MarketingSherpa Blog

I’ve been playing a (very small) role in training AI lately. And here’s the approach I took – train the machine like you would a new marketer. So if you’re a new marketer, or an experienced marketer who is simply new to social media, here are eight steps that can help your social media marketing.

But before we dive into those steps, I should mention that this is how I would train someone and create social media a decade ago. While it’s still helpful, marketers have a new way to train and get help with our marketing – artificial intelligence.

We have just released the new Social Media Pro expert assistant in MECLABS AI (MECLABS AI is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It can help you with your social media marketing. MECLABS AI is totally free to use, you don’t even have to register (for now).

Expert Assistants drop-down menu in MECLABS AI

And the Marketing Professor expert assistant can train you or someone on your team in the marketing fundamentals. Flint McGlaughlin explains in the video below.

That said, as an avid reader of print newspapers and magazines, I can attest that there is benefit to the old ways as well. If you’re looking to learn the fundamentals of marketing, here are a bunch of articles organized under the key steps for social media marketing.

These articles aren’t about today’s buzz-y social media trends. They are meant to give you ideas and guidance for the fundamentals of social media marketing. And since MarketingSherpa has been reporting on the marketing industry for 25 years, some of these articles are older. But they should all help you grasp these key steps.

Step #1: Understand audience motivation

How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Marketing Conversion

Social Media Marketing Chart: How much different age groups trust social ads

Transparent Marketing: Research into social media marketing reveals surprising consumer discovery

MarketingSherpa Consumer Purchase Preference Survey: Why customers follow brands’ social accounts

Step #2: Choose which social media platforms your brand should be on

Social Media Marketing: Which type of content is appropriate for different platforms?

Social Media Research Chart: Most (and least) shared types of content for 11 industries

Social Media Marketing Chart: Engagement and reach of top eight social networks

Social Media Marketing: 4 steps to identifying the ideal social media platform for your company

Social Media 101: Branding for the PR-impaired marketer

Step #3: Create and communicate a process-level value proposition to build an audience

Social Media Marketing: Why should I like or follow you?

Social Media Marketing: 4 questions to ask yourself about social media buttons

Social Media Marketing: 4 tactics for finding and winning hyper-social consumers

Customer Value: The 4 essential levels of value propositions

Step #4: Publish content consistently

Social Media Marketing: Is it just your brand’s performance, or has something changed in social media? 

Social Media Marketing: AT&T Developer Program calendar strategy increases Twitter audience 136%, Facebook 113%

Levels of Marketing Maturity: Examples of an AI-powered marketing strategy (advanced) and just setting up the basics (foundational) (case study #2, social media section of that case study)

Step #5: Find the social media tactics that will be most effective for your audience

Social Media Marketing: Tactics ranked by effectiveness, difficulty and usage 

Social Media: Mellow Mushroom’s tips for engaging Facebook followers

Developing a Social Media Strategy: 6 Lessons from Kodak

Step #6: Serve your audience with customer-first social media content

Customer-First Marketing Guide: 4 steps (with case studies) to build a customer-first marketing strategy (Step #1 in this article)

Marketing Chart: The outsize impact of customer-first marketing on word-of-mouth

Customer’s Journey: A look at how three companies took a customer-first marketing approach

Content Marketing 101: How to write compelling content in five tips

Content Marketing: Strategies of businesses that improved (and replaced) digital content marketing (Case Study #1 and #2 in this article)

Step #7: Bring innovation into your social media efforts

How to Use Social Media Tactics to Make Your Emails More Enticing (technically about email, but shares good social media tactics)

Social Media: How to make [the right] friends and influence people [who matter]

Inbound Marketing: The top three tactics from MarketingSherpa case studies in 2014

AI Video Content Creation: High earners, millennials, and Americans are most interested in AI video generators

Step #8: Encourage and incorporate user-generated content and influencers

Content Marketing: How to use social media sweepstakes to encourage user-generated content 

Social Media Marketing: Sporting goods company increases Facebook reach 366% with content contest

Content Marketing: User-generated content tips from Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia

Marketing 101: What is influencer marketing?

In the AI Guild, Flint McGlaughlin and Guild members themselves are constantly evaluating artificial intelligence tools and services to discover how they can be used by marketers and entrepreneurs. For example, in the below excerpt from a live, interactive AI Guild session, Flint shows how you can use a tool called Browse AI to get a competitive marketing advantage.

So when someone reached out with an AI tool and offered to implement it MarketingSherpa’s content, I figured – hey, let’s give it a go.

This person originally reached out to pitch a marketing case study in a MarketingSherpa article. While this output wouldn’t work as a case study, I figured it would make sense to share it right here. It’s like a demo, but you don’t have to sign up and become a lead and talk to a sales rep. 😊 I haven’t tried this before, but we’re always looking for new ways to bring value to our readers, so let’s see how it goes.

Read more…

Wednesdays at 2 pm EDT we hold an AI Guild briefing. Chat with MECLABS AI if you would like to register to attend.

In the session, marketers and entrepreneurs can ask questions in the webinar chat. And we answer a few of them right here…

How do you determine when to use Claude vs MECLABS AI?

Claude is a generative AI chatbot that doesn’t have a specific purpose. Although from my personal use, it is very good with large amounts of text, more so than any other generative AI I’ve tried, lending it especially well to tasks like analyzing webinar chat logs, selecting quotes from transcripts, giving feedback on long articles, and similar tasks.

MECLABS AI (available to MECLABS AI Guild members) does have a specific purpose – headlines, value propositions, and other marketing, which makes it better for marketing specific tasks.

MECLABS is built on ChatGPT, but trained with the MECLABS methodology. Since Claude is a more general AI, it is trained on all marketing-related information, not only successful marketing practices.

I also wanted to mention, that while the questions have lately focused on AI chatbots, there are other types of generative AI, like text-to-image models. Flint McGlaughlin teaches an example in Sales Funnel Design: How to combine an “old school” journal, a web page builder, and DALL·E.

How do you overcome the 2,000-character prompt limit on Bing AI?

Here’s a fun little trick. The 2,000-character prompt limit on Bing AI only applies to the ‘more balanced’ conversation style. If you choose the ‘more creative’ or ‘more precise’ conversation style, your prompt limit doubles to 4,000 characters.

Nice, but maybe still not enough for what you want. There are two options I can see.

One, you could use Claude. Again, Claude can consume some very long prompts.

However, on the downside, Claude is a self-contained chatbot and not connected to the internet like Bing. If you need internet connection, you could always treat Bing like a customer and take a Micro-Yes Sequence approach. Map out your information (like you would a customer journey) and spoon feed it along a path for each response.

Even that is not limitless though. I’ve seen data that show Bing has a limit of anywhere from five to 20 chat turns per session. I’m not sure the exact limit, but from my experience it varies based on the topic and length. And for what it’s worth, at some point Bing just acts like it is ‘just so over’ the string of conversation and wants to start a new one. I’m not sure if it’s a feature or a bug, but it reminds me of my teenage daughter.

When you go to Claude, is that automatically Claude 2?

Yes… and no.

When you go to the Claude website, you are automatically using Claude 2, which was released in July 2023. (And as I’ve mentioned before, the most exciting thing to me about Clause is the amount of information it can process. “Claude 2 has been trained to have a further expanded context window of 200K tokens, corresponding to roughly 150,000 words” according to Model Card and Evaluations for Claude Models).

Why you even have to ask this question, and what is interesting to me as a marketer – when you visit the Claude website, it doesn’t mention a model number. This is very different from ChatGPT, which clearly displays that you are using GPT-3.5 and even shows you the ability for a paid upgrade to GPT-4.

When I ask Claude itself the reason for this, it states, “The choice aligns with Anthropic’s overall philosophy of developing AI responsibly, with a focus on user benefits rather than technology marketing. But these are just my speculations on Anthropic’s possible motivations. The company may have other reasons as well.”

If this is the case, I think it’s a bit of company logic. While ChatGPT’s use of model numbers is a marketing tactic to try to show progress and encourage upsells (just like when I bought a Samsung S23 although I would have been totally fine with the S22), it’s also a little more transparent. And with the amount of hesitancy and outright fear around AI, a little transparency is a good thing.

