The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

Modern Marketing: AI Meets SMS with Veronica Cornish

• Jennifer Ann Johnson • Season 3 • Episode 19

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The digital revolution has changed how we connect with customers—but are you tapping into its most powerful tool? In this episode, e-commerce entrepreneur and web designer Veronica Cornish unpacks the transformative potential of AI-powered SMS marketing.

With a 98% open rate, text message marketing creates instant, direct connections that cut through the inbox clutter. Veronica shares how to build a compliant, effective SMS strategy, from smart subscriber acquisition to campaigns that engage—not annoy—your audience.

Where it gets next-level? AI. Today’s platforms let you train AI in your brand voice to deliver personalized, real-time interactions, answer customer questions, and segment your audience for laser-targeted messages. As Veronica says, “You can train this AI to create a brand identity… and it's going to help you craft automations and messages that are aligned with your brand values.”

For business owners new to SMS, Veronica offers a practical, low-pressure roadmap to get started. Learn why this might just be your most powerful marketing channel yet.

Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Jennifer Johnson:

In today's digital age, having a great website isn't just about eye-catching design anymore. It's about creating an intelligent, responsive platform that adapts to your visitors' needs. Real-time Enter the game changer AI, or so artificial intelligence and SMS. Ai and SMS is revolutionizing the way that we approach website design and functionality, opening exciting possibilities for businesses of all sizes. But what does it mean for you and your online presence? Today, we're diving deep into the world of AI and SMS and how we can use those to leverage in our business, and our special guest today is Veronica Cornish. Veronica is an e-commerce entrepreneur, a web designer and content marketer. She graduated with communications and advertising and she has been diving deep into the e-commerce world. However, she also has a love for fashion, sustainability and technology, because that is really what sparked her entrepreneurial skills since 2014. She's been building online stores, managing email marketing campaigns and designing marketing and social media assets. She develops designs and maintains Shopify shops with very detail-oriented and a go-getter work style. She offers daily management and maintenance of websites with impeccable results. Welcome, veronica.

Veronica Cornish:

Thank you, Jennifer, for having me for the second time. It's super nice to be here.

Jennifer Johnson:

You have a wealth of information and I'm so honored to have you here because we can go with such a deep dive into what this is all about. So, before we get started, explain to our listeners what SMS is, because people may not know, right.

Veronica Cornish:

So people may be more kind of like used to hearing about email campaigns, right? You open your inbox and then you have the email campaign. There. You have your favorite shops that you follow and then you get emails because you subscribe to their newsletter and then you get products on it, sales and all that stuff. Well, how that translates to SMS is basically text message marketing, right, so you can actually reach out your customers on their mobile phones. The good thing about SMS is that it's got a like a 98% open rate.

Veronica Cornish:

So, whereas sometimes your emails can get cluttered in a lot of you know, in a whole list and then you have to kind of like select I might be driving, or I might be eating something, or I might be just be doing something, and I have my phone right next to me and then I just have a notification and then that is the campaign that was sent to me, right?

Veronica Cornish:

So it catches your immediate attention and it makes you act right away. And, especially if you understand how to tailor these campaigns, then it grabs your attention and then you have an incentive that you're giving to these customers and then they feel the need right away to jump. Look at the link what are they offering? This is for me. Now you can send exclusive promotions, you can send information about an event that you're going to have. So it becomes like a more personal approach between you and your customers and, for sure, a faster and more intimate one than if you're just sending, you know, email campaigns and then people have to just kind of like scroll over a whole. You know, just kind of like scroll over a whole. You know just a bunch of emails.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right, you know, I remember. So, full disclosure. Veronica does all of our websites, everything with our website, and I remember saying to you, when you propose this to me, I'm like, you know, I get it, but we're going to just take a bunch of people off because we're going to be texting them. And you're like no, no, no, no, no, and one of the best things I think we have ever done. I don't even know what our rates are, but our rates are pretty spectacular, with how much we'll spend and opened and everything.

Veronica Cornish:

Yeah, the good part about this is first of all know how to capture these people to come in to sign up to your list, because you have to be compliant. You don't want to just add numbers and then start texting people out of the blue.

Veronica Cornish:

I've had situations where I get sometimes a text message from a tax person who is offering me something and I've never remember signing up for anything like that, so that for a fact I know it's not in compliance and it could be highly damaging to your business, especially like let's talk about this in Florida. They're super, super rigorous, yes, they are. So you have to be, first of all, knowing how you're gonna capture these audience. There's several ways. We have, for example, in your website, knowing how you're going to capture these audience. There's several ways. We have, for example, in your website, a little bubble where somebody for the first time has come in and then that little bubble gets triggered and then you're offering them a little something, a discount. Why not? Because you are actually capturing that text message and that's going to become your potential client. Then you also can do it via a page. So sometimes that bubble, people can't see it or miss it for some reason. Then you can have an extra space in your website, a dedicated page, where actually people can go in there and also type their name, the phone number, and even we have you can capture also first and last name and that serves you as personalizing after your text message.

