Picture this: you're a marketer in the roaring 2020s, and the digital landscape is a wild frontier of possibilities. The buzzword on everyone's lips? Artificial Intelligence (AI). It's not just a sci-fi dream anymore; it's here, and it's changing the game.

According to a Gartner study, organisations that use AI in their marketing will move 75% of their staff from production to strategic activities by 2025. That means more innovation, more efficiency, and broader reach.

Now imagine having an AI-powered funnel you can use to research customer behaviour, discover competitor insights, and target potential customers in a single platform. Not only that, but AI can also help you with keyword research, personalised content creation, and optimisation of campaigns to ensure maximum customer engagement.

This is just one example of how AI technology can change marketing for the better. That's not just a small step for a marketer, but a giant leap for the industry.

And who's leading the charge in this brave new world? Enter ChatGPT.

TL;DR: 7 ways to use ChatGPT in market research and competitor displacement

1. Analyse top search results: Gain a deeper understanding of what type of content ranks well for your targeted query.
2. Create buyer personas: Analyse reviews and feedback, helping to build accurate buyer personas for yourself or your competitors.
3. Find competing businesses: Describe competing businesses and their products, providing valuable insights in seconds.
4. Report on competitor activities: Keep track of competitor updates to get a better understanding of their strategy and objectives.
5. Analyse website performance: See how your competitors' websites are performing in terms of page speed and keyword optimisation.
6. Customer review analysis: Gain insights into your competitors' strengths and weaknesses by analysing their customer reviews using ChatGPT.
7. Analyse PPC ad copy: Understand your competitors' value propositions by analysing their ad copy.

Exploring the ever-expanding universe of ChatGPT

ChatGPT is not just another AI tool, it's a powerful ally for marketers.

ChatGPT is an AI developed by OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence company. It combines natural language processing, machine learning, and deep learning to provide users with an AI-powered assistant to help them with tasks such as content creation, research, and analysis.

Using ChatGPT,  you can quickly create personalised content that resonates with your customers. They can also optimise campaigns for maximum engagement from a wide variety of channels with much greater efficiency. According to Sortlist, 32% of employees using ChatGPT see a productivity increase of 25-50%, while 33% of employers see a slightly higher boost, 66%.

And ChatGPT’s potential is only beginning to be explored. With the right combination of strategy and technology, ChatGPT can help transform the way businesses communicate with their customers.

Here are some ways ChatGPT can be used in marketing:

The power of AI in marketing funnels

Why are AI-powered marketing funnels such a big deal?

As mentioned earlier, they enable you to optimise  processes and save time, which increases efficiency and productivity. They can also provide valuable insights into customer behaviour, allowing for more personalised and relevant interactions. This in turn leads to higher conversions and improved ROI.

As per McKinsey, 95% of commercial leaders are already implementing generative AI, such as ChatGPT, in their workflows - or are planning to do so. Below you can also see a chart of the impact AI has on their marketing strategy.

This means, that if you don’t want to stay behind, you need to start adapting now. Luckily, we have the perfect tips to get you started on the right track.

Building an AI-powered funnel with ChatGPT

To build an efficient ChatGPT-powered AI funnel, follow these steps:

1. Identify Your Marketing Goals: Define clear, measurable objectives for your AI funnel, such as increasing brand visibility, elevating conversion rates, or enhancing customer loyalty.
2. Understand Your Audience: Pinpoint your target audience and understand their needs, preferences, and challenges. If you struggle with this step, scroll down to access the ChatGPT prompt below to help you automate buyer persona research.
3. Generate Content with ChatGPT: Deploy ChatGPT to produce compelling content that guides your audience through your funnel, such as blogs, social media posts, email newsletters, or PPC campaigns (read our guide to ChatGPT for PPC here). Let ChatGPT evaluate your content against competitors, fill gaps, generate audience-specific content, and integrate your offerings.
4. Integrate AI in Customer Service: Consider implementing an AI chatbot, like Algomo, using the GPT-4 API to bolster your customer service.
5. Monitor Performance: Regularly assess the performance of your content, ensuring it is reaching and engaging your target audience, and meeting your marketing goals. Use these insights to refine your strategy.
6. Adapt Your Strategy: Be ready to modify your strategy based on performance data. Marketing is an evolving field, and flexibility is key. You can easily analyse your data sets by using ChatGPT. 

Tip: For analysing tables, paste your data in markdown so ChatGPT can better understand it. 

Market research with ChatGPT

Traditional market research can be expensive and time-consuming, with techniques like interviews, surveys, focus groups, and market reports costing substantial amounts.

For instance, traditional market reports can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $35,000, depending on the size and scope, making them inaccessible to many product teams. Plus, they often can't handle the vast scale of data available today, making them less effective. 

Thankfully, by using AI-powered funnels and ChatGPT, product teams can access the same insights in a much more affordable and scalable way. 

So, how can you use ChatGPT to make better product decisions? Let’s explore the examples below.

*The prompts below require you to have access to ChatGPT Plus with plugins enabled. The plugins used in the steps below include:

• WebPilot
• VoxScripts
• SEO CORE AI
• Keyword Explorer
• ChatSpot
• Competitor PPC Ads

Analyse top search results and prepare a detailed report

Prompt:

Use WebPilot to find top 5 articles that talk about [TOPIC].

Next, use VoxScripts to find 3 most viewed videos about [TOPIC].

Finally, write a detailed report on the most used keywords in both the articles and the videos, most used NLP terms, key topics, all questions that appeared in the articles, the tone of voice used in the articles, the targeted persona in the articles. You can use tables.