Can you use custom instructions on the ChatGPT version that’s in Bing?

No. As of right now, custom instruction is only for ChatGPT Plus (the paid version), and not yet available in the UK and EU. You can read more about ChatGPT customer instructions in Choosing Your AI Partner: A critical comparison of ChatGPT and Claude 2 for digital marketing.

What is Priority One if we’re going to move into these methodologies? How do we figure out where to start?

This question refers to the AI prompt methodology Flint McGlaughlin presented in this week’s briefing and LiveClass.

Like any type of conversion optimization (which this still is, even if AI is assisting you), start where you will have the most impact.

Here is an example (from Web Optimization: VacationRoost implements 2 testing methodologies to boost total conversion rates by 12%.):

Upcoming tests are elected based on a prioritization spreadsheet.

While many testing teams may allocate importance to factors such as volume and bounce rates, VacationRoost’s spreadsheet is organized by which level in the funnel the page or test would impact.

“Really what you want [to ask] is, ‘What’s going to have the most dollar impact on the organization?'” Hutchings explained.

He added that the pages leading into the purchase funnel rise to the top of the testing docket because of the likelihood of increasing conversion for the whole site is far greater on those types of pages.

I used the suggested prompts to do the competitor analysis and as my website is new, it kept referring back to the content of a website that had a similar name, even when I provided my URL.  Does anyone have any other suggestions on what I can do in my prompts?

Then you may have to do this a little manually, so to speak. And here is where Claude can come in handy, since it can accept such a long prompt.

Copy and paste key information from your website (like your homepage, maybe other key pages) along with competitors’ sites into individual text files and attach them to your Claude prompt using the paper clip icon, telling Claude what you are including.

In general, answers that we get from ChatGPT, are text rich. Is that something we use as a reference or work to absorb it?

Everyone has a different working preference. But remember, the great thing about generative AI is that you don’t have to settle for the first output. If it is too long for you, tell ChatGPT what length you are looking for. Here’s an example…

I used the Prompt Kit (available to MECLABS AI Guild members) marketing prompt for audience research, and got this output from ChatGPT:

Certainly, as a marketing professional, I recognize the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the marketing field. Yet, there are still substantial challenges in implementing AI effectively. Here’s an analysis of three major challenges, their causes, impacts, and potential solutions.

1. Challenge: Data Privacy and Compliance

• Why it Exists: AI relies heavily on data for personalization and targeting. The ever-changing regulations surrounding data privacy, such as GDPR and CCPA, create complexity.
• Impact on My Life: Ensuring compliance with various regulations demands extensive legal oversight and continuous adaptation of AI algorithms, consuming both time and resources.
• Potential Solutions: Implementing strict data governance policies and utilizing AI models that prioritize data anonymization can help. Collaborating with legal experts specializing in privacy law is also essential.

2. Challenge: Integrating AI with Existing Systems

• Why it Exists: Many organizations have legacy systems that aren’t built to support modern AI algorithms, leading to compatibility issues.
• Impact on My Life: Integrating AI into these systems can be labor-intensive, time-consuming, and may create bottlenecks in marketing processes.
• Potential Solutions: An incremental approach to integration, supported by a cross-functional team including IT experts, could streamline the process. Adopting flexible AI models that can be adapted to varying systems might also ease the integration.

3. Challenge: Bias in AI Algorithms

• Why it Exists: AI models are trained on historical data, and if that data contains biases (gender, racial, etc.), the model may perpetuate those biases.
• Impact on My Life: Using biased AI models can lead to unethical targeting and representation in marketing, potentially damaging the brand’s reputation.
• Potential Solutions: Regular audits of AI algorithms, involving diverse teams to understand and minimize biases, and utilizing fairness-aware algorithms can help overcome this issue.

Summary:

The integration of AI in marketing presents valuable opportunities but also notable challenges related to data privacy, system integration, and algorithm biases. By adopting robust legal compliance measures, embracing a cross-functional integration strategy, and rigorously auditing algorithms for bias, these challenges can be mitigated. This thoughtful approach to AI implementation aligns with the ethics and efficiency that today’s marketing professionals strive to uphold.

I then told ChatGPT, “What is the single most important thing I should know from your analysis?” To which it responded…

The single most important insight from the analysis is that while artificial intelligence presents immense opportunities for marketing, its responsible and effective implementation requires careful consideration of legal compliance, integration with existing systems, and the elimination of biases. The underlying theme is that success with AI in marketing demands a strategic approach that balances technological innovation with ethical considerations and compatibility with existing infrastructure.

Should we have already put the custom instructions into ChatGPT when we enter this prompt?

All else being equal, ChatGPT will serve you better with custom instructions because it will understand the context of your business and your customers.

But you can use any of the prompts in the Prompt Kit (available to MECLABS AI Guild members) without using custom instructions.

Again, if you want to learn more about custom instructions, you can read our last Q&A post – Choosing Your AI Partner: A critical comparison of ChatGPT and Claude 2 for digital marketing.

Would it be worth doing a few interviews with some of the people who have and haven’t purchased from our email sequence to understand the person behind the numbers?

Yes, I love that idea. That is a great example of increasing customer intimacy.

If you’re not able to go that far, you could send emails that people can reply to (in other words, not from a ‘no reply’ email address which some companies do) and make it clear in the email that replies are welcome.

Keep in mind, with this approach you will only hearing from the extremes, so take what they say with a grain of salt. But if something is truly outstanding or really horrible, you may hear about it. And you may also get a good understand of the words customer use to discuss your product or service.

For the pre-test success metric, is it important for this KPI to have large amounts of data? So for example if I wanted to use sales as my pre-test success metric but my volumes are not in thousands, is that a problem? Where is the biggest opportunity?

This is a question about A/B testing. To quickly explain a complex topic, if your results aren’t statistically significant, what you might be seeing is just random chance. An extreme example: 2 sales is a 100% increase over 1 sale, but that increase might just be random and not because of what you were testing (we explore this topic deeper in Factors Affecting Marketing Experimentation: Statistical significance in marketing, calculating sample size for marketing tests, and more).

Which begs the question – “so how many samples (sales, clicks, etc.) do I need?”

There is no one specific answer. The answer will vary based on the conversion rate difference between the control and treatment. The pre-test planning tab of the Simplified Test Protocol (available to MECLABS AI Guild members) will help you calculate that number.

So as the questioner rightly points out, it is difficult to make a number deep in your funnel, like sales, the success metric…unless you get a whole lot of sales.

As for the biggest priority, I would refer you to the above question about ‘where to start?’ However, your answer will be constrained by where you have the budget to get a statistically significant result.

We also have a free Test Planning Scenario Tool that helps you determine the optimal testing sequence.

Related Resources

Benefits of AI in Marketing: How do the views about artificial intelligence in marketing differ between leaders and practitioners? [chart]

AI Marketing Tools: How marketers are using artificial intelligence to help their campaigns right now

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Marketing: What marketers (even those who don’t care about tech) should know about AI and ML

During AI Guild research briefings and LiveClasses, guild members ask questions using the Zoom chat feature. And we answer those questions right here…

Why Claude 2 vs ChatGPT? It’s important to pick a long-term tool to be able to teach it in depth. So looking to understand the pro’s / con’s.

I’ll challenge the idea of the need to pick a long-term tool (although we’ll get into that in the next question in this blog post).

The biggest difference I’ve seen between Claude and ChatGPT is that Claude can process much larger inputs than ChatGPT. You can even attach files when you message Claude.

This is a key differentiator if you want Claude to analyze a chat log, write a summary based on a transcript, or give you feedback on a long article.

ChatGPT gives you the ability to tune all of its responses to some extent using the custom instructions feature, although this is only available in the Plus subscription for $20 per month. The Plus subscription also gives you access to GPT-4.

The site explains the features as “Custom instructions let you share anything you’d like ChatGPT to consider in its response.” It is not available yet in the UK and EU or the free version of ChatGPT, which is currently using GPT-3.5, but there are plans to roll it out to all users soon, according to OpenAI’s website.