Veronica Cornish:

Sometimes I get messages that say hi, veronica, and I feel so special, you know, because they know my name and it's actually because you're capturing also that piece of information that is key. Um, so you can have your pop-up, which is like the little bubble. You can have your pop-up, which is like the little bubble, you can have your page and then you can also promote this with a QR code on your store, like right next to your cash register. You say, hey, you can market it. However, get today five off of this immediate purchase by signing up for our text messages. We promise we're not going to bombard you, you know. You say it's a key way and it's true. You want to be very balance out how much text messages you're sending, so it requires a little bit of you know, preparation and thing and thoughtful kind of like planning. So you're not, like you know, bombarding people.

Jennifer Johnson:

How much is too many Like? I know that's hard because people say that about emails too. They feel like if I keep sending them, they're going to all of a sudden, you know, unsubscribe.

Veronica Cornish:

I think, like when you're a loyal customer, you're you can, you're, you're you. You don't even have to shop, but you want to know what's going on. So I will say, you know, if, if you're talking, people might say, oh, two a month to start, okay, but then once you get like the feel of it, then you can get you some people. Uh, send people, send three a week, oh my God, and that might be too much, right, but for what the purpose of what they're sending that message is for, then it may be worth it for that particular brand. So it's hard to say. How many do you recommend? Well, why don't you start with two a month, just to get a hold and feel what you're doing? You might be one of those stores who never does a promotion, who never put on sale anything, but then two might be one towards an event and then the other one towards a promotion or a weekly one, where you are running a weekly discount and then people do want to shop your weekly discounts on your collections. So I think it's-.

Jennifer Johnson:

The cool part is is that you can all you can say to people you know we do exclusive things just for people on our text messaging.

Veronica Cornish:

So one thing that is super cool about that is that you can segment and create like little workflows where you can ask questions, for example. So I have, for example, a company who does a lot of live videos. So they have a question where it asks the person would you like to receive text messages about lives, considering they're going to be more often. If the person prompts a yes, then they get sent to a list, right, and then that list becomes your live list. Then you know that you're only sending notifications of live videos to that particular list. So it's very easy to start segmentating this list and creating workflows so that you don't overwhelm everybody, because not everybody's needs might be the same right. So that is that is very important to have kind of like more of acknowledge or use these prompts or little like workflows to create lists for your particular niche or people that you're trying to target, and then that way becomes something that is very clearly created uniquely for each of them.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right, so yeah, so you know, I mean we do everything by our phone. People go to bed with us, they go to bed with us, they wake up with us, so we might as well be on that device, you know, and text the SMS, text messaging seems to be like the great way to do it. Now, how does AI play into all of this? Because we all hear about AI. We hear people freaked out because they think AI is going to take over the world and AI is going to take over jobs. And, as businesses, we know that's not going to happen.

Veronica Cornish:

No, I think how can?

Jennifer Johnson:

we leverage that.

Veronica Cornish:

Yeah, I think AI is a very powerful tool to enhance your brand in many ways, but it's not a tool for you to completely automate everything, because that is actually going to impoverish your brand, meaning like it's going to make it look super generic. You want to use these tools to create different things, but you are managing them. So, for example, how AI comes into the SMS. I am not married to a platform, but of course, you have to work with one most of the time. I've used Klaviyo SMS and I've used other SMS without less capabilities and I absolutely adored one that is called Postscript, because it easily integrates with Shopify. Postscript launched an AI solution. Right, it's on their baby steps right now and it's currently marketed to first grab brands that have tons of email subscribers, but then it's going to go more to like small businesses. This brand, what PostgreSQL is doing with AI is getting in more depth on how to be able to know your customers. So you can train this AI to first of all create like a brand, like your brand voice, right, okay so?

Jennifer Johnson:

you can create a brand identity, yes, your identity.

Veronica Cornish:

Now, the brand, the AI solution is not going to create that for you. You are giving the parameters, you're giving your brand's voice, and it's going to help you craft automations and messages that are aligned with your brand and with your brand, the core of your brand, the values of your brand. So you're really they're helping you, but you're training, you're training this, this, and then, after you train this, then it can take off right and then it creates for, like a persona, and then that persona can actually interact with customers on a very, very like one to one level, like a very deep level. Yeah, it is amazing, and it also is analyzing data from interactions with your customers. So sometimes I'm not sure if, if you know, but like, sometimes you send promotions and then people reply to those text messages.

Jennifer Johnson:

They do, and it's always. I look back later I'm like oh my gosh, I totally missed that. Yes.

