Smarter Marketing with AI – A Practical Workshop for Business Owners
AI & Digital Marketing in Practice: Building the Infrastructure Behind Smarter Marketing
The East Wicklow Business Network’s October workshop, also supported by Kildare and Wicklow Education & Training Board, AI & Digital Marketing in Practice, gave members a real look behind the scenes at how business owners can build simple, effective marketing systems.
Led by Nichola Donnelly, founder of 360 Marketing Consultancy, the session focused on how to bring structure and flow to everyday marketing showing that with the right setup, AI can make life easier, not more complicated.
Held on Thursday, 24th October 2025, at The Grid, Greystones, the workshop attracted a packed audience of business owners curious to understand how to connect the moving parts of their marketing from content creation and design to data tracking and automation.
Through a live demonstration, Nichola walked attendees step by step through the Coastal Calm Candles case study, revealing the full ecosystem behind an efficient marketing workflow.
Participants saw how clear brand foundations, consistent tone, and practical AI tools can work together to form a system that saves time and strengthens brand consistency.
Rather than focusing on trends or tools alone, the session emphasised infrastructure. How prompts, templates, and performance trackers can fit into one loop that keeps marketing clear, measurable, and repeatable.
“The magic isn’t in the tool, it’s in the system you build around it,” said Nichola. “Once you can see the structure behind your marketing, everything else becomes easier to manage.”
Key insights included:
System Thinking - Viewing marketing as a process, not a list of disconnected tasks.
Practical Workflows - Building reusable templates to maintain brand tone and consistency.
AI as a Support Tool - Automating repetitive steps while keeping creativity and judgment human.
Data-Driven Refinement - Using performance trackers to turn results into smarter future campaigns.