If you choose to upgrade to the Plus subscription, you can turn this feature on by clicking the three dots next to your email address in the lower left, going to the “Beta features” section and moving the slider next to “Custom instructions” to green. Then you will have access to two questions:

• What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?
• How would you like ChatGPT to respond?

You could, for example, include information about your ideal customer when answering these questions. If you would like ideas for how to get AI to build a customer persona, AI Guild members can go to the Briefing Notes for MEC200 [08-02-23], scroll down to the “Ken Ducey” group coaching and click the drop down carrot, and read the prompt under “Using GPT and the new Custom Instructions.”

Keep in mind both ChatGPT and Claude have a knowledge cutoff in 2021 (ChatGPT specifics September 2021 and Claude is less specific), so if more recent information is key to your prompts, you should consider AI connected to the internet, like Bing.

I also asked both Claude and ChatGPT about their pros and cons. Like any market leader might say about its challengers, ChatGPT ‘never heard of it.’ In fairness, this is probably literally true. As I mentioned, ChatGPT’s knowledge cutoff is currently September 2021, and Claude was first released in April 2022.

Claude said that ChatGPT has broader capabilities since it was trained on more data, but that Claude does a better job of staying on topic and remembering context from previous conversations. That has pretty much been my experience, and I have been using Claude more because of it. While ChatGPT can have some truly outstanding responses, it can also be wildly off base. I see that less with Claude but it does happen as well.

And in fairness, this has been a challenge with all generative AI tools. For example, a guild member mentioned in the chat that he had trouble with Bing giving fake info then getting upset.

If you’d like more insight about different AI tools, AI Guild members can go to Guild [07-26-23], scroll down to the Prompt School section, and read point #6 “Note the best uses for each of your primary AI platforms.”

Whichever tool(s) you use, the AI won’t do everything. The prompts and prompt stacks you input will significantly impact your results. Flint McGlaughlin walks through an example in Sales Funnel and ChatGPT: 6 ways to leverage AI now to develop a powerful value proposition.

Why do you say ‘no’ long-term use of AI tools? Just because of the rate of change?

Don’t build a house on sand.

Vendor lock in is a challenge with any industry, but the mass adoption of artificial intelligence is so new and moving so quickly that what is true today may already be dated in three weeks, let alone three months or three years.

For example, the ChatGPT feature I mention about for “custom instructions” is listed as a beta feature. And OpenAI states, “As a Plus user, enjoy early access to experimental new features, which may change during development” (my emphasis added).

Now there may be some artificial intelligence you have to lock into on some level. For example, MECLABS AI is built on ChatGPT, the best available option at the time we launched. You might train an AI chatbot and add it to your website or use AI for many different things like media buying. These choices will inherently necessitate placing a bet. But do everything you can to stay as fluid as possible and avoid vendor lock in.

However, when it comes to using generative AI chatbots, they are easily switchable (all you need to do is open a different tab in your browser). So keep your options open, stay curious, and keep playing.

Yes, you would need to teach a customer service or sales AI chatbot you put on your website in-depth information about your company. But I’m unaware of how much any generative AI LLM really learns from your interactions with it between sessions (other than the simple feature mentioned above in ChatGPT). So the downsides of brand loyalty may trump the upsides.

I want to mention another element of not thinking “long term” that goes beyond AI tool selection – designing your offer. Keep enough flexibility in your business model that you can bob and weave and pivot as technology changes. I’m not one to make predictions, but here’s a sure bet – things are going to get pretty interesting over the next few months and years.

To remix a Ferris Bueller quote, “AI moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss a really good business opportunity.”

Anyone have any ideas on how to use AI for lead gen? Specifically, analysis and recommendations to get in front of ideal prospects?

This question sets up the importance of AI prompts.

When I asked Bing AI this question for a wedding industry company with a very low-priced product, I got back some pretty rote answers. For example, “Share success secrets from thought leaders.” and “Create helpful videos to solve issues for prospects.” This is the type of basic advice you’d already find in an SEO-ed up blog post about lead gen.

But then I copied a bunch of reviews for this wedding industry company, pasted this into Claude, and gave it the prompt…

Analyze reviews. Who is the ideal customer for this company?

Claude gave me a series of attributes about the customer. Then I asked Claude…

How can I get in front of this ideal customer?

Some of the recommendations were pretty basic, like “Advertise on wedding planning websites and forums like TheKnot, WeddingWire, etc. Brides often turn to these sites when planning their wedding on a budget. You can sponsor content or run ads.”

But it also came up with this response as well, “Target ads in college towns, where many younger budget-conscious brides get married right after graduation.”

I thought that was a pretty good idea for a low-cost wedding service. An idea I hadn’t thought of when reading the question (although, in fairness, an entrepreneur who has worked in this field for several years might have already considered it).

To show how you can use multiple generative AI tools in tandem (in response to the two previous questions), I then pasted the ideal customer description from Claude into GPT-4 (remember, Claude is better at analyzing large amounts of information) along with the same prompt.

Again, most of the suggestions were pretty obvious to anyone with even a modicum of marketing experience. For example, “Optimize your website and blog content with keywords that this audience would likely use when searching for affordable wedding video solutions. Keywords could include phrases like ‘budget-friendly wedding video,’ ‘DIY wedding video,’ ‘guest-shot wedding video,’ and similar terms.”

So I pushed GPT-4 a little harder and said…

All these answers seem obvious to someone with marketing experience. Give me some truly breakthrough and out-of-the-box ideas.

It gave me seven more ideas, and I thought this one was something really unique that I hadn’t thought of: “Video Capsule Partnerships: Collaborate with a tech company that offers ‘time capsule’ services, where users can send messages (including videos) to their future selves. Couples could use the company to capture their wedding and then ‘send’ the video to be viewed on a future anniversary.”

This won’t generate instant leads, but it would give the company a reason to followup with happy customers down the road, at which point they could offer a referral bonus.

So I got two original ideas after only spending a few minutes with some AI tools. Not a bad ROI. If I really engaged deeply for an hour or more, if I was the entrepreneur and it was my business, I probably would have gotten much more from the generative AI tools.

The biggest point is – AI can feel like magic. And it is in a sense, but not the way we normally talk about magic as waving a wand and getting an instant, amazing result.

Magic in the real world is a carefully crafted illusion, powered by hard work and a keen methodology. And AI is no different.

You can’t just ask a general question and get an amazing result, usually. But feeding AI tools info about your ideal customer and the design of your offer will produce better results, especially for something as difficult as finding a new way to get in front of your customer.

Check out Marketing Funnel Optimization: A straight-forward guide to design your offer if you are unfamiliar with offer design. And if you’re an AI Guild member, you can go to the briefing notes for this week’s session at MEC200 [08-02-23] to see how Flint McGlaughlin used artificial intelligence to build customer profiles. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the names of people we conducted group coaching for in this week’s LiveClass.

Related Resources

AI Marketing Prompts: 14 prompt examples marketers and entrepreneurs found most useful

MECLABS AI Guild

Every Wednesday, we hold a free Marketing LiveClass as part of ChatGPT, CRO and AI: 40 Days to build a MECLABS SuperFunnel. Everyone is welcome to join and learn, as we build marketing funnels with members of the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort.

In the LiveClass, marketers and entrepreneurs can ask questions in the webinar chat. And we answer them right here…

Hi Dan, I’m trying a new angle on copywriting for one of my products. If you have time to give feedback, I would really appreciate your wisdom. I also know you’re super busy, so no pressure. I also know you’re the master of copywriting, so your guidance is invaluable. Thanks for all your wisdom. I’ll load it into Notion later today. Here’s the link: [anonymized]

Here’s the CFO: To help motivated volunteers in the church boost their ministry effectiveness and gain spiritual confidence by giving them 4 theology/ministry courses (“Advanced Bootcamp”) in exchange for a cash payment and a significant investment of time.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Let’s see if I can help.

