TL;DR

In this episode, you’ll discover 9 ways that AI can help you revolutionize marketing-related activities.

Here are the important links mentioned in the episode:

• MP073: Top 3 Mac AI Tools for Bulletproof Business Data Privacy
• MP074: Unlock Creative Genius: 3 Cutting-Edge AI Brainstorming Hacks for Solopreneurs
• Grammarly AI Writing Tools: https://www.grammarly.com/ai-writing-tools
• Ash Borland’s website: https://www.ashborland.com
• Roland Hüse’s website: https://www.rolandhuse.com

Visit https://macpreneur.com/ai to grab your own copy of the Top 10 AI tools Cheat Sheet that will help you boost your solo business in this fast pacing world.

Summary

The topic I will be discussing is the utilization of AI, specifically generative AI, in enhancing marketing strategies. My focus will be on moving beyond the overwhelm of AI’s buzz and using it effectively in marketing areas such as content marketing, personal branding, and email marketing optimization. Some key tools that will be mentioned include large language models like ChatGPT and image generation tools like DALL-E.

When it comes to content marketing, AI can be incredibly helpful in generating content ideas, titles, and themes that are relevant to our target audience. There are tools like Grammarly that offer AI assistance in drafting initial content, which can be particularly useful for bloggers, podcasters, and social media posts. AI also plays a role in identifying trending keywords for SEO optimization, taking into consideration the knowledge cutoff date of the AI model we are using.

In terms of image generation, AI has the capability to enhance the visual aspects of our content marketing. This means we have access to tools that can help us create visuals for our blogs, social media platforms, and video thumbnails. Additionally, AI can be utilized to optimize personal branding. We can use AI tools to improve our social media profiles and bios, allowing us to assess and enhance alignment with our personal branding.

When it comes to public relations, AI can assist us in crafting press releases and pitches for speaking opportunities. However, it is important to note that there is a caveat regarding the copyright of AI-generated images. To ensure legal protection, it is necessary for human authors to be involved in the process. Finally, AI can also optimize our email marketing efforts. It can help us craft enticing subject lines and provide A/B testing suggestions to improve our call-to-action responses.

Takeaways

1. AI can generate content ideas and draft initial content for various marketing mediums.
2. Tools like Grammarly offer AI-based writing assistance.
3. AI helps identify trending SEO keywords, considering the model’s knowledge cutoff date.
4. AI-generated images enhance visual content but may lack copyright protection.
5. AI can optimize personal branding on social media profiles.
6. In public relations, AI aids in creating press releases and pitches.
7. AI enhances email marketing through engaging subject lines and A/B testing.
8. The effective use of AI in marketing requires understanding its capabilities and limitations.

Full transcript

Teaser

Discover how AI can be your secret weapon for your marketing-related activities.

Stay tuned as I will share a bunch of AI techniques and tools that you can use to implement them.

Problem

Now, whether you’re still on the fence regarding AI or you’ve already started using it, chances are that it’s not clear how AI could help you with your marketing-related activities.

I fully understand because there’s so much noise and buzz around AI at the moment that it’s very easy to be overwhelmed.

Now the funniest thing that I have seen are these kinds of headlines: “65 ChatGPT prompts for marketing” and “190 ChatGPT prompts marketers should use.”

Now, I’m sure that the people who published these blog posts or these articles mean well, but the truth is, these kinds of things don’t really help.

I really like the saying, “If you give a man a fish, you will eat for one day. If you teach a man to fish, you will eat for the rest of his life.”

And so, providing a list of prompts is like giving fish.

Solution: Gen AI for marketing

Whereas in this episode, I want to teach you how to fish by introducing easy-to-implement techniques and tools that will help you harness the power of generative AI for marketing.

Now, marketing is a vast subject, so I will focus on three main areas: content marketing, personal branding, and email marketing optimization.

And also, by generative AI, I mean large language models like ChatGPT and image generation tools like DALL-E.

AI for content ideas

Okay, so let’s start with exploring how AI can help us with our content marketing strategy.

So the first thing that we can leverage AI for is generating content ideas, titles, and themes that align with our niche and our ideal customer avatar.

Now, I dove deep into this topic in episode 74, so it’s worth checking it out if you’ve missed it.

