Our team checked Google's top 10 for 'AI development services' to see how different companies sell their offers. The impression was far from positive – almost all of them missed the mark, to say the least. We identified five common mistakes and want to share them with you. We will also unveil a winning strategy that will help you attract your prospect’s attention and turn them into leads, so keep reading.
But first, let’s find out why AI development services are hard to sell.
Why is it hard to sell AI development services?
- Lack of knowledge. Although AI was the word of the year in 2023, it’s still a new concept for the majority of business owners. Naturally, many businesses don’t quite understand how they can use AI in their domain, or whether they should at all. Software development agencies, in turn, have to offer a solution to a specific problem. And if you don’t understand your audience’s needs, how can you help them?
- No case studies. With AI being a new kid on the block, companies don’t rush to implement it, which leads to software development agencies having few to no case studies. Lack of the visible proof of expertise can be a great obstacle in gaining prospect's trust.
- Crowded market. AI is the biggest trend in software development right now which created a great number of companies offering AI implementation services. In a market flooded with multiple similar offers, it’s difficult to differentiate and catch the attention of potential customers.
Now, how do software development companies sell AI implementation services?
In many cases, they pick relevant keywords and count on SEO magic to drive more organic traffic to their pages. As a result, search results are oversaturated with copy-pasted offers, not to mention the difficulty it takes to secure the top 10.
To demonstrate why this strategy is not the best shot, we googled “AI development services,” and checked the landing pages of the top-ranked companies. Here’s what we found.
5 main messaging problems of software development companies
As mentioned, AI is a trendy, but very complex thing to sell. We analyzed what messaging AI software development companies use to persuade their potential clients. Here are the main mistakes we've noticed.
1. Keyword stuffing
There is no secret that SEO matters when it comes to getting to the first page of search results, so many software development agencies throw around the keyword "Artificial Intelligence Development Services" or something like that in their titles. The problem is making your landing page for Google doesn’t mean it will also resonate with your target audience. Generic copy stuffed with keywords doesn’t make any sense to humans.
In the example above, keyword stuffing is evident. How do you transform that into a decent offer? Here are some improvements to start with:
- Make full sentences with a clear message. Write for people, not for Google bots.
- Exclude unnecessary keywords: "California" doesn't make the message more persuasive.
- Focus on the clients’ pains such as "limited tech expertise," "integration challenges" or "cost concerns" and offer a solution.
- Highlight ONE specific offer. Don’t try to please each and every one, show the real value to a specific audience.
2. No clear offer
Another common and huge mistake we've noticed is the absence of a clear offer. Almost all pages we’ve seen don't mention who they're targeting and totally skip on describing specific benefits they bring to the table or any unique selling points. In the best case, companies include some abstract benefits that AI can bring like innovation but don’t list any practical business benefits.
How do you fix some of the mistakes here?
- Appeal to urgency: replace the abstract word “sometimes” with something that talks about the speed of AI adoption and immediate business impact.
- Replace "exquisite" and "client-oriented at every corner" with more fitting and concrete adjectives, for instance, “technically complex” and “tailor-made.”
- Be specific about your offer. What exactly do you provide? Al development team, Al consulting, custom Al implementation?
3. Lack of details
You can’t just write “Develop AI and ML” and call it a business offer.
Your offer should be clear and specific, answering the essential questions of potential clients:
- What is it?
- Who is it for?
- Why should I buy it?
- How is it different from what others offer?
To make your offer sound compelling, highlight what sets your company apart from others. You can also include a unique benefit or specialized expertise to make the company more appealing to potential clients.
4. Too much technical jargon
By contrast to the previous example, some companies tend to be too wordy and include technical jargon that doesn’t help the customer understand the business value behind the offer. The result is the same as when the messaging isn't specific – the reader gets confused instead of learning about what the company has to offer.
To avoid this mistake, create a short, clear, and impactful message with easy-to-get benefits and a call to action. For example, the description above can be transformed as follows:
"Transform raw data into actionable insights. Become more productive. Enhance foresight through continuous model refinement. We specialize in computer vision, natural language processing, and intelligent automation. Empower your business with our Al services."
5. Overusing clichés
The same worn-out and generic clichés like state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, and similar may sound impressive, but they don’t convey any specific point. Avoid them when writing copy for your AI implementation services page.
Here are some suggestions on how to improve the description:
- Tell readers about the specific benefits of your offer. Don’t just say it’s state-of-the-art – explain what makes it one.
- Include information that has practical value for your client and responds to their business needs.
- Make the offer more specific and explain how Al strengthens business intelligence, listing concrete benefits, for example, its ability to analyze complex datasets, uncover hidden correlations, and generate predictive models.
- Provide concrete examples of mundane processes that can be automated: data management, client engagement, or something else.
So what is the problem with all the analysed landing pages? Sure thing, they won the SEO game, but we can’t recommend any of these companies because we simply couldn’t get their offer.
Let’s forget about SEO and focus on marketing instead. Here’s an example of a software development company that chose marketing over SEO.
AE Studio: How to strategically attract AI leads
AE Studio is a California-based software development company that chose another strategy to sell its AI development services. Let’s see what makes their marketing campaign special and analyze its main stages: offer, lead capture, lead nurturing, and promotion.