First, let’s define copywriting. I define copywriting as ‘Helping the customer come to the best decision about a brand, product or conversion goal.’ (from Marketing 101: Copywriting vs. copy editing vs. content writing). And this person had taken a step in that direction, starting with a CFO (customer-first objective).

I don’t think it would be practical or fair to paste their entire page in here, but I also don’t want you to focus too much on what his copy says, but rather understand the principles of how you can optimize your own copy.

I also cannot definitively say whether the copywriting will be successful or not, because I am not the landing page’s ideal customer. But I think I can best help this person (and you) by calling out how the different levels of value proposition should appear on a landing page.

The landing page should primarily focus on one of the levels of value proposition. But for most landing pages (and certainly this landing page) all four levels should be present, usually with the other three levels supporting the main one you are focused on. (If you are unfamiliar with value proposition levels, you can read Customer Value: The 4 essential levels of value propositions).

So let’s look at those levels:

Product-level value proposition

This page is focused on the Advanced Bootcamp, which consists of the courses. The page clearly informs people what they are getting (“4 precisely selected courses”), has a section for each course that explains what it will enable the participant to achieve, discusses the elements of the course (video lecture, downloadable charts, etc.).

You’re probably doing this pretty well on your product-focused pages as well, so I won’t dwell here. You likely understand the basics of communicating what is involved with your product.

Prospect-level value proposition

According to the customer-first objective stated above, the prospect this page is focusing on is “motivated volunteers in the church.”

However, the tone of the copy is not what I would expect for that audience. “You’re a happy little Christian gerbil,” “It’s too hard. You don’t have enough time. Your brain will hurt. It costs too much. You’ll want your mommy,” “Fix Your Boring, Lame, Mediocre Spiritual Life.”

Again, I am not the ideal customer, but my best guess is this copy will turn off more of the ideal prospect than it will attract.

Remember, it’s not just what you say with your copy. But how you say it.

So one of two things has to happen. Either the Customer-First Objective has to change with a clear definition of exactly what subset of those motivated volunteers the copy will attract.

Or the copy needs to change so the tone speaks to the desired prospect.

If your prospect stays the same, what is the resulting experience of the tone of language like “G-d, , Jesus, Church, blah, blah, blah?” Does this emphasize the importance and relevance of spirituality in the ideal customer’s life? Would replacing phrases like “treadmill” and “happy little Christian gerbil trotting endlessly nowhere” with more positive and empowering language better speak to the ideal customer?

In the case of this page, I suspect much of this is intentional and the result of some deep thought. As the questioner mentioned, he is “trying a new angle.” But I would argue this is much more than a new angle. This is changing your ideal prospect. And so it is worth the time to change the Customer-First Objective, and force yourself to first clearly define who exactly the prospect is that you are trying to serve with this copy.

With that exercise, a few things may happen:

• It may help you better target your ads
• You may realize there is not a big enough total addressable market
• You may identify new ways to reach that audience
• You may find new avenues for messaging

I’ll give you an example. Right now, the product is called an Advanced Bootcamp. And the primary visual is a big black boot. However, that title and that visual connote to me the military. And the military is known more as a group that can strictly follow a rigorous process without dissent.

But the way the copy is written, I would define the ideal prospect as “demotivated Christians who haven’t found the right church to volunteer for, have a deep soulful connection to the faith but feel disconnected, cast out, and overlooked by church doctrine and/or communities.”

Now this might connote a different name for the product. How about the Faith Rebellion Experience. SoulFire Quest. Spiritual Reboot. I’m not sure any of these are the right names. But having a clearer definition of the prospect, we can better tailor the name – a key element of the copywriting – to connote that this is a product that is for people like them.

Process-level value proposition

The CTA buttons have a similar tone. “Let’s Kick the Devil in the Teeth. Clicking can be hazardous to your apathy.” “Get Off the Couch and Into the Battle. CAUTION: Clicking Here Will Wreck Your Excuses.”

These are evocative.

What they aren’t is clear.

You may get a curiosity click. But the challenge is, the next page is not something that would pay off clickbait. It’s a cart page (with supporting value in the right-hand side) that has a form for credit card info and a purchase.

It also has a line that says, “You have a free 24-hour inspection period. After that, your card will be charged.” So maybe you could change the CTA to “Get Free Preview” and change “inspection” on the cart to “preview.”

A few other thoughts to help this particular questioner as well as other readers:

• The buttons don’t look like buttons. Make sure your buttons look like something that can be clicked on. Compounding this problem, they have really long CTAs. For example, the first CTA is 15 words long. I was a little confused on where I can click. These looked like pull-quote boxes to me.
• Above one of the CTAs, we see four markdowns on the price from $16,500 to $387. This strains credulity. If the markdown is really this big, it needs a pretty compelling explanation for why. Otherwise, this will feel like a hype-y sale, not like help. Nobody wants to be sold, they want to be helped (look back to the definition of copywriting at the beginning of this blog post). Especially for an educational and faith-based product like this, trust and the feeling of not being sold to are essential.
• Is this even the right process-level value proposition? If you were selling socks or cameras, a process-level value prop focused on adding to cart and putting in a credit card number might make sense. But this is an online course. You do give a free 24-hour “inspection period.” But could you give the first full session for free? You have a full page of hype-y copy explaining how this is going to shift my paradigm, so let me actually see it!

As Anton Chekhov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” The best copywriting shows, it doesn’t tell. And the best way to show the value is not with sales copy, but by giving them a taste of the actual experience (when possible).

Primary value proposition

What organization is standing behind this product? Why should I believe they will deliver on all these promises?

Especially in this case when the task is so big – to challenge one’s approach to their religion.

There are typical, good evidentials on this page – “40+ years, written over 27 books.” (written over 27 books? So… is that 28 books?)

But is there enough primary value prop there to get someone to act? If you are challenging their approach to their faith, shouldn’t we know more about why you are uniquely qualified to do this? Why the ideal customer should trust you?

This is a deep, and difficult, question to answer. And it will take more than simple evidentials. Frankly if you can crack that, you will likely unlock many insights that will help your organization better communicate its value to potential customers.

In addition, the footer of the page has no email address, phone number, physical mailing address, links to social media accounts, nothing that would help me build trust in the organization behind this offering and let me know it isn’t some sort of scam.

I appreciate today’s clarity, so let me expand a bit because I feel you’ll be able to provide a bit more depth on it. I also provided a super quick overview of exactly what they get out of the offer (60-minute consult). The rest is mainly a discussion on what I asked at the very end with my own struggles in intelligence, competency and meshing it all with AI.

This SuperFunnel cohort member is using some of the thought tools included as part of the program to help discover the most effective value proposition for his offer. By interviewing customers and reviewing competitors, he uncovered some elements of value he didn’t realize when he came up with the value proposition on his own, using his gut.

Getting this outside perspective can help us challenge our own assumptions and unlock value that truly matters to the ideal customer when communicated on our websites.

You can do this by interviewing potential customers. But also, what feedback are you already collecting in your organization and how can you systematize it? How can that better inform your primary value prop, but every level of value prop as well…including the process-level value proposition of your website’s usability. Here’s a quick example – “In our customer service group, we found that 50% of their calls at times were based on ‘I can’t find my order status,’” said Matt Clark, Global Head of eCommerce and Digital Marketing, Newark Element14 (from Customer-centric Marketing: How market research and listening to customers informs website optimization).

But when you get this outside research and go through this corporate soul searching, you end up with… a lot. And then when you add AI to the mix to help with competitive analysis, you have a lot more to work with.

At this point in the process the element of the value prop we need to focus on is clarity. We need to winnow, pare down, simplify, condense. There shouldn’t be one unnecessary or unclear word in our offer value proposition statement. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

And this is the struggle facing this particular cohort member. He’s doing some smart and impressive stuff. And in his Customer-First Objective, he discusses what the customer can get out of the offer, but he doesn’t carry that through to his offer value proposition. For this reason, I question if his value prop is clear enough. For example, “streamlines processes through augmented intelligence systems.”

While the value prop isn’t the direct language in your marketing, I worry language like that isn’t the sharpened tip of the spear this business owner needs to clarify his marketing. What does that stuff do for the customer?

