Charlotte Business Owner’s Guide to the AI Era – The way customers find and interact with your business is changing at a breakneck pace. As a Charlotte-based digital marketing agency, we at Overtop Media Digital Marketing are on the front lines of this evolution, and we want to bring our insights directly to you, the local business owners who are the backbone of our vibrant city. While this transformation can seem daunting, it presents an incredible opportunity for growth if you know how to harness it. Drawing on our expertise and supported by recent in-depth analysis from our partners at Google, this guide will walk you through the new landscape of digital marketing and provide a clear action plan to ensure your business doesn’t just survive, but thrives.
The Predictably Unpredictable Consumer: Why the Marketing Funnel is Dead for Charlotte Businesses
For decades, the marketing funnel was a reliable roadmap. You made people aware of your brand, they considered a purchase, and then they acted. But in today’s hyper-connected world, that linear path is a relic of the past. Think about your own online behavior. You might see an ad for a new restaurant in South End while scrolling through Instagram, search for its menu on your laptop at work, see a review from a local food blogger on YouTube that evening, and then finally make a reservation on your phone. This fluid journey across searching, streaming, scrolling, and shopping—what we call the “4S behaviors”—is the new reality.
Our research, backed by data from Google, shows that consumers interact with over 130 mobile touchpoints a day on average. And that’s just on one device. When you factor in laptops, smart TVs, and smartwatches, the number of potential interactions explodes. Forcing these complex journeys into a rigid, linear funnel is a recipe for wasted resources and missed opportunities.
Instead of a funnel, we at Overtop Media encourage our Charlotte clients to think in terms of “influence maps”. An influence map is a more flexible framework that charts the various non-linear paths your customers take, allowing you to be present and influential at the moments that matter most. For example, a young professional looking for a new apartment in Uptown might start with a broad search on Google, then watch video tours of different buildings on YouTube, and finally, be influenced by a targeted ad on social media that highlights a move-in special. By understanding these diverse journeys, you can allocate your marketing budget more effectively and deliver messages that resonate with your target audience at every step.
The Future of Advertising is Now: How AI is Reshaping the Game for Local Businesses
The future of advertising isn’t some far-off concept; it’s already here, and it’s powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is revolutionizing how businesses connect with customers, making it possible to anticipate their needs and deliver hyper-relevant messages in ways we could only dream of a few years ago.
AI-Powered Discovery: Beyond the Search Box
Google, a platform that sees over 5 trillion searches annually, is at the forefront of this change. Features like “AI Overviews” provide users with comprehensive answers to complex questions directly within the search results. This means that when someone in Charlotte searches for “best breweries with outdoor seating,” they’re not just getting a list of links; they’re getting a curated summary of their options, complete with photos, reviews, and even directions.
For advertisers, this is a golden opportunity. Ads are now being integrated directly into these AI-powered results, placing your business in front of customers at the very moment they’re looking for what you offer. This also means that the clicks you receive are of higher quality, as users are more informed and further along in their decision-making process.
Multimodal Understanding: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Keywords
The way we search is also evolving beyond text. People are increasingly using images, voice, and even the world around them to find what they need. Google Lens, for example, now handles 25 billion searches a month, and a significant portion of those have commercial intent. Imagine a tourist in NoDa seeing a piece of art in a gallery, taking a picture of it, and instantly finding the artist’s website and where to buy prints. This is the power of multimodal search, and it’s opening up entirely new avenues for businesses to be discovered.
Agentic Action: Your 24/7 Sales Assistant
Looking ahead, we’re on the cusp of an even bigger shift with the rise of “agentic technology”. These are AI-powered assistants that can not only provide information but also take action on a user’s behalf. For instance, a shopper could ask their AI assistant to find the best deal on a new grill from a local hardware store in the University area, and the assistant could then complete the purchase and arrange for delivery. While this may sound like science fiction, these capabilities are being rolled out now and will soon become commonplace.
Scaling Your Success: An Actionable Framework for Charlotte Businesses
Understanding these trends is one thing; putting them into practice is another. To truly unlock the power of AI, you need a strategic approach that connects your efforts across media, creative, and measurement. At Overtop Media, we guide our clients through a four-stage journey to AI excellence, a model supported by research from Google and Boston Consulting Group.
