If feels like AI is everywhere in professional services digital marketing.
AI can provide a transcript after a video call. It can change up your digital ads. Using AI, you can segment email contacts based on interest and engagement rates.
We can’t say the sky is the limit with AI, because there seems to be no end to the ways we can integrate AI into digital marketing and communications.
But ponder this:
- The risks of using open source AI are increasing. The MIT Center for Information Systems Research hosted a webinar early in 2025 that cited risks of “bring your own AI,” which includes employees who use open source AI such as ChatGPT to produce their work. Top risks included “data loss, intellectual property leaks, copyright violations and security breaches.”
- To keep data private and strategies confidential, many firms are building their own AI. It’s as difficult as it sounds. Most firms will not see a significant return on early investments, even if they can afford the resources and the right tech people.
- For firms that want to remain independent, AI is still an important investment to keep up with larger, PE-backed firms. However, it is not the be-all and end-all of your firm’s digital marketing strategy research.
So here are some strategies to integrate open source AI (or app-based AI) while still maintaining data control, a custom strategy and the capacity to attract the right leads. We’ll explain these strategies by focusing on common use cases in your digital marketing.
Email Marketing
Within email apps, AI can now automate A/B testing of email subject lines and calls to action to see what performs best for your audience. This testing still requires analysis of the results. Why did more people react well to subject line A rather than subject line B? Do your users like funny subject lines or do they like when you use technical terminology that interests them?
Strategy: Use the AI for generating creative subject lines and calls to action, but then analyze why your audience responds to certain messaging. Use that analysis to prompt AI for future subject lines and calls to action.
Brand Consistency
There are a variety of apps that marketing teams are using today for visual design. The challenge is maintaining brand consistency across platforms.
Some firms are maintaining brand guidelines and templates within their CRM platforms for easy team access. Others are adding them to apps like Canva. Keep in mind that this automation, while convenient, does not guarantee brand consistency.
Strategy: Train your team on brand style guidelines by creating on-brand and not-on-brand imagery, brand tone and brand differentiation as part of your brand guidelines and logo kits.
Website Presence
There are plugins to help enhance your website through AI, or you can handle the job byte by byte by optimizing your page titles with AI, updating your meta descriptions, alt text and more one by one.
The main thing to consider is why you have a website in the first place. Is it just to prove you have a real business, or is it to generate leads?
Strategy: If your goal with your website is to generate leads, then you need to integrate your website into social and digital advertising for a multi-channel approach. AI is making it too hard to show up in search results without a multi-channel strategy.
Social
To gain efficiencies when building a social presence, AI can help you write social posts, but then you need to review the post for an authentic voice. Otherwise, personal posts won’t sound personal. Firm posts will sound too stiff.
Whether your team schedules out content to maintain a consistent presence or does it manually, the main digital marketing strategy for social media should be “reaching out to your key leads, referrals and clients on these channels.”
Strategy: By all means, create and schedule out a social content calendar. But use AI to check your post “voice.” Incorporate posts that tag your clients or colleagues to expand your reach. If you keep seeing the same few people and companies in your feed, you need to change up your strategy.
In-Person Events
By now, your customer relationship management software probably has built-in AI to segment audiences by interest or niche to help you prepare for a conference, speaking engagement or hosted event. If you don’t have a CRM, you can input an attendee list or lead list into a tool like Sales Navigator on LinkedIn. Use these lead lists for ongoing networking.
The key is ongoing networking. While you can “drip” on leads through automated email sequencing, this still requires branded messaging and clear calls to action with documented follow-up.
Strategy: Use AI to build your lists and branded messaging, but perform lead nurturing through regular, personalized outreach.
Content Development
Almost every online meeting tool now has AI integration. Teams and Zoom, for example, have AI agents that can pump out a script of what everyone said during the webinar so you can repurpose it into a blog or a carousel for social.
You can use AI for content research as well as for drafting basic outlines for technical articles or presentations. However, keep in mind the sourcing of the AI and its accuracy. For example, writing about a brand new regulation may not result in an accurate article generated through AI.
Strategy: Open AI can support inspiration, brainstorming and speedy content organization, but don’t rely on it for technical accuracy or copyrighted materials. Make sure that a professional with the appropriate knowledge reviews it before publishing.
Digital Advertising
To save time with digital ad monitoring and edits, you can use AI for default edits such as pinned headlines or only showing the best performing assets for a set period.
However, you still want to monitor clicks and conversions according to your firm’s business goals. For now, relying on an automated ad campaign is likely to result in wasted money.
Strategy: Set up your ads according to keywords, a strong call to action and a web landing page that offers a free download or consultation. Make the user experience simple and engaging to generate more desired leads.
Next Steps –
- Look at your current professional services marketing processes to see where your firm can safely use open AI or add AI functionality within all the apps you already use. Consider AI integration as part of your digital marketing research.
- Test new AI enhancements on a specific persona or audience to ensure your approach is working, then expand it to the rest of your key audiences.
- Pay special attention to brand consistency and user experience. It should not feel like your audience is interacting with AI. They want to connect with your team!
If you need help integrating AI with your firm’s digital marketing strategy and providing quality control, we can help at Ingenuity. We also help firms of all sizes analyze their AI-generated data for accuracy and practical strategies. Ask us about Renting an Analyst!
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