When retail business owner and Health Stores UK deputy chair Melanie Beard heard about a new AI package that it was claimed could boost a store’s profile, footfall and revenues at a modest cost she was a little sceptical.
But as she told the latest episode of Bira’s High Street Matters podcast, once she learnt more about the package – developed and offered by AI solutions specialist and Bira partner Maybe* – she was hooked.
In fact, Mel has been using the system for the last two years to manage all the social media activities for the Best Health Food Shop business that she owns and runs with her partner, Len Glenville.
Mel says the Maybe* package has enabled her to produce consistently polished social media posts and campaigns across the whole business (each of the current four stores has its own social media accounts), while cutting costs and saving time.
In the podcast, Mel talks about the development of the Best Health Food Shop business, which now has four stores across Sussex, including a brand new venture in Eastbourne. Mel tells journalist Steve Dyson that the business had previously hired an agency to manage its social media activity but that this had been both expensive (costing up to £1000 per month) and still required considerable input from herself (giving briefs to non-experts, ensuring the tone of voice was right and checking that posts on supplements were appropriate and legally compliant).
Explaining how she uses the Maybe* AI package, Mel says: “It’s very easy. You have exchanges with a chat-bot, tell it the type of post you want to write, ask it to change things you don’t like – and maybe say something like ‘mention that we’re participating in Organic September’, of whatever. And it does everything for you. It’ll also create beautiful images for your posts, based on your brief from its image library. What’s really impressive is how the AI starts to learn your brand. It looks at your website, it gets to understand your style of messaging and USPs over time. It literally takes me about 5 minutes to create my day’s posts and schedule them. So, it’s given me a lot of time back to really focus more on what the shops are doing.
“The setup was very straightforward and the training was really supportive. I’m not a particularly technical person, but this is really easy to use – and I very quickly realised it was going to be a game-changer.”
Mel also explained that, as a Health Stores UK member, she was able to get 50% off the normal price of the Maybe* package she selected. “We’re paying just £45 per month, and we’re making that work across 30 different social media accounts”.
• You can learn more about Mel’s experiences, and about the Maybe* AI package (made available to Health Stores UK members at a discounted rate through our affiliation with Bira) by listening to the Podcast on catch-up here.