1. Media and Personalization: Reaching the Right People at the Right Time
The first step is to leverage AI-powered campaigns to find and engage your ideal customers. This means moving beyond broad demographic targeting and using real-time data to identify high-value audience segments. For a local boutique in Dilworth, this could mean targeting ads to users who have recently searched for “summer dresses” and have previously visited their website. It also means having the flexibility to shift your budget across different channels to capitalize on new opportunities as they arise.
2. Creative and Content: Delivering the Perfect Message, Every Time
AI can also be a powerful tool for scaling your creative efforts. Instead of spending weeks and thousands of dollars on a single ad campaign, you can use AI to generate multiple versions of your ads, each tailored to a specific audience segment. This allows you to test different messages and visuals to see what resonates most with your customers. For example, a home services company in Ballantyne could use AI to create different video ads for homeowners interested in kitchen remodels versus those looking for a new roof. This level of personalization can lead to a significant increase in engagement and conversions.
3. Measurement and Insights: Knowing What Works and Why
Of course, none of this matters if you can’t measure your results. The days of relying on vanity metrics like clicks and impressions are over. To succeed in the AI era, you need a modern measurement toolkit that includes marketing mix models (MMM), data-driven attribution, and incrementality testing. This trifecta of measurement allows you to understand the true impact of your marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions about where to invest your resources. Our team at Overtop Media can help you implement these advanced measurement solutions to ensure you’re getting the most out of your marketing budget.
4. People and Process: Building a Culture of Innovation
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, embracing AI requires a shift in your organization’s culture and processes. This means investing in training for your team, fostering a culture of experimentation, and breaking down silos between your marketing, sales, and IT departments. As a local business owner, you are uniquely positioned to drive this change from the top down.
The Power of Community: Leveraging Creators to Build Authentic Connections
In a world of endless online noise, authenticity is more valuable than ever. And when it comes to building genuine connections with consumers, no one does it better than creators. These are the YouTubers, Instagrammers, and TikTokers who have built loyal communities around their shared interests and passions.
For Charlotte businesses, partnering with local creators can be a game-changer. Imagine a local brewery collaborating with a popular Charlotte food blogger on a new beer release, or a real estate agent working with a lifestyle vlogger to showcase a new listing in Myers Park. These partnerships allow you to tap into the creator’s engaged audience and build trust in a way that traditional advertising simply can’t match.
The data from Google backs this up. A staggering 81% of U.S. viewers agree that content from YouTube creators helps them research and discover products. And when it comes to return on investment, YouTube drives higher long-term ROAS than TV, online video, and paid social media.
Your Action Plan: Getting Future-Ready, Now
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but the key takeaway is this: the future of marketing is already here, and it’s ripe with opportunity for those who are willing to embrace it. To help you get started, we’ve distilled our recommendations into an updated framework we call the “AI Essentials 2.0,” inspired by Google’s latest guidance.
Build Your AI Data Strength:
- Connect Your First-Party Data: This is the information you’ve collected directly from your customers, such as their email addresses, purchase history, and website activity. This data is a goldmine for training AI models and delivering personalized experiences.
- Embrace Modern Measurement: Go beyond basic analytics and implement a comprehensive measurement strategy that includes MMM, data-driven attribution, and incrementality testing.
Build Your AI Content Strength:
- Create User-Focused Content: Develop blog posts, videos, and social media content that is genuinely helpful and relevant to your target audience.
- Partner with Local Creators: Identify creators in the Charlotte area whose audience aligns with your brand and collaborate with them on authentic, engaging content.
Unleash Your AI Performance Strength with the “Power Pack”:
- Performance Max: This is Google’s all-in-one campaign type that uses AI to find customers across all of Google’s channels, including Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
- AI Max for Search: Supercharge your search campaigns with AI-powered targeting and creative enhancements to reach new, relevant queries and expand your reach to AI surfaces.
- Demand Gen: Create and capture demand across Google’s most visual surfaces, including YouTube, Shorts, and Discover, with AI-powered audience targeting and video enhancements.
The Overtop Media Advantage: Your Local Partner in Digital Growth
We know that navigating this new digital landscape can be overwhelming. That’s why we’re here to help. As a Charlotte-based digital marketing agency and a certified Google Partner, we have the expertise and the local market knowledge to help your business succeed. We’re not just another vendor; we’re your strategic partner in growth.
If you’re ready to take your digital marketing to the next level and unlock the power of AI for your business, we invite you to contact us for a free consultation. Let’s build the future of your business, together.
