ai4smallbiz.org aims to be a student-powered resource for small business owners and marketers
What began as a series of projects at Baldwin Wallace University evolved into a larger student-led effort to equip small business owners and one-person marketing teams with information and resources to help them check off more of their tasks in less time.
About this site
This site is an educational project. Please direct questions to dmc@bw.edu.
From questions to answers
The idea for what led to this site is a result of an impromptu Q&A session at the COSE BIG Summit on October 15, 2024. Tim Marshall, an associate professor who directs the Digital Marketing Center at Baldwin Wallace University, gave a talk titled “Marketing AI Starter Kit for the Small Business.”
But it was after the session when true magic was made, as attendees lined up to ask about specific use cases of artificial intelligence. Those use cases sparked ideas for future programming and are the basis for how this site is constructed. From there, the idea to launch ai4smallbiz.org was born.
Our goal is to be the premier resource for small
business owners and one-person marketing teams
offering articles, reviews, and guides on artificial intelligence tools that can help them get more of their sales and marketing tasks done in less time so they can focus on growth.
Student project lead
Through her role as AI Project Lead at the Digital Marketing Center, senior Anna Buhrow developed the initial sitemap for ai4smallbiz.org along wireframes and template options.
She also had a role away from the computer, planning an ai4smallbiz kick-off event in Fall 2024 in partnership with BW LaunchNET, a venture-support program funded by the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.
At this program, Anna demonstrated the new and emerging AI features of Google Sites and Canva Magic Studio while co-presenter Gavin Skwirut demonstrated AI-presentation tools Gamma and Beautiful.
Student content creators
During the Spring 2025 section of the MKT 437X Content Marketing Experiential Learning course, a requirement for BW digital marketing major, 19 students worked in five teams organized by use cases. This enabled them to learn about tools and best practices that align with their own personal and professional interests. For each use case, students were tasked with:
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Ideation and research using Semrush
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Exploring and testing AI tools
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Creating a persona-focused content plan aligning with HubSpot's Content Marketing certification
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Developing articles using best practices for SEO and AI
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Repurposing longform articles into infographics, videos and other content
Graphic Design & Visual Communication
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Jesica Ghinga
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Olivia Koutouras
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McKenna Forster
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Brenna Stine
Management & Operations
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Alissa Hasrouni
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Mike Kane
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Haly Mould
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Hayley Verbiak
Multimedia, Video & Audio
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Gillian Brown
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Gianna Cafasso
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Kaden Coss
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Arta Tashi
Sales & Customer Insights
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Gwenyth Amalong
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Olivia Jesse
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Andrea Strazzanti
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Colby Whiteside
Writing & Editing
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Owen Kowalewski
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Carissa Morabito
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Jenna Parks
Pioneering student AI champions
The Digital Marketing Center formally launched an AI adoption service in Spring 2024, thanks to the student account executive who led those efforts, Zach Ottenweller.
Over the course of that semester, Zach managed a team of peers on conducting various trials of tools and processes before presenting a finalized AI marketing workflow to our client, the marketing manager at an investment bank.
Since graduating, Zach has become an AI strategist with Soarion Digital.
Also that semester, Brianna Hamrick co-presented along with Prof. Marshall at a webinar on AI basics in partnership with the City of Berea.
Brianna demonstrated a marketing workflow she used at her internship at the time, which involved repurposing TikTok video content into blog articles, email newsletters, and LinkedIn posts by using the tools Parrot and Claude.
Brianna is now a full-time paid media strategist at Fathom.
Zach Ottenweller
Brianna Hamrick