Nonetheless, there is one technique that will give you a lot of ideas in the shortest amount of time. It’s the list of the 50 most likely questions that your ICA has about a topic that you can help them with.

And now, I forgot to mention that in the last episode, but a big shout out to Ash Borland at ashborland.com, the host of the mortgage marketing podcast, who actually gave me that idea.

AI for content creation

Now, once you have a list of topics, the next step is to actually create content, whether it’s the blog post, a script for podcasts or videos, or even engaging social media posts.

And so, if you’re a blogger, you can use a free AI tool offered by Grammarly, and I will put the link in the show notes.

This will help you to create a first draft in no time, and the best part is that you don’t even need to have a Grammarly account.

So, you just start by defining your target audience.

Step number two, you will provide a short description of the article or what the article will be about, the desired length, and even specify the tone of voice.

Then, in a few seconds, you will get a first draft.

I don’t know about you, but it’s easier for me to tweak existing text than come up with the first draft. So, this Grammarly tool is by far the easiest.

No need to enter a prompt or a series of prompts. You just enter some background information, click, and voila!

Now, if you’re a podcaster or video creator like me, then you will want AI to help you with your script.

To keep today’s episode short and sweet, I’ve decided to actually dedicate the next episode, episode 76, to sharing how AI helps me streamline the entire podcast production process.

So, make sure to follow this show if you don’t want to miss this episode.

AI for trending keywords

Another way AI can help us is by identifying trending keywords and integrating them into our content to improve our search ranking.

In this case, the knowledge cut-off date of the large language model that you use is very important.

So, always start by entering the following prompt: “What is your knowledge cut-off date?”

At the time of recording, it is December twenty twenty-three, the cut-off date for GPT 3.5 is January twenty twenty-two, and for GPT 4, it is April twenty twenty-three. This means that GPT 4 will likely give me better SEO suggestions than GPT 3.5.

Now, regardless of the LLM that you will use, the best technique that I have found is by using the expertise and specialty role play, combined with the “What do you need to know?” question.

So, here’s an example of a prompt that you could use: “You are an SEO expert specialized in identifying trending keywords to improve the search engine ranking of websites. What do you need to know to help me with that?”

The LLM, the Large Language Model, will tell you exactly what information it needs. So, either you can provide it right away, or you will need to do some more research before continuing the same conversation.

The key message, once again, is that AI is neither a search engine nor an encyclopedia. However, it can be a very helpful assistant and guide once you know how to interact with it.

AI for images

The last thing that I would like to mention when it comes to content marketing is that AI models can also help us generate visuals for blog posts, social media, and even video thumbnails.

Here, the tools that we have at our disposal fall into two broad categories.

On one hand, there are tools that require developing image generation prompting skills.

And then there are other tools that can craft image generation prompts for us.

Now, most image generation tools fall into the first category, like DiffusionBee, a free Mac application that I explored in episode 73.

Now, if, like me, you want something quick, then you will want to use tools from the second category.

If you already use Canva, there is a magic media feature that allows you to describe what you want in the picture. You can choose a style, an aspect ratio, and then it will create images for you.

And if you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you can simply ask GPT4, which will in turn create the best prompt possible for DALL-E 3.

Last week, I gave a presentation about generative AI at the University of Luxembourg, and the vast majority of illustrations and background images that I used for that keynote presentation were created with ChatGPT 4 and DALL-E 3.

And best of all, I didn’t even need to iterate. The first option was always spot on. The only thing I had to do for one image was just to crop it because it was not entirely centered.

AI for social media bios and profiles

Okay, the second area of marketing where AI can help us is personal branding.

Now, within this, AI can help optimize our social media bios and profiles.

On the text side, you could submit your current LinkedIn tagline and about section to a large language model and ask it to review how they align with your brand and expertise.

So for this, you can either write it down or provide one or more links to your website.

It could be the homepage, the about page, for instance.

And you can do this again with the ChatGPT Plus subscription using the plugins feature.

Now, leveraging the expertise and specialization technique, here is a prompt that you could use for your LinkedIn tagline and about section.

So here’s the prompt.

“You are a personal branding expert specialized in crafting relevant LinkedIn bios and profiles to accurately reflect one’s brand and expertise

Here is my current tagline: <PASTED TAGLINE>

Here is my current about section: <PASTED ABOUT SECTION>

Now, can you review the tagline and the about section and tell me how they align with my business?