Veronica Cornish:

Now, jennifer, you're going to be able to use AI to train that, those prompts, ai to train those prompts and then have a meaningful reply to that customer in real time, engage with them in real time in an automated way. So what you're doing is basically putting attention to your customers 24-7. It's going to go that way because you're missing, we're missing on a lot, on a lot of opportunities to to close a sale, probably because there's not enough people trying to. You know, doing everything at the same time is you're replying to email from customers, you're replying from chats on on website, then now you have messages. So it's like on website, then now you'll have messages. So it's like, okay, let's train each of these solutions to create a more meaningful relationship with your customers.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. So let me ask you this. So if we get asked the same question you know that you're asked this question at least twice a day, and for us it's how much money do I have in my account? Right? We're asked that every single day on the chat. You can train it to tell them how to check their own account.

Veronica Cornish:

So we're taking here a little bit more of a difficult thing, because are you talking specifically about your consignors that are asking you how much money? Okay, so that is something that we'll probably have to talk to the software developers.

Jennifer Johnson:

No, but just give them a general statement saying here's how you check your account online.

Veronica Cornish:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and hear me out on something Right now even on your Shopify website. You know, if we talk about our Shopify website, shopify has some enhanced AI, inbuilt native things here and there that not everybody knows about that you can actually train right now to do that for you. For example, if we talk about the chat bubble that people sometimes has on the website, you can create so many like a vast amount of questions. Feed those questions to your chat, because you are getting these questions on a daily base, so you already know what people are asking about, right? And then you train that little chat bot with a lot of questions. Then it informs that person. They can choose what you know.

Veronica Cornish:

So that's like an enhanced version, like a little like you know, of AI, but it's still a great tally when it comes to minimize how much. How much time am I spending just like replying to people? Or how much you know track my order, can you? You know how can I track your audit? So, like you can do all that stuff if you train your chatbot to to do that on Shopify natively without having to literally integrate a website, an app, you know, Because on Shopify every app costs money.

Veronica Cornish:

It does and it's stock up and it adds to the monthly bill, you know. So you're not only paying their fee but you're paying an additional, you know, and they can be they can get very expensive. So if you want to kind of like use the native stuff that Shopify provides, then it's great, because you're kind of like not paying for it. Another enhanced thing that it's got is called flows, these workflows.

Veronica Cornish:

They also the same workflows that we have on SMS, which are abandoned cart workflows product browse workflows welcome series workflow, loyalty workflow All of those are workflows that you can create on SMS, but you can also create them on Shopify as an email form, so it's like two different versions of it, but they're workflows that are working automated, in an automated way, by recognizing the behavior of that particular customer.

Jennifer Johnson:

Okay.

Veronica Cornish:

So it's very, very, very cool.

Jennifer Johnson:

I mean, do you see? So I see, just from a standpoint of I'm the consumer of this because I'm the business that has the stuff attached to my website but where do you see this going? Do you see any issues with it, like ethical concerns or any other kind of concerns that may come from using this kind of technology, and where do you see it going in the future?

Veronica Cornish:

I think, like the AI developers are very, I've tried to do prompts to trick the system to see what happens. Right, I'm I've been blown away because, oh, wow, okay, cool. I saw the other day a picture. I love horses, so I saw the other day a picture of a horse, um, a woman and an italian greyhound, uh, in black and white. I happen to have an italian greyhound. So I was like, oh, I love this picture and I know it was created with AI, maybe, maybe not. So I went to the prompt and I said because now you can create all kinds of things on AI. And I went to the prompt and I said create a picture, a black and white picture of a horse, an Italian greyhound and a woman. And I basically described that picture and it came up saying sorry, we cannot create this picture because it violates copyrights. So that was an actual photograph oh wow.

Veronica Cornish:

So I think, like the ai, it's being trained to have boundaries. I don't think it's going to replace artists, web designers. I don't think it's going to replace. I think it's a tool to help you improve and do things faster that you can maybe make faster, but I don't think it's here to replace human, replace us humans. Actually, we're the ones training the AI to do all of this stuff, because it's on humor, on human. You know like you can train now, like the SMS AI, onto natural language, so that it's not like a machine that is talking to you. It's actually trained on natural human language so that it seems like you're interacting with a real person. But at the same time, we're the ones feeding these with. You know, these, these softwares with our own information, going to be how people imagine that it's going to, like take over the world and uh, you know, eliminate jobs for people.

Veronica Cornish:

No, I think it's like a a little extra help right and it definitely helps um doing like artist tasks faster you know? Of course it does yeah, but, but but it's not, and and if you are, if, and if you know how to use it, then then I think it's okay content creation is it's amazing for content creation amazing for content creation.