What makes this AI development offer better than what we've seen above?
We stumbled across AE Studio not because they put “AI Development Services” three times in their description. In fact, there are almost no keywords on their landing page. They obviously don’t rely on SEO to attract customers. But they do have a solid marketing offer. Perhaps without SEO, companies would have focused more on marketing rather than fixating on keywords…
Let’s analyze the hero text on AE Studio's landing page.
The first thing we see is a tagline, a short description, and three main benefits. Sounds great, what's next? As we scroll down, we see client feedback and case studies.
In the next block, we see the proof backing up the "world-class team" claim made in the hero section.
After a short "Meet our team" block highlighting the AI team's expertise, we see a final CTA:
Rejoice. Help is Here.
Custom Solutions for Your Specific Needs.
Our Expert Team will Help You Succeed.
Let's talk
That’s it. Now let’s analyze what makes this page different from what we’ve seen earlier.
Within a single landing page, the reader gets answers to all essential questions:
What does the company sell?
Custom software and AI solutions.
How does it deliver value?
Their main asset is a world-class team. It may sound cliché but it has strong proof that shows why this message is trustworthy: their data scientists are Stanford and MIT university graduates.
What makes the offer compelling?
The offer appeals to the client's main desire – to outpace the competitors. While everyone is in a rush to implement AI, you can accomplish your goals faster than the competition. The offer also includes specific benefits: rapid success, innovation, and maximized ROI.
Who do they serve?
Businesses that need to enter the market quickly and get maximum ROI from their digital transformation initiatives.
What is the value proposition?
- Tailored minimum viable products. AI is usually associated with huge time and cost investment but when a company offers to build an MVP, it means you’ll get a functional solution pretty soon. MVP lowers the entry threshold and makes the offer more appealing.
- Digital transformation combined with AI. AI can make digital transformation more efficient, allowing companies to achieve even better results.
- Custom AI/ML solutions that bring ROI. Corporate clients evaluate the success of their projects based on tangible business outcomes, with maximized return on investment being a primary objective they seek to achieve.
Now, with a compelling business offer, how do you capture leads?
Want to capture leads? Create a lead magnet!
One of the possible strategies for attracting leads is a lead magnet. It shouldn't necessarily be an ebook or whitepaper in exchange for an email.
AE Studio offers a free AI strategist – a tool that generates AI solution ideas to address specific business needs. We’ve tested it ourselves and found it useful and interesting. It brings clarity to business owners who are interested in adopting AI but don’t have a clear understanding of how it can help their business. Here’s how it works.
The doc also covers AE Studio’s AI projects and offers a free consultation with their AI experts. This is how the company gives leads an answer on how they can implement AI and invites them to start working on it together.
Launch a lead nurturing campaign
After a lead magnet is created, you need to launch a lead nurturing campaign that will help you move the leads from interest to conversion. Here’s how AE Studio does it.
The email with personalized AI implementation ideas is followed by a sequence of four emails where each letter has its role. The first email reminds you of the ideas received and offers several possible ways to continue exploring the company’s services:
- Those who are ready to partner click the link that lands them on the company's home page.
- If you want to know more about how others use AI, you get to explore the company's portfolio.
- Finally, if you were only interested in how the AI idea generator works and not going to invest in a project (our case), you get to go to the “Thanks for letting us know” page. It's a great way to segment the audience and cut out unqualified leads.
The following emails include blog updates and case studies.
How to promote your offer
Once you've formulated an offer, devised a lead capture mechanism, and crafted an email sequence for nurturing leads, the next step involves figuring out how to increase traffic towards your offer. Implementing multiple tactics simultaneously, each targeting different sources of traffic, is advisable for optimal results.
Make it visible to your existing website traffic
The easiest way to promote your offer is to make it visible to your existing website traffic. AE Studio does it with a persistent header CTA which links to the lead magnet.
Persistent header CTAs are a great way to catch the attention of site visitors and guide them toward desired destinations.
Sponsor a newsletter
The next step you can take is sponsor a newsletter. For example, AE Studio was featured in a newsletter by AI Tool Report, allowing them to access an audience of 500,000 subscribers.
Direct promotion can be of great value but let’s not forget the power of social media marketing.
Promote on LinkedIn
You can advertise your offer on LinkedIn or use the platform to drive organic social media traffic to your lead magnet.
The link leads directly to the landing page with the AI idea generator where you can add details about your company and receive custom ideas for AI implementation.
AE Studio's approach is just an example of what your strategy for selling AI development services can look like. Remember, SEO is a tool for promotion, it is not the strategy. Add SEO to your promotion mix to get traffic from Google to your offer. But make sure your offer aligns with your clients' needs and that you have lead capture and nurturing mechanisms in place.
Bottom line
Selling AI development services isn’t easy. But many companies that are doing it focus on getting to the top of Google instead of actually helping their audience. You can stand out by delivering value and being strategic about your offer.
At Zmist & Copy, we write copy based on the analysis of the target audience and the company’s value proposition. If you need to create a compelling landing page for selling AI development services and devise lead capture, lead nurturing, and promotion tactics, drop us a line.
