPTs. But basically what this GPT does is it asks me four different questions, who’s the real estate agent? What’s the listing? And give me the description and any other information you give it. 

So then I give that information, I hit enter and then creates a optimized caption for me to use that pulls out all of that specific data that I want to share from the listing. And then it gives me the branded hashtags of the client as well. And then I’m able to use that caption. 

And then I take it over to my hash creator GPT that I created, which basically is a hashtag generator that has hashtags for non-location-based clients, which means, let’s say you’re operating on the Internet, you really don’t have a location. But then also location-based clients, if, you know, let’s say this listing is in Delaware, it’s in Wilmington, Delaware. Well, then this listing, this hashtag generator is going to bring up and put in those optimized local hashtags for you. 

And also while optimizing and putting in hashtags that are relevant to the caption. So I have it where it literally goes to Bing and it goes to Instagram and it searches for those specific hashtags in addition to me doing the research myself to look up all of those lists of banned hashtags. So then I have preloaded all of those banned hashtags, for all, you know, of existence into that hashtag generator so that it’s not going to generate those banned hashtags which can get, you know…

I was screaming from the rooftops in regards to that hashtag, Valentine’s Day being banned. And I’m all over Instagram that day being like, this is a banned hashtag, you might want to use this. This is a banned hashtag. Get rid of it. So, you know, so utilizing the caption generator, then taking it over to the hashtag generator to create those optimized hashtags based off of the optimized caption. 

Then I take the image from the listing, I put it into Motionleap, which is a video, an image to video generator. It essentially creates gifs and videos based off of a static image. And that’s another AI tool that I use, because in one click, you can add a moving element of sky, clouds, you can even add like a fighter jet flying above the house. And, you know, this is all AI with one click download. 

And I’ve got my captions, my hashtag and my visual done in two minutes. And then I just have to post it. And then it’s like, yay, I’m done. So, utilizing AI, Chat GPT, video AI apps like Motionleap, Videoleap, Beatleap, Gencraft, they are all really helpful with creating that content. But then the chat GPT helps with the copy and the hashtags. The speed of implementation is huge, especially when it comes to social media.

Social media has made everything move at the speed of light. It’s so fast. So now it’s like we as content creators, also have to speed up because people are expecting for us to have that speed of implementation and posting. And so utilizing AI and those tools, especially Chat GPT, Chat GPT 4, those custom GPTs are going to help you streamline your processes and help you get things out faster.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, and candidly, I think for the listeners, it’s just one that no matter what industry you’re in, it’s like just sitting on the sidelines isn’t acceptable because everything’s moving so fast. Your competition directly associated with the area in which you work. I don’t know why I can’t put a sentence together. They are on social, they’re going to find these tools, they’re going to move quickly. It’s in your best interest to figure out how can I just check out some of these tools? 

Maybe it’ll help get us past that kind of blank canvas phase and it’ll give you some ideas, but it’ll help you moving in the direction. The best thing you could do is start. If you just sit idly by, you’re going to get passed up in perpetuity and it’s going to be really hard to catch up once your competition starts utilizing these tools.

Heather Cox
Right? And we all love Dean from Digital Hospitality, and he always says, you know, what’s the cost of inaction, right? So you really want to make sure that you are like, you may be a little weirded out by AI and how, like, fast it can get stuff done, but it’s really not here to replace us. 

It can’t because you still have to hit a button to do the AI thing. It’s not like AI’s like, oh, I just read your mind and you need five captions for this client and I’m going to make it for you. And here’s your visual, and Tada. No, it’s not like that. Like, you still need that human element behind it. And we really should be utilizing AI not to replace people, but to help with streamlining processes and with speed of implementation.

Justin Ulrich
Exactly. It’s the same. It’s just a tool. It’s like a calculator.

Heather Cox
Right?

Justin Ulrich
You’re going to use it Excel, you’re going to use it just because it makes sense. These tools are there just to help accelerate what we can do, amplify what we can do. I think with AI, it’s always important to understand that the output isn’t going to be perfect. It’s meant to get us 80, 90% of the way there, and then we can just do a little more review and publish from there. It’s going to short circuit or shortcut your time that you take creating things incredibly.

Heather Cox
And I will say, you know, right now, like you said, it’s taking us about 80% to 90% there. But if you’re really getting, like, niche down in the computational thinking and prompting of these custom GPTs. It’ll take you there 100% because you’re teaching it, you’re modeling it after a certain tone of voice and person, and then it’ll constantly keep learning when you keep using it. 

So I have custom GPTs for clients where I could just go, all right, hit a button, answer five questions, and it gives me the whole entire month of content for me. And it sounds perfect because I have uploaded the prompting. I have prompts that are like maybe like 800 words long for specific ones because it’s so niched down and so specific to that client because I want that perfect output. 

Now it’s Chat GPT is an AI. We all know this. And so you’re going to have to remind it, hey, I just updated your knowledge base. Please update yourself. And hey, you’re not doing what I told you to do. Like, please review your knowledge base. And so just think about how niche down and, like, how targeted you can get with your prompting because that’s going to give you a better output.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Well, hey, you’ve given some, some awesome insights. You want to give a shout out to anybody who’s who you think is doing things really well from a local marketing perspective.

