ChatGPT for Local Business Marketing | North Herts Growth Strategies

A carpet cleaner in Royston told me last month that he'd "tried AI" and it was "a load of rubbish." I asked him what he'd tried. He said he asked ChatGPT to get him more customers and it gave him a ten-point marketing plan full of stuff like "consider developing a referral programme" and "build brand awareness through community engagement."

I mean, fair enough. That is rubbish.

But that's not what ChatGPT is for. That's like buying a power drill and being annoyed it can't tile your bathroom. Wrong tool for that job. Right tool for about fifteen other jobs you're currently doing by hand.

The actual useful stuff (not the hype)

Most local business owners I meet in North Herts have tried ChatGPT exactly once. They've asked it something vague, got something vague back, and written it off. And I understand that. But the ones who've stuck with it? They're saving five, six, seven hours a week on marketing tasks they used to either do badly or not do at all.

Not because they're tech people. A plumber in Baldock I work with still can't figure out how to share his screen on Zoom. He uses ChatGPT every single day.

The difference is knowing which specific jobs to give it.

Turn your expertise into website content

This is the one that makes the biggest difference and I'll die on this hill.

You know things. Loads of things. You've been doing your job for years and you've got answers to questions that people are typing into AI search tools right now. "How much does it cost to re-render a house?" "Can you fit a new bathroom in a week?" "What's the difference between a fixed-rate and tracker mortgage?"

Those answers are sitting in your head doing nothing. Meanwhile your competitor who wrote them down and put them on their website is getting recommended by ChatGPT to people in Hitchin and Stevenage.

Here's what works. I've done this with dozens of businesses now and the process is the same every time.

Get your phone out. Open voice notes. Answer one customer question as if someone just asked you face to face. Talk for two minutes. Don't overthink it. Upload that recording to ChatGPT (the app lets you attach audio files now) and say something like: "Turn this into a 400-word article for my website. Keep my tone. UK English. I'm based in Hitchin and work across North Hertfordshire."

Read what comes back. It'll be 80% right. Fix the 20% that sounds too polished or gets a detail wrong. Publish it.

Twenty minutes. One piece of content that could bring you enquiries for years.

A solicitor in Letchworth did this for her ten most common conveyancing questions. Within two months, Perplexity was citing her website when people asked about house purchases in Hertfordshire. She went from zero web enquiries to about eight a month. From talking into her phone while walking the dog.

Location pages (without losing your mind)

If you cover multiple towns you need pages for each one. Everyone in marketing says this. Nobody explains how to do it without wanting to throw your laptop out the window.

Old way: stare at a blank page for an hour trying to think of something unique to say about plumbing in Stevenage that's different from what you said about plumbing in Hitchin. Give up. Copy and paste. Change the town name. Feel dirty about it.

New way: tell ChatGPT everything you actually know about working in that town. Not generic stuff. Real stuff.

"I've done about forty jobs in Stevenage over the last eight years. Most of the work is in the older estates, Bedwell, Pin Green, Chells. The houses were built in the 60s and 70s and a lot of them still have original copper pipework. Parking is terrible for getting the van close. The newer builds near the town centre have different issues, mainly poor quality new-build plumbing that starts failing after a couple of years."

Give ChatGPT that and it'll write you a page that actually sounds like someone who knows Stevenage. Because the information came from someone who does.

Review responses in thirty seconds

This one's almost too easy but nobody does it.

Someone leaves you a review. Good or bad. You need to respond. You know you need to respond. But responding to the good ones feels pointless ("thanks so much!") and responding to the bad ones fills you with dread.

ChatGPT handles both brilliantly. Paste the review in. Tell it what actually happened if it's a complaint. Ask for a professional response. Tweak the result. Post it.

And here's why this matters beyond just looking professional. Reviews feed directly into whether AI recommends your business. The content of reviews teaches AI about your services and location. Responding to them signals that you're active and engaged. So this isn't admin. It's marketing.

Email follow-ups for quotes that went quiet

You send a quote. Silence. Three days later, still nothing. You either chase once and give up, or you never chase at all because it feels awkward.

Get ChatGPT to write you a sequence of four or five follow-up emails. Not pushy ones. Useful ones. An email with a relevant tip. One with a testimonial from a similar job. One that addresses the most common objection in your trade. A final gentle nudge.

Set them up in whatever email tool you use (Mailchimp, your CRM, even just scheduled sends in Gmail) and forget about it.

A kitchen fitter in Hitchin told me this recovered about three lost quotes in his first month. At his average job value, that was over twelve grand in revenue from fifteen minutes of setup.

What ChatGPT can't do (and you need to accept this)

Think strategically. It's awful at strategy. It'll generate something that reads like a business school textbook and is equally useless.

Understand North Hertfordshire. It doesn't know that Baldock on a Saturday morning is completely different to Stevenage on a Saturday morning. It doesn't know your customers. It doesn't know your competitors. All of that context has to come from you.

Create photos that look real. The AI image stuff is impressive until you look at the hands. Or the text on a van. Or anything that needs to look like it wasn't generated by a fever dream.

The connection to AEO that nobody's talking about

Right, here's where this all comes together.

Every piece of content you create with ChatGPT isn't just going on your website for human visitors. It's going on your website for AI search tools to find, reference, and use when someone asks for a recommendation.

"Who's a good electrician in Baldock?" If your website has a page that specifically talks about electrical work you've done in Baldock, with real detail and local knowledge, ChatGPT might recommend you when someone asks. If it doesn't, it'll recommend whoever does have that information.

That's answer engine optimisation. Using content to make sure AI can find you, understand you, and trust you enough to put your name in someone's hands.

And using ChatGPT to create that content is... well, it's using the tool to get recommended by the tool. Which sounds circular but is actually just efficient.

Stop thinking about it

This week. Not next month. Not when you've "got more time" (you won't).

Pick three questions. Record yourself answering them. Run them through ChatGPT. Publish them on your site.

Next week, three more. Within a month you'll have a dozen pieces of content that AI search can use to recommend you. That's more than most of your competitors in Hitchin, Stevenage, Letchworth, and Baldock have published all year.

The window is open. It won't stay open forever. The businesses that build this habit now will be the ones AI already trusts by the time everyone else starts paying attention.

If you want help with the bigger picture, or you're curious whether AI is already recommending your competitors and not you, get in touch. We work with local businesses across North Hertfordshire on AEO and we'll give you an honest assessment of where you stand.