He opens the value prop by talking about “increases profits and reduces expenses.” But does that really clarify anything? Really, what B2B product or service doesn’t help a business owner increase profits or reduce expenses?

However, he knows how to winnow, simplify, and clarify for his customers. His main deliverable takes a lot of different data and puts it into a simple dashboard (it’s so much harder to simplify communication about our own work).

So how could he answer the offer value proposition question, “If I am your ideal customer, why should I act on your offer rather than offers from any of your competitors?”

That deliverable may be the tangible piece he leads with. “Because [ideal customer described] will get a dashboard that simplifies complex data needed to make key business decisions that affect costs and profitability. This dashboard is the only [ideal customer] tool powered by [a very high-level explanation of the business process here, supported underneath by evidentials]…”

This isn’t exactly right, of course. And may be way off. But it’s an example of how we can add the tangible to our value props and clarify the value the customer will receive…which is especially difficult for a complex offering.

Should the OVP include specific evidentials?

Yes, your offer value proposition should include specific evidentials. Credibility is one of the elements of a forceful value proposition. Every claim you make should be verified. Or else, why would your ideal customer believe it?

That said, to keep the value prop clear and simple (as discussed above) the best way to use evidentials is with footnotes. Put a superscript number by each claim that needs to be verified in your value prop, and then include that number below the value prop with the evidentials supporting it.

To give you ideas for evidentials for your value prop, you can read my former colleague’s attempt to create an evidential for a hypothetical car dealership I might own in Value Proposition: 3 techniques for standing out in a highly competitive market.

Question for Daniel’s next article: What role does SEO play in our current climate? We’re talking about paid ads… is that the best way forward? Thanks.

I’m sure by now you can see I love quotes. A great way to learn from the wisdom of the ages. So let me remixed Robert Frost who said, “The best way out is always through” to tell you that “the best way forward is always through…the customer’s eyes.”

Because the customer should be your focus. Yes, the current macro-climate is important. But the most important climate is the micro-climate. How do they want to receive information? Where do they look for answers to meet the pain point you are addressing or goal you are trying to help them achieve?

And don’t just put yourself in an SEO-or-paid-digital-ads box. Consider every conceivable option.

For example, our own research has shown that consumers trust print ads in newspapers and magazines more than any other advertising channel when making a purchase decision (see Marketing Chart: Which advertising channels consumers trust most and least when making purchases). Or as The Wall Street Journal reported, rising digital-advertising costs are leading many brands to open old-fashioned physical stores (see Digital Rebels Want Real Stores Now.)

So the real answer isn’t the current climate. The real answer is hammering out a go-to-market model for your business. For ideas on that, you can listen to Episode #58 of How I Made It In Marketing. Shruti Joshi, COO, Facet, describes her GTM approach at Verizon and at her current organization (listen to Marketing Operations: Process is the foundation for success).

You are welcome to join us on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. EDT to watch and learn from a Marketing LiveClass. You can RSVP now by clicking this link. Here are excerpts from recent LiveClasses to give you an idea of what you can experience…

Be Passionate about the Marketing Challenge You Are Trying to Solve

Chris Berkenkamp Talks about the Most Important Things He Learned from the MECLABS Cohort

Every Wednesday we hold a free Marketing LiveClass as part of ChatGPT, CRO and AI: 40 Days to build a MECLABS SuperFunnel. Marketers and entrepreneurs ask questions in the webinar chat. And we answer them right here…

Do you see it to be an issue that we’re all designing first for desktop and analyzing pages on desktop, but the majority of traffic will likely be on mobile. Is it a best practice to design for mobile first?

It is a best practice to put the ideal customer first. If the ideal customer is more likely to be using a mobile phone, then yes, start with a mobile landing page. Even better if you focus on the most popular device size (if you have a website already, you can find this info in your analytics).

But don’t stop there. How else can you put the customer first?

• Speed first – how fast is the connection where they are located? Some nations and areas have faster connections than others. If they are in an area with a slow-loading page, you should start by stripping the page down to its essence and only adding an element if it’s absolutely necessary.
• Contact-preference first – Phone? Email? Chat? Social media? How do they want to contact your company? You should likely provide several options, but for a landing page that revolves around an action, make sure you are starting with the action most preferable to the customer.
• Price first (or not) – Is the ideal customer more likely to want a deal? Or care less about price and more about service or durability? Lead with what is most valuable to them by, for example, including a coupon code front and center.

These are just some ideas to get you thinking about how to put the customer first. And if you do have an ideal customer that is likely to be on mobile, this article may help give you some mobile-specific ideas – Exploring the Mobile Customer Experience: Three discoveries for designing an effective mobile experience.

But a word of caution – don’t just design for mobile first because it’s a general best practice. Remember, it’s only a best practice if the majority of your brand’s ideal customers are accessing your landing pages with a mobile device. There are still likely many companies that would better serve their customer with desktop-first (or perhaps laptop-first) designs – for example, B2B companies or those serving older customers.

And lastly – a thank you to this questioner. One reason I hope Flint McGlaughlin and I have been able to add value to participants of the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort is by bringing the MECLABS methodology and conversion psychology to bear on their funnel, their ads, and their landing pages as we offer conversion optimization and marketing strategy suggestions.

But another reason I’ve brought value is because I’m simply not steeped in their business every day. I have an outside perspective. As Mark Twain said, an expert is just “an ordinary fellow from another town.” Being from another town, I can help point out their blind spots.

The SuperFunnel Cohort community has helped point out my blind spots as well. And this was one. I have provided optimization suggestions to many cohort participants’ landing pages, but I don’t think I ever challenged them to design for mobile first. Thanks to this questioner, I realize that this is a really obvious approach I overlooked.

But that’s how blind spots are, right? You don’t notice them at all. Until one day someone points it out to you, and then it seems breathtakingly obvious.

As an attendee, what’s the best way to get started with AI?

I like that this questioner didn’t ask – “what’s the easiest way to get started with artificial intelligence?” They asked for the best way to get started with artificial intelligence.

And I would say – take a look at the answer above. Don’t begin with AI, just like you shouldn’t necessarily begin with mobile. Begin with the customer:

1. What goals does the customer want to achieve in their life? What challenges do they want to overcome?
2. If you find many answers to Question #1 that have nothing to do with your brand…fantastic! You’re doing it right. You’re laser focused on your ideal customer, not your own self-interest. However, unless you have chosen the wrong addressable market, your brand should be able to help with some of those things. So how can your brand help?
3. Break down your answers to Question #2 into two buckets – ways that require a monetary payment from the customer (this is your “product”), and ways that do not require monetary payment (this is your “marketing”).
4. Now, how can you deliver the value identified in Question #3? This is where you discover what role artificial intelligence can play.

The rest is experimentation. Experimenting with AI tools to see how they can deliver that value. But also, conducting marketing experiments to see if the addition of artificial intelligence is helping you “move the needle” in your funnel. We answer questions about running tests in Marketing Experimentation: Answers to marketers’ and entrepreneurs’ questions about marketing experiments.

+1000 Daniel, when everyone has AI and a bot, who cares that you do?

In fairness, this isn’t a question, so to speak. The participant agreed with something I said in the LiveClass.

But I included it, because it is the reason for the four-step framework I gave to address the previous question.

When you approach your marketing with a technology-first mindset, someone else will always be breathing down your neck. Ready to replicate or outpace your success. Always ready with a better, faster, cheaper technology.

Which is why you should approach these types of decisions – yes, even technology decisions…especially technology decisions – with a value-proposition first mindset. This is how epic brands are built, and how you architect a sustainable competitive advantage.

Here’s a great example. Anyone can put an AI-powered chatbot on their site. But Medieval Times implemented a chatbot that helped communicate the dinner theater’s value proposition. You can read how they did it in – Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Marketing: What marketers (even those who don’t care about tech) should know about AI and ML.