Veronica Cornish:

If you are actually, um, putting in the prompt, you know, giving like substance about your brand, who you are first like doing, like so, so it doesn't create like generic stuff, you know, because that's like that's when you need to draw the line. I do, I want my brand to sound like everybody else, because everybody else is going to come over here and create a prompt and then everybody's going to have the same content. Or are you fitting this ai with great prompts about your brand? A little bit of history, like, if you create a very substantial paragraph with a prompt, then it's going to be very unique and tailored to your brand. So I think that's great.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. So, now with business owners who are looking to implement either SMS or SMS with AI. Is it something that they just do and they throw it all out at once? Do they try little pieces here and there? What's your suggestion when you start working with somebody and they've heard all these great things because they read magazines, they listen to podcasts and they're getting all this information thrown at them and they're like I want to do this, this and this. What do you tell them?

Veronica Cornish:

Well, first of all, depending on what platform do you have, and then, what's your, your business about? But if we'd be specific and talk about Shopify, which is like what I do, what? And then we talk about e-commerce, which is what you do and what I do, which is selling products, and I think like, uh, first of all, picking a SMS platform that integrates well with Shopify. It could be Klaviyo, it could be Postscript. There are many more out there. I am very familiar with those two because those are the ones that, like, have worked for me in the past and still work for me. You know, it's very easy to integrate and once you integrate, make sure that you create very, very good workflows.

Veronica Cornish:

The workflows are what I'm talking about, about what incentives are you going to give to your customers to keep them coming back, interested, in love with your brand and all this stuff.

Veronica Cornish:

So you want to be very meticulous about what workflows are you going to create, how you're going to automate them, because you can create a workflow where it's going to become annoying for people, Like, let's say, I put something in my cart, I got up, went to eat something and then immediately am I getting a text message? Hey, no, you know what I mean. So you want to be very like. What are the key points? Am I going to create a workflow that is going to trigger 24 hours after the person you know? So all of those things have to be in consideration. Once you create your workflows, which are the automated part, you just leave them aside and then you don't have to worry about that stuff. Then you can come here and you could go to Canva, create very nice first also graphics for those workflows, Because you know you can get, you know you can put those graphics on.

Veronica Cornish:

You can also have like msm, which is like media on your text messages okay a text message alone is not as effective as if you have a picture with it and it's easy now, because canvas, canva even has ai yeah, exactly so.

Veronica Cornish:

So it's very important um, it's very eye-catching when you have a text message that comes with a a little piece of media, it can be a gif. You know the ones that like change. It could be any, any type of something that um, it's very visual um, and then once you have all those automations done, created on the site, they're going to start working for you so you don't have to worry about those anymore. You can come and tailor them. Maybe you can like revise them every few months, see if you want to adjust the amount of promotions that you're giving all of that stuff. Then you want to create your monthly marketing campaign for SMS exclusively.

Veronica Cornish:

Postscript has a great tool it's called the calendar, where it shows you the most important dates of the month, gives you ideas and then so you can like change maybe or you know those ideas into something that belongs to your brand, you know, pertains to your brand. It's got great. Yes, if you go to Postgre, it's got great marketing ideas for monthly, you know campaigns. So that's a great starting point. If you really don't know where to start, go there or go to maybe Klaviyo also may have some ideas. Go and then have some sort of like inspiration of what are you going to do for that month in particular.

Veronica Cornish:

Start with two a month, just to you know, test the waters and then also create, uh see, how you're going to capture this audience, like we talked about, put it, put it in your website, put in your cash register, you know.

Veronica Cornish:

But that is the first actually starting key point is how are you need you need subscribers to be able to send messages. So that is actually the first actually starting key point is how are you need you need subscribers to be able to send messages. So that is actually the first thing that you need to do is how are you going to capture that audience? Definitely, if it's somebody who has a website and has somebody that helps out, maybe have that person read about it and kind of like, understand how it works you know, but it definitely requires a and kind of like understand how it works, you know, but it definitely requires a little bit of knowledge on how to implement this on the website. Or, if you're going to use it, klaviyo has it embedded inside Klaviyo, so just as you send an email, you can easily send an SMS as well. So it depends on what you choose.

Jennifer Johnson:

Got it, got it. Wow, this has been so much great information, because this is the thing that's really has the ability to move people's businesses forward rather rapidly, compared to how we used to do things, even a few years ago. Yeah, and it's always wonderful having you on, Veronica. If our listeners would like to get a hold of you, how can they do so?

Veronica Cornish:

Well, they can reach me to my website, or you know my phone number. My website is vccreativestudiocom. Okay, my email is vc at vccreativestudiocom and my phone number is 404-539-5123. They can call me, reach out to me. I am on Facebook, I am on Instagram with the same name, so I think it's easy to find me, or they can ask you.

Jennifer Johnson:

They can ask me. You're right, you're right, thank you so much. Monica.

Veronica Cornish:

You're welcome. It was very nice talking to you today.

Jennifer Johnson:

Yes, and thank you so much to our listeners here at the.

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