Businesses love spending on marketing. In fact, if a business’s marketing department isn’t consuming half the yearly budget, the company might believe it’s not investing enough in marketing.

Sounds funny, right? Well, that’s because it is, but it’s also somewhat true at times. Here are a few marketing-related stats to help you understand better.

How Much Brands Spend on Ads and Marketing

Apple spends around $100 million on X ads alone. It’s estimated that the company spends billions on ads every year while generating billions more thanks to those ads.

Ford spent around over $2 billion in global advertising in 2023 alone. Coca-Cola, in the last few years, has spent an average of $4 billion on global advertising and marketing campaigns.

Small Businesses Can’t Do the Same, But Why?

Short on budget, you can’t expect a small business to spend billions or even millions on ads. After all, money is usually tight for these establishments, and so is the state of their resources.

However, AI is helping small businesses to save money on marketing spending. Here’s how.

On Website Design and Development Costs

Designing, developing, and deploying a website can cost your small business around $10,000, plus an additional $1,200 a year for maintenance. For high-end and somewhat flashy-looking sites, you can expect to pay a one-time development fee of $75,000 to $150,000. In some cases, businesses have gone on to spend over $10,000 on website development and maintenance per year.

Add up all these costs, and you’re looking to spend at least $1,200 a year if we skip the initial web development costs. However, according to Hocoos, with an AI website builder, you can create a website and maintain it yourself for just $150 a year.

AI website builders have made life so much easier for small businesses. Website creation is now a breeze and really cheap thanks to these AI tools. An AI website generator will ask you a few questions and then build your site based on your answers. Hence, you do not have to hire a professional web developer for this.

Besides, maintaining these AI websites is also super easy. You’ll have a dedicated dashboard and everything, so you can update the site and maintain everything yourself. Even if you do hire someone, they won’t have to be a professional web developer, so you’re saving at least $92,000 a year.

On top of that, AI websites look the same as regular human-built websites. Thus, there’s no reason for you to not get an AI-generated website for your small business.

Savings: $1,050 + $92,000 = $93,050 per year

On Visual Designs Costs

For marketing, visuals are vital. Whether it’s social media posts or billboards, good design equals good ads, and good ads mean better conversions.

On average, your usual graphic or visual designer in the US will cost you $74,000 a year. As for hourly pay, you’re looking at $22 an hour for freelancers. Apart from all this, you also have to spend on software, which can easily cost over $1,000 a year per license. Hence, you’re spending around $75,000 a year on the visuals.

When you bring AI into the mix, the costs significantly, and we mean SIGNIFICANTLY, go down.

AI visual design tools cost between $2,000 and $2,500 a year. Using them is even simpler – you give prompts, explain the visuals, and what it’s about, and the AI works its magic. Also, if you’re a marketing manager who loves revisions, don’t worry because the AI won’t mind.

Savings: $73,000 a year.

On Content Writing Costs

Good content helps with search engine optimization, and your business’ credibility, and keeps your potential customers informed of your products or services. However, good website content, copywriting, and blogs come at a rather hefty price.

Expect to spend between $61,000 and $65,000 a year on content writers and copywriters respectively. However, you’re all familiar with ChatGPT, right? Well, its premium version costs just $240 a year.

Whatever your industry or product, this AI chatbot has you covered. Do you want to write a sales copy? Go to ChatGPT. Need a blog post? Again, ChatGPT is your best friend.

Savings: $60,000+

The Numbers Don’t Lie: AI Makes Marketing Less Expensive

Add up all the numbers we’ve highlighted above, and you’ll see that your company is saving over $200,000 a year. That’s how much money you can save on marketing by using AI for your small business. For a small business, that’s a lot of money, something that you can invest elsewhere for the sake of your company’s growth.