Incidentally enough, we published that article in the Middle Ages of AI – September 23^rd, 2022…more than two months before ChatGPT’s launch as a public prototype on November 30^th. However, in my (biased) opinion, the takeaways discussed in the article are just as relevant today because we focused (less) on the technology itself and more on the humans behind it – the ideal ‘customer’ for our content, marketers and entrepreneurs.

How can I join the next cohort?

How can I join a cohort? Is there info on that? I have purchased MarketingSherpa books and watched videos, but would love active feedback on my new project

At the end of the LiveClass, we answered questions about joining the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort. Feel free to join us for a Wednesday LiveClass to get ideas for your marketing funnel, and if you stick around to the end, we’ll answer your questions as well.

Here are some quick experts from previous LiveClasses:

Can we put all 8 micro-yes(es) on the landing page?

How do we measure the strategy?

How do we weigh the appeal or exclusivity of a claim?

Here is a summary of this week’s MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass. It was written with the help of artificial intelligence, part of our exploration into using AI in marketing (scroll down to the Process section if you are curious for how it was written).

On March 1, 2022, MECLABS Institute hosted a LiveClass on “Ad Optimization.” The session was conducted by Flint McGlaughlin, the Founder and Managing Director of MECLABS Institute. The session was insightful and provided valuable insights into the world of advertising optimization. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the key takeaways from the LiveClass transcript.

Importance of value proposition

A value proposition is a statement that communicates why a customer should buy from you instead of your competitors. During the LiveClass, Flint emphasized the importance of a strong value proposition. He explained that a value proposition should not only be clear and concise but also differentiated from your competitors. He also mentioned that a value proposition should answer the following questions:

• What is it?
• Who is it for?
• How is it different or better than the alternatives?

The power of clarity

Clarity is an important aspect of any advertisement. Flint explained that an ad should have a clear and concise headline that immediately communicates the value proposition. He also emphasized the importance of using clear and simple language that is easy to understand. He suggested that you should avoid using technical jargon or industry-specific terms that your target audience may not be familiar with.

The importance of testing

The final takeaway from the LiveClass was the importance of testing. Flint explained that optimization is an ongoing process and that you should always be testing different elements of your ads to see what works best. He suggested using A/B testing to test different variations of your ad and measuring the results. He also emphasized that you should not rely on best practices or assumptions but instead let the data guide your decisions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the LiveClass on “Ad Optimization” provided valuable insights into the world of advertising optimization. We discussed the importance of a strong value proposition, the power of clarity, and the importance of testing. By implementing these key takeaways, you can optimize your advertisements and improve your conversion rates.

The process for creating this blog post using artificial intelligence

This is another attempt to use artificial intelligence to create second-level content. Not primary content that needs subject matter expertise, but content that has a rich feedstock of information that needs to be repurposed from one format to the other.

In this case, I took a session of the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort, and created a quick blog post summary. You may try to do something similar by publishing a simple writeup of a webinar, podcast or video.

Should you use an entry-level writer? Or can AI handle this?

I’ll include links to my first two attempts at the bottom of this blog post, and here is a little insight into the third attempt.

This time I tried using the Draft with AI feature in Notion, specifically asking Notion to write a blog post, and then I pasted in a transcript of the LiveClass.

The output was basically a long blog post about me specifically, saying how great I was. This isn’t unique to AI, of course. I’ve had human vendors working for me create press releases and other collateral that made me personally or our brands or events sound just amazing. Everybody wants to please the client, right?

And I’ll be honest, I was tempted to publish that as the blog post and just move on to my next task. It really made me sound pretty darn amazing.

But then I remembered the golden rule of marketing – nobody cares about me. Or our brands.

They care about themselves.

So I tried the same process again. As I’ve mentioned before, using sometimes you can use the same prompt twice and got very different results from artificial intelligence. The blog post was different the second time, but still was all about me. It sounded like a letter of recommendation. I tried a third time. Different again, but about me again. OK, I can’t resist, here is a quick bit of it…

Daniel Burstein: A Leadership Example

Leadership comes in many forms, and Daniel Burstein is an excellent example of how a leader can bring people together to achieve a goal… in this blog post, we will explore three key aspects of Burstein’s leadership style: his ability to create a sense of community, his willingness to help others, and his focus on achieving goals…

I mean, who can argue with that, amiright? In all seriousness, I just couldn’t bring myself to publish a full blog post like that.

So I tried a different approach. As I’ve written about before, even a slightly different approach can bring wildly varied results from AI.

I created a page in Notion with the transcript. (Note: A transcript will probably be so long that you can’t just paste it into a Page, you actually have to import the original text file).

And then I created another Page in Notion and told the AI to write a blog post about… and pasted in the link to the transcript page.

This time it created the full blog post we published above.

I didn’t like the title though, so I went into the OpenAI Playground, and asked it to come up with a title for this post.

And then of course – human oversight, although this only needed some very light editing.

On the upside, Notion helped overcome one of the challenges I was having with ChatGPT – that the transcripts were too long to paste in. And while still pretty basic, this may be the best AI-generated summary blog post yet. Here are the two previous posts, and I’ll let you judge for yourself.

MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass: A recap of AI, marketing strategies, and collaborative learning

Lessons Learned from a MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass: A marketer’s perspective

March 3rd Update: This blog post was originally called “Gain Valuable Insights into Landing Page Optimization…” until Hellie wrote to me with an excellent point – Wednesday’s LiveClass was actually about ad optimization, not landing page optimization. I question why I didn’t notice this obvious error, which I surely would have from a human writer. I think I was so amazed that the AI had come up with a summary focused on a specific topic, since previous versions were much more generic, like “a marketer’s perspective.” And, in fairness, we did extensively address LPO in many LiveClasses before this.

The irony of course is – I’ve been writing (and thinking) and cautioning so much about the blindspots AI can cause because we are so wowed by the parlor trick that we overlook the obvious. And yes, even being conscious of it, I fell victim to this blindspot myself. Thanks for pointing that out, Hellie!

Here is a summary of the February 22^nd MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass, written by artificial intelligence (scroll down to the Process section if you are curious for how it was written).

The MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort recently conducted a LiveClass, which attracted a diverse group of marketers from different backgrounds. The participants shared their experiences, insights, and suggestions on various aspects of digital marketing, from AI to headlines. Here are some of the key takeaways from the LiveClass.

AI as collaborators rather than doppelgangers

One of the participants suggested that AI should be viewed as collaborators rather than doppelgangers. In other words, AI should be used to enhance human life rather than replace it. The participant added that businesses should focus on using AI to augment their existing processes and workflows, rather than trying to replace humans with machines.

Headlines should contain four value words

Another participant noted that headlines should contain four value words. The participant added that these value words should address the customers’ pain points and offer a solution to their problems. Another suggestion was to include the words “you” and “your” in the headlines, which could help to make them more personal and engaging.

Tips and ideas for marketing a new product

During the LiveClass, participants discussed various marketing ideas for a product, including sample stands in local supermarkets, geotargeting filters on ads, and shipping free samples in a time of inflated shipping costs. One participant suggested that the product’s entire step-by-step handmade recipe could be shared as a marketing strategy, emphasizing the ancient human craftsmanship and unending tradition.

Another participant jokingly suggested that the taste profile could be converted to binary so customers could download the taste to their cerebral cortex. Some participants suggested selling the product to restaurants or stores instead of individuals. The participants also discussed the importance of storytelling in marketing and how it can create an emotional connection with customers.

Tips for creating a compelling landing page for a free ebook about logos

One participant submitted a landing page with a free ebook about logos.

The participants discussed the importance of a good logo in building trust with potential customers. They suggested that the design of a page should be more breathtaking if a company wants potential customers to trust them with their logo. Participants recommended showcasing recognizable logos of companies the design team has supported. They also suggested analyzing the company’s own logo to demonstrate their expertise and convey the logic behind the choice of every aspect of the logo.

Participants suggested creating an infographic that dissects the company’s logo to provide a visual representation of their expertise. They also recommended creating a personal value proposition to help businesses develop their brand identity. Overall, participants agreed that a good logo is a crucial element in building trust with potential customers.