Heather Cox
I just want to shout out all of the, just the local business owners around here in Delaware, to be honest with you, because I feel as though they finally are getting over that hump of video, video into their content because that’s been, I think, one of the hardest, longest struggles that, you know, restaurants and brick and mortar and small mom and pop shops have is like, what the hell do I record? What do I post? 

So I’ve been seeing an uptick in that in my area, and I really, really enjoy it because, you know, I’ve been telling them, use video. You need video. You need to get more, like, behind the scenes. And so they’re starting to do that. And I’m like, it’s so great. Good job, everybody. So, yeah. 

And then also, I mean, I just really like the unique, the not usual, the unusual, the quirky, the, you know, I just really like people who think outside the box. And so a lot of creators on TikTok are doing that. Really, really kind of going for it. There is this one guy that I watched this morning where he’s a music artist, and he was taught, he wrote a song about being an introvert and how he just circles around a party trying not to be weird. 

And, like, it’s a great video and it’s so, and it’s just him, like, being weird on the video, and it’s just great. So just lean into your weirdness. Lean into your authentic self. And I hate saying that because who’s to judge who’s authentic and not, right? So, like, just be yourself. Be funny. Your weird ass self. And I’m telling you, those videos and your content is gonna be seen, and people are gonna be like, wow, like, you know, she’s pretty freaking dope, or he’s awesome. 

So, you know, that’s what I really think people should be doing. Stop with the tips and tricks. Really, like, just be yourself.

Justin Ulrich
Well, I’m gonna give you a shout out at the end of the episode to follow for tips and tricks. But so before we get there, you know, because ‘m with you on these weekly calls, I’m like, Heather, just tell me, like, what do you want to see yourself as an AI? And you told me one of your favorite comic characters in the past was Jean Grey. And if, for those who don’t know, Jean Grey from X-Men has another. She basically evolves into this persona of the Phoenix. Is there something about the way you work, your background that kind of, you know, really draws you to this character?

Heather Cox
Yeah. So I’m. I don’t like to admit it, but I do like, you know, superhero movies, comics. I really enjoy it because it’s kind of like a different type of storyline now. Granted, it’s becoming a little saturated right now. Like, let’s be real. If I see another Spiderman movie, I might cry. 

But, you know, Jean Grey, you know, she’s strong, independent. She’s got a little trauma. She’s got some shit that happened to her as a kid, you know? And I really, really connect with that because I have also been through my own stuff, my own trials and tribulations. And so, you know, with the past couple years, I’ve really kind of morphed into and kind of become more of myself as who I am. 

Because as a mom, you sometimes lose yourself as a mom, to be honest with you. You know, so, you know, I’m a mom. I have three kids, two step kids, you know, so that’s three. But sometimes you lose yourself. So I’ve really took a step back and was like, let’s do the hard work. Let’s do what we need to do to rise from the ashes and become who we’re supposed to be. And that’s where I’m at right now. 

So Phoenix has always been, like, this badass who is like, I may have been through some shit, but I have come from the ashes, I have risen, and, you know, and then she turns out to be the hero in the end. So, you know, I just really love, love her story arc and her storyline.

Justin Ulrich
No. Very cool. Well, here you have it. Heather Cox as Jean Grey, the phoenix risen from the ashes.

Heather Cox
Add glasses to that.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Heather Cox
Stop. Oh, my gosh. Now, the character I really, really like, mesh with not Phoenix, but Dark Phoenix. The next portion of her story is like, yeah. Like, she’s like, she’s gonna murder you. Like, she’s gonna, like, don’t f with her. She is gonna, like, murk you. So I love this. This is amazing. I love my red hair in this. This is just so dope. So thank you. I’m gonna frame this. Send that to me, please.

Justin Ulrich
100%. We’ll get it over to you. Well, hey, you know, Heather, it was a lot of fun having you on the show. How should our listeners follow you? Follow your brand, follow your podcast?

Heather Cox
Yeah, for sure. So you can find me anywhere at Heather Cox Codes, you can find me. I don’t know if you see my hashtag. #HeatherCoxCodes, because that’s the thing. And you can even just search that hashtag Heather Cox Codes right in Google, and it’ll bring up every single thing that I’ve done because that’s, you know, search engine optimization and social media search engine optimization at work. 

And you can also find me on LinkedIn every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EST for Dark Mode. And then hopefully, fingers crossed, my Into the Black is coming back towards the end of March, and we’re going to be actually having guests, like, in-house. I got a new second chair. We’re getting a second mic. I’m going to be inviting some local cool people to hang out and just chat, kind of like, between two firms, but, like, more of, like, you know, got vibes. So, yeah, check me out. And I really appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me.

Justin Ulrich
You bet. It was a lot of fun. Hey, you know, like she said, check her out on LinkedIn. Heather has. She doesn’t want to call it out. There are lots of tips and tricks. If anything, she offers great insight as to what to do and what not to do. So follow Heather on LinkedIn and all the other platforms. Into the Black, Dark Mode. Check them out. Heather Cox. Heather Cox codes. Thank you for joining us in the lab, my friend.

Heather Cox
Thank you. See you next time.

Justin Ulrich
As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.