Using AI for marketing content: a guide for UK small businesses

What AI can draft for you

How to get drafts that sound like you

• Give it the facts. Paste in your prices, dates, opening hours and product details. AI predicts likely words rather than looking facts up, so anything you don’t give it may be invented.
• Describe your tone. Two or three sentences about how you talk to customers, plus one or two past posts you liked, go a long way.
• Say who it is for. “Busy parents in Leeds” gets a better draft than “customers”.
• Ask for options. Ask for three versions, pick one and ask for changes, rather than accepting the first answer.
• Keep your own photos. Real pictures of your work, team and premises build more trust than generated images, and are what customers expect to see.
• Save what works. Keep a short note of instructions that gave good results so you, or a colleague, can reuse them.

What to check before you publish

1. Facts and numbers. Prices, dates, addresses, opening hours and product details. Google’s own guidance on generative AI content says AI output may contain inaccuracies and should be fact-checked before publishing.
2. Claims. Under the advertising codes you need evidence for objective claims, such as “fastest”, “cheapest” or “cuts bills by half”. AI tools add these easily.
3. Images. Make sure a generated or edited image doesn’t show results, products or premises that customers won’t actually get.
4. Other people. Don’t use a real person’s name, face or voice, or another business’s work, without permission.
5. Tone. Read it aloud. If it doesn’t sound like you, change it.
6. Personal data. Don’t paste customer details into an AI tool unless you have checked the supplier’s terms and your privacy notice.

The UK rules that apply

Advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority says there is no blanket legal requirement in the UK to disclose AI in ads, but the CAP Code applies however an ad is made. You may need to make AI use clear where people would otherwise be misled, for example an AI-generated influencer, and a label will not rescue an ad that is misleading anyway. The ASA has also said that advertisers remain responsible for AI output they use, even when ads are produced through automated tools.

Reviews and testimonials. Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans submitting or commissioning fake consumer reviews and hiding that a review was incentivised. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance gives selling reviews generated by software, such as bots, as an example of what is banned. Never use AI to write reviews or testimonials, and don’t present an AI-generated person as a real customer.

Marketing emails and texts. AI doesn’t change who you can contact. The ICO’s guidance on electronic mail marketing says you must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without specific consent, apart from the limited “soft opt-in” for your own previous customers, and every message needs a way to opt out. The same rule covers direct messages on social media. Sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals.

Personal data. If customer data goes into an AI tool, UK GDPR applies as it does to any other software. Our UK GDPR checklist for SMEs covers the main steps.

Search engines. Google says it rewards helpful, original content however it is produced, and that using AI to generate many pages without adding value can break its spam policies. A few useful pages written from your own experience beat dozens of generic ones.

When it is worth getting help

Most owners don’t need an agency to write posts with AI. Help starts to pay off when you want content joined up with the rest of the business: new products in your shop turned into draft descriptions and posts automatically, enquiries from a campaign flowing into your CRM, or personalised follow-up emails sent from your own email tool.

• What UK agencies publish: 23 agencies in our directory mention marketing automation, and 8 of them publish prices on their own websites. Across the whole directory, single workflow automation builds start from £99 to £5,000 (29 agencies, median £1,500).
• Training: a short workshop can help a team use AI tools well and agree house rules. See AI training and workshops.
• Joining systems up: see marketing automation agencies, CRM automation agencies and our guide to automating website enquiries.

Before you hire anyone, read how to choose an AI automation agency and check what AI automation costs in the UK.

Where to start

1. Pick one type of content you produce every week, such as social posts or a newsletter.
2. Write a short brief with your facts, audience and tone, and keep it to reuse.
3. Draft with AI, then edit. Treat the output as a first draft, never the finished piece.
4. Check facts, claims and images before anything is published.
5. Keep marketing emails within the consent rules, whatever wrote them.
6. Review after a month. Did it save time or bring in more enquiries? If not, change the approach.

For other everyday jobs AI can take on, see how AI can help a small business in the UK, or get matched with suitable agencies for free.