Overall, the LiveClass provided marketers and entrepreneurs with various creative marketing strategies to help them promote their products effectively. It was a valuable learning experience for marketers. The participants shared their experiences, insights, and suggestions on various aspects of digital marketing. The key takeaways from the LiveClass highlight the importance of using AI as collaborators, crafting effective headlines, and paying attention to website design.

The process for creating this blog post using artificial intelligence

When I tried this last week, I went into much more detail about the process for using AI, and thoughts for using AI for content creation. You can read that in Lessons Learned from a MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass: A marketer’s perspective.

The basic thrust for using AI is – for something simple like summarizing a webinar, is AI good enough? Should you use an entry-level human writer? Or do you need a skilled, experienced human writer with deep subject matter expertise? One of the participants of the LiveClass summed it up well by discussing marginal returns – when it’s not worth trying 50% harder to get a 1.4% improvement.

The goal this time was to use the transcript from the LiveClass as the feedstock for the AI. So first we attempted to use Fathom. But Fathom only works with Zoom Meetings, not Zoom Webinars. So that didn’t work.

Then I tried to use ChatGPT and paste the transcript in. But that didn’t work either. The transcript was over 22,000 words, too long for ChatGPT. ChatGPT recommended about 1,000 words.

So I decided to go back to what I used last week – the chat log. This provides an extra filter, adding the wisdom of the community. Of course, filters have an upside and a downside. The downside being that you’re not learning from the teaching directly.

Even this was too long for ChatGPT, at over 5,000 words. So I had to cut it into thirds.

This brings up another challenge with ChatGPT. Even if you give it the same exact prompt, it will create different outputs each time (there must be some level of randomness programmed into it).

Not ideal for having a blog post with a consistent voice. Although after some tinkering with different prompts, I was able to get something close to uniformity in voice.

The most effective prompt had the least amount of information. “Write a blog post based on a MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass. Here is the first third of the chat from the LiveClass.”

This worked better than prompts discussing the target audience or asking for transferable principles or key takeaways. I found ChatGPT used those prompts like an entry-level SEO writer fond of keyword stuffing. It just repeated those words and synonyms of them throughout (trying to please me, I guess?) When I just asked it to write a blog post with less info, it seemed to use natural language processing more to determine what the chat was actually about. There was also more consistency of voice with this approach.

And then, of course, it required human insight and oversight, although I tried to use a very light editor’s touch, since the purpose of these blog posts is not just to give you a summary of the LiveClasses, but also, to further all of our knowledge in using artificial intelligence (paired with human intelligence) in our marketing and content creation.

So this was another step on our journey into the future.

Here is a summary of the February 15^th LiveClass with the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort. I have the byline, but in truth I didn’t really write this like the articles I normally write. I was just the content generator (or AI writer or automated content writer if you prefer) and used artificial intelligence to create these key takeaways.

At the end of this blog post I share the process I used to create it. This goes along with a key aspect of these cohorts – to experiment with AI tools and see how they can help optimize a marketing funnel.

Hopefully these AI-derived summaries give you an idea or two for improving your own marketing.

Lessons from a Marketing Class: Zoom chat highlights, Part 1

In this marketing class conducted on Zoom, the participants discussed various topics, ranging from ChatGPT’s behavior to the weather in different parts of the world. In addition to marketing-related topics, they discussed the power of community building, and the use of search engines like Bing and Google.

The participants concluded that search engines were increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence, which in turn could be used to further their marketing goals.

One participant noted that “Ads will be much more targeted with this type of information,” suggesting that marketing campaigns are becoming increasingly personalized and data-driven thanks to AI. Another participant shared an infographic of Google Trends showing the popularity of searches related to “Microsoft Bing,” underlining the impact artificial intelligence is already having on the competition between search engines.

The participants discussed the potential implications of artificial intelligence on marketing, noting that AI-driven insights can help brands better understand customer behavior and preferences and create more targeted and effective campaigns.

The participants also discussed the importance of gathering feedback and comments from their audience and then ranking them to determine which ones are most valuable. When asked for feedback on what the cost of the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort should be, they even joked about splitting a hypothetical $100M equally among themselves.

Overall, the class served as a reminder that marketing is about understanding your audience and building a strong community around your brand. Businesses can create more effective and personalized marketing campaigns by gathering feedback, keeping up with the latest trends, and using tools such as AI.

For example, by using customer feedback to understand their needs and wants, businesses can tailor their marketing campaigns to appeal to their target audience, such as offering discounts or special promotions.

Lessons from a Marketing Class: Zoom chat highlights, Part 2

This is a summary of a MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass that was conducted on Zoom. The chat took place at a frantic pace and covered a wide range of topics, which are summarized below:

• BG suggested skipping ChatGPT and heading straight to openai.com.
• DF suggested using Flint’s account.
• The group shared laughter, with JF, TW, and IS using emojis.
• MP noted his preference for OpenAI’s sandbox, despite it not being as conversational in historical referencing.
• BH shared a link to the page [LINK]
• DC made a joke about having tripled his dose of phenobarbital and now being unfazed by K’s page.
• DJ shared his experience of helping a client increase their project rates from $4,000 to $10,973. He credited the increase to helping the client see the value of their work and finding the right clientele. He wondered if the same principles could be applied to the SuperFunnel course and its clients.
• KB expressed her dislike of images with text that are unreadable, noting that they are a bad experience for accessibility and a risk in the USA.
• CG praised B’s work and suggested that the testimonials on his page should include the name of the client’s company.
• DF suggested breaking the instant access form into steps to make it less intimidating.
• HI shared links to three pages: [LINK], [LINK], and [LINK]

The chat was lively and covered a wide range of topics, from humor to serious business advice. It is a testament to the value of the SuperFunnel course that so many people from different backgrounds and locations came together to share their experiences and insights.

This kind of interaction is key to fostering a community of entrepreneurs who are willing to share their experiences with others and help each other succeed. The SuperFunnel course provides a platform for this kind of engagement and encourages its students to build a network of like-minded individuals.

The Process – Can you use artificial intelligence to create written content from your webinars, meetings, classes, etc?

Every content marketer tries to squeeze the most juice from her content, taking information from one medium and bringing it into another. For example, repurposing content from a live event and then sharing videos, transcripts, blog posts, articles, audio podcasts, social media posts, slides, reports, etc., etc.

I like to think of this as secondary content. Primary content is original and requires a subject matter expert of some sorts. But for secondary content, you don’t need a creator with subject matter expertise – just the ability to communicate. I’ve used a more junior writer for this in the past, an intern could do it as well, and we’ve even had this in writer tests before we make a hire.

But to borrow from the GEICO ad, is this so simple even an AI could do it?

Judge for yourself. You can see the AI-written summary blog post above. And you can compare it to previous blog posts I’ve written after LiveClasses of the SuperFunnel Research Cohort – Marketing Funnel Strategy: 3 principles to help you make a high-converting landing page and Lead Generation: Generating business from an ebook, infographic, etc.

I’d like to think mine are better than what the AI wrote, but maybe they’re not? Or how much better do they really need to be? When creating content, I’m often weighted down by the need to deliver enough value to the reader or listener. That is difficult and time consuming. But have I overdone it? And is what the AI created enough?

Of course, the artificial intelligence didn’t create this on its own. It took work from me to engineer. And you may use the same (or different) AI tools to get a better result. AI is still just a tool, and you are the craftsman. A paintbrush, and you are the painter.

So here’s how I wielded the paintbrush in case you would like to do it as well, or let me know a better process.

STEP #1: Determine the source material

I could have used a transcript of the audio from the LiveClass. And I may in the future.

But I decided to use the chat log instead. So the wisdom of the community served as the basis of content before AI was even involved. There is a very active, experienced community on these LiveClasses and they bring up a lot of good and helpful information. If you don’t have an active community in your chat for webinars or other meetings, this may not work as well for you.

STEP #2: Determine the artificial intelligence technology you are going to use

I started with ChatGPT, because, well, the hype is to the moon for it right now.

But I’m a writer at heart, and while ChatGPT can provide good information, I’m not always sure it has the best wording. So, I used Wordtune as well to copy edit and suggest better wording.