Result:

This report will help you identify popular industry topics and the most commonly asked questions. With these findings, you can produce content centred on those topics to enhance SEO optimisation and improve your website or product.

To begin, I used WebPilot to search for the top 5 articles about the topic. The results included a variety of sources including news aggregators, blogs, and industry websites. After reviewing each article's content and relevance to the topic, ChatGPT compiled a list of popular keywords or phrases used in those articles. 

Create buyer personas based on your (or your competitor’s) reviews

Prompt:

Using WebPilot, scrape the reviews of [COMPETITOR 1], [COMPETITOR 2], [COMPETITOR 3] on TrustPilot. Create 3-4 detailed buyer personas based on the information gathered.

Result:

Using the insights gained from these reviews, you can create buyer personas for each competitor. These personas will usually be problem-driven and solution-aware, allowing you to better understand the needs of your target audience from the middle and bottom of the marketing funnel.

First, I asked ChatGPT to generate 3-4 buyer personas for each competitor. Each persona included the primary motivation for choosing the respective product, key pain points, and features they’d like to see in the product. You can then use these personas to map out potential customer journeys and target advertising campaigns based on customer needs. Additionally, you can use this data to refine your messaging so it resonates with the right people.

Find competing businesses and describe their product in a matter of seconds

Prompt:

Using WebPilot, find 3 sellers of [PRODUCT]. Visit their product pages and summarise the key features of their products, as well as their value proposition. (*for marketing solutions, you can replace WebPilot with ChatSpot)

Result:

This report will help you quickly summarise the key features and value proposition of 3 sellers’ products. You can then easily compare these products side-by-side against your own, to help you determine if your product needs improvement or messaging needs changing.

Using WebPilot, I quickly located the top 3 most popular (*in search results) sellers of the product in question. ChatGPT then visited their respective product pages to find information about each seller’s value proposition (e.g. cost savings, free shipping) as well as a detailed breakdown of their offerings (e.g. features, hosting capabilities). You can use this information to get a quick overview of each competitor’s messaging and positioning on the market.

Checkmate: mastering competitor displacement with AI

According to RedSearch, 64% of brands use AI marketing tools to stay ahead of competitors. But there’s more to winning than having the right technology. It takes strategic thinking and creative tactics to stay successful in a competitive market.

To win at displacement, you need to know your competitors and the landscape they inhabit. This means assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and understanding their current objectives and tactics. Knowing how to react quickly to changes in the environment is also key.

ChatGPT can help analyse your competitors' position, customer feedback, and marketing campaigns. Here's what it can do for you:

Keep an eye on your competitors and save time on manual browsing

Prompt 1:

Report on the latest news from [COMPETITOR]. Summarise your findings and provide links to the source.

Result:

This report will be especially helpful if you’re part of a small marketing team with limited resources. It will save you from manually browsing for competitor news, which can take a great deal of time. You’ll be able to stay informed on what your competitors are up to while staying focused on more critical tasks. This is essential in staying ahead in today’s competitive market.

For this task, I enabled searching with Bing. ChatGPT then searched and reported on the latest news from my chosen competitor. It found the latest articles and stories related to their operations, products, services, and strategies. The results were summarised with links to the source.

Prompt 2:

Analyse the SEO performance of [COMPETITOR] with SEO CORE AI. Present your findings in a detailed report. Then, return 5 keywords that [COMPETITOR] ranks for in SERP. For each keyword, using Keyword Explorer, find 3 related queries.

Result:

You can use this prompt to audit your competitors’ websites and compare them against your own. It’ll come in handy at the strategising stage of a competitor displacement campaign.

I asked ChatGPT to analyse the SEO performance of Hubspot.com. After a few seconds, I received a detailed report featuring a variety of metrics such as website structure, page speed, and SEO-optimisation analysis to identify areas for improvement. This report contains a lot of data that can be used both to spy on your competitors, as well to quickly audit the performance of your own website.

Analyse your competitors’ customer reviews to explore their strengths and weaknesses

Prompt:

Using WebPilot, scrape the reviews of [COMPETITOR 1], [COMPETITOR 2], and [COMPETITOR 3]  on TrustPilot. Analyse the pros and cons of every solution.

Result:

In this report, ChatGPT analysed customer reviews from TrustPilot for 3 chosen competitors and summarised them in an easy-to-follow format. It provides an overview of the positives and negatives of each company, revealing their strengths and weaknesses.

By studying customer sentiment across all competitors, you can find out what works for them and where they need to improve. This will enable you to identify areas where you could improve your own product offering and gain a competitive edge.

Analyse your competitors’ PPC ad copy to learn about their value proposition

Prompt:

Using WebPilot find the top 3 [PRODUCT TYPE]. Using Competitor PPC Ads plugin analyse their PPC campaigns. Provide 3 examples of the PPC copy that these companies use.

Result:

ChatGPT quickly identified the top 3 competitors for the chosen product type. Using the Competitor PPC Ads plugin, ChatGPT analysed their PPC campaigns to provide the keyword and examples of copy used in their ads.

Analysing your competitors' PPC ad copy can provide valuable insights into their value proposition. It will give you an idea of what they are trying to communicate, what message resonates with their target audience, and how they position themselves in the market. This will help you craft your own PPC campaigns to ensure they are effective and successful. 

The future of marketing is AI-powered

As we look to the future, one thing is clear: the world of marketing is becoming increasingly AI-powered. Tools like ChatGPT are not just improving efficiency; they're providing strategic insights that can drive business growth.

So, whether you're a seasoned marketer or a newbie just starting out, it's time to embrace AI. Because in the world of marketing, the future is now.

Request a demo or pricing information for Lunio to discover how you can harness the power of AI to boost your marketing efficiency.