<INFORMATION ABOUT BUSINESS OR LINK TO WEBSITE>

Give a score between 1 and 10, 10 being a perfect alignment.”

When I did that with my LinkedIn profile, ChatGPT gave me a 10 out of 10 for the tagline, so it was already a good tagline.

But for the About section, the score was only a 7 out of 10. In its response, ChatGPT provided recommendations for improvement. This was a good start.

But I went one step further and followed up with another prompt: “Can you draft an updated version of the about section, so that the alignment score would be at least a 9?”

At this point, ChatGPT drafted some subsections entitled “About me,” “What I do,” “My approach,” “Why work with me,” and also “Your journey to Mac mastery.”

Overall, it was a great first draft, and now I can easily tweak and adapt it to my own voice and style.

AI for public relations

Another aspect where AI can help is for public relations content, such as press releases, pitches for speaking opportunities, and responses to media inquiries.

Now, let’s consider the example of a speaking gig. A good first prompt would be:

“You currently work as a public relations expert specialized in pitching persuasive speaking opportunities. What information do you need from me in order to help me with that?”

The LLM will then provide you with the necessary information.

AI for personal branding visuals

And when it comes to personalized visual branding, image generation tools can help us create logos, business card designs, and branded graphics.

Now, there’s a big caveat here.

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, AI-generated images are not eligible for copyright protection because they are not the product of human authorship.

Therefore, if you want to be able to trademark images, you will still need to hire a graphic designer, and in this day and age, finding one that you can trust is really key.

Now, for the Macpreneur logo and the branding palette, I hired Roland Hüse, and I recommend him wholeheartedly.

It’s always a pleasure to work with him.

And if you like the new Macpreneur logo, just let him know on social media.

He’s Roland Hüse Design, in one word, on Instagram.

AI for email subject lines

Okay, so last use case, AI for email marketing optimization.

Now, having people on our email list is only half the battle, right?

The other half is maximizing the chances of them reading our emails and then, acting on them.

So clicking on the call to actions, for instance.

And so for that, an enticing subject line is really key!

Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and I will not speak for a few seconds, to give you a little bit of space to think.

If you need more time, just press pause, and then play again in a few minutes if you need that.

So, here’s the question.

Based on what you’ve learned so far, what first prompt would you enter in a large language model to help you craft an enticing subject line for an email.

Okay, so let me guess, you took the expert specialty approach, right?

So something along the lines of, “Act now as an email marketing expert specialized in crafting enticing subject lines.” That could be a good option.

Now, there are two options when it comes to the next part of the prompt.

The first option, you could ask it what it needs to know to help you.

It’s always a safe option when you’re just starting out, or if the email hasn’t been written yet.

Now, assuming that you have already written the email body, there is a second option that would consist of asking the large language model to suggest five or ten subject line candidates based on the existing content, so the email body itself.

In episode 74, I mentioned a trick of defining what “good” means in the context of YouTube video titles.

And we can apply the same trick now for subject lines.

So the second part of the prompt could be something like:

“Enticing subject lines generate the following emotions: Curiosity, Desire, and Fear.

The best subject lines usually combine either Curiosity and Desire or Curiosity and Fear.

Suggest 10 highly enticing subject lines based on the email body that you will find below.

Split the proposed subject lines into two sections, each containing five candidates.

1) Generates curiosity and desire.

2) Generates curiosity and fear.

Here is the email body:

<PASTED EMAIL BODY TEXT>”

If none of the proposed candidates seem okay to you, you can follow up by asking it to tweak the tone of voice or the maximum number of words.

So an example of a prompt would be:

“Can you shorten them to seven words maximum and use a witty tone of voice?”

That could be an option.

AI for A/B testing suggestions

And so, the last use case when it comes to email marketing would be to offer A/B testing suggestions.

So let’s say that your subscribers open and read your emails, but you are not very satisfied with the number of people who take action.

So you could ask the large language model to suggest variations for the call to action phrase.

And then, provided that your email list is big enough, you could split it into two groups and create two emails, one for each group, having a different call to action.

A/B testing can also be applied to subject lines and even visuals if you feel that it could influence the conversion rate.

Recap

So to recap, I have explored how AI can help us solopreneurs streamline marketing-related activities