Wordtune, with its Spices feature, can also help add content that punches up the copy, and I figure two AI (brains? neural networks?) are better than one.

STEP #3: Craft prompts to get a rough draft

The chat transcript was too long to paste into ChatGPT. And when I asked ChatGPT how long of a discussion I could use, I got the evasive type of answer you would expect from a politician who’s hand was just caught in the cookie jar, not the crisp analytical answer I was expecting of a specific character count.

As an AI language model, I can process queries of various lengths, and there is no hard limit on the length of a query. However, it’s important to keep in mind that longer queries may take longer to process, and may also be more difficult for me to understand and provide a relevant response. So, it’s generally best to keep your queries concise and focused on the information you’re looking for.

When I cut the chat in half, that did the trick. So I did it twice (hence the two parts above). The first prompt I gave was:

Here is the first half of a chat from a marketing class conducted on Zoom. Please write a blog post summarizing this class so other marketers and entrepreneurs can learn from it

I then asked it for a title, and got “Zoom Chat Highlights: Lessons from a Marketing Class.”

After getting that summary, I realized I missed a huge opportunity for specificity (and, frankly, branding) by mentioning the name of the Zoom meeting. So here is the prompt I gave with the second half of the chat transcript:

Here is the second half of a chat from a MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort LiveClass conducted on Zoom. Please write a blog post summarizing this class so other marketers and entrepreneurs can learn from it

I then asked it for a title as well for that version. I ultimately went with this title for this blog post because I liked it better. I passed the title through Wordtune before using it (see next step).

The upside of using artificial intelligence – it provided a different perspective than I would have. For example, the AI discussed some of the humanity of the chat – “the group shared laughter” or “discussed the weather around the world” – while I would have left that out and focused more on helpful information to marketers.

It’s kind of ironic, too, because Flint McGlaughlin and I have discussed at length the importance of making a community about more than just information, and that if we shared video of the LiveClasses we should include some of the camaraderie and fun that has been built up. Even knowing that though, I would have totally missed adding it in.

It’s also interesting that the two parts ChatGPT crafted are so radically different. My prompts were slightly different, as you can see above. And the LiveClass did have two parts – the first half was more informational, and the second half was more interactive as Flint and I provided live conversion optimization suggestions to the community’s landing pages.

But I also question if this is just part of the randomness of AI. If I did this 10 times, would I just get 10 totally different styles. Is this an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters? Is there consistency or just randomness and luck? Something to watch as use of AI progresses.

And really, ChatGPT is called “conversational AI,” but it’s a pretty bad conversation. I give a command and it outputs a response. It would work much better if (like a real human would in a conversation) it asked clarifying questions to hone in on what you really want and how it can help. In this (in fairness, very early) version of conversational AI, too much rests on how well or how clearly you state your prompt, so you need to try multiple prompts and prompt stacking, which lessens the time savings from using AI.

It reminds me of a question I asked Siri recently, “Can you eat the rind of brie cheese?” to which it responded, “I cannot.” When I worded the question better, I discovered the real answer to my question – yes, the rind is edible.

STEP #4: Edit the rough draft

To edit the rough draft, I used Wordtune, an AI writing tool that offers AI-powered writing suggestions.

The tool did some copy editing, although ChatGPT was pretty good there. I’ve heard this function of Wordtune derided because Microsoft Word has similar features. But as I’m sitting here typing, Word is suggesting to me that I change ChatGPT to Catgut…even though Microsoft has invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT. So my hope is that Wordtune – an online, AI-driven service – has more updated copy editing than Word.

Wordtune offered rewrite suggestions. ChatGPT often wrote in passive voice, and Wordtune changed it to active voice.

It also offered some good wording suggestions. Although sometimes, in fairness, ChatGPT had a little more personality, which surprised me. For example, when writing about the conversation in part 2, ChatGPT described the chat as having a “frantic” pace while Wordtune suggest “fast-paced.” Fast-paced is more professional and business like, so would probably have been the better word to use. And it was probably a more accurate word. But I enjoyed the humanity (can I say that about AI writing?) of “frantic,” so I kept that in.

The thing I really liked about Wordtune, though, was the Spices feature. It’s meant to “spice up your writing” based on some input you give it. It can explain, add emphasis, give a counterexample, and on and on.

This is where the two AI brains came in. There was ChatGPT’s description, and then Wordtune adding to it. Kind of like sports announcers – play-by-play and color commentary.

Incidentally, since the second half was just a bulleted run down of what individual participants did, it would not have made sense to use the Spices feature in that area.

STEP #5: Fact check and use discretion

My intention was not to put my fingers to keyboard and write anything at all in these summaries. Just orchestrate the two AIs off of each other and choose what worked best.

However, there were a few fact errors. So I manually corrected those. In fairness, any writer who had not attended the LiveClass could have made similar errors if they were not given the video recording and only had the chat log to work with.

I also anonymized the participants’ names (since I didn’t have their permission to use them in this experiment) and the links to their landing pages (since they were all rough drafts that attendees were getting conversion optimization ideas for during the LiveClass).

STEP #6: Determine the byline

As you can see, my byline is on this blog post. I felt comfortable doing that because I transparently told you about the process of using AI. Had I not, and just tried to pass this off as any other blog post I had written, I would not have felt comfortable putting my name on this as the writer.

Content marketing is so effective because it builds trust. So in my opinion, if artificial intelligence creates your content, you should tell your audience.

So was it worth using artificial intelligence to write a blog post? Or should I have just written it myself?

I’m not sure I saved much, if any time, using AI to write the summary in this blog post, and I’m not even counting this lengthy process description I wrote.

First, I’m probably faster than the average writer because of my lengthy experience in this industry. So if you are a slower writer, you might save more time than I did.

Frankly, it took some time playing with the two AI tools and getting it just right.

Of course, this was my first time doing it. If I did this regularly, I would probably get much quicker and more efficient with the process, or even find a better process. And in fairness, I could have used a simpler process, and just taken what ChatGPT gave me directly, not using Wordtune at all.

I also want to point out – artificial intelligence takes some time because it requires human oversight. I worry we can be lulled into a false sense of confidence in what may be an advanced parlor trick. Yes, isn’t it amazing what these machines can do with their intelligence? But I fear they are a bit like Toonces the Driving Cat.

If you’re unfamiliar with the old Saturday Night Live sketch, the people are so impressed the cat is driving them in a car. Isn’t it amazing what the cat can do? Until…

…the cat drives them off a cliff. At which point you get the punch line “Toonces can drive a car, just not very well.”

For marketing leaders, the other question is – would using AI in this situation hurt your ability to grow your team? As I mentioned, this kind of assignment can be great for a junior writer, to build their writing chops and domain acumen in your industry. So will this steal from your bench strength?

No easy answers, at least to me. But when I asked ChatGPT, it had the answer. It told me…

Incorporating AI technology into certain marketing tasks can actually enhance the growth of your team, rather than hurt it. By automating some of the more repetitive and time-consuming tasks, your team can focus on higher-level work that requires a more strategic and creative approach. This means that your team can be more productive, efficient, and effective in their work.

Additionally, AI can serve as a valuable tool for learning and skill-building. For example, an AI-powered writing assistant can provide real-time feedback on grammar, tone, and style, allowing junior writers to learn and improve their writing skills more quickly. This can accelerate their development and help them become more effective writers in a shorter period of time.

Finally, it’s important to note that while AI can automate some tasks, it can never replace the creativity, strategic thinking, and human touch that marketing professionals bring to the table. Therefore, rather than taking away from your bench strength, AI can actually enhance it by freeing up your team’s time and resources to focus on more impactful work.

Related Resources

Sales Funnel and ChatGPT: 6 ways to leverage AI now to develop a powerful value proposition

Artificial Intelligence Case Studies: Two companies that boosted brand awareness with AI and another marketer that used humans instead

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Marketing: What marketers (even those who don’t care about tech) should know about AI and ML

AI Marketing Tools: How marketers are using artificial intelligence to help their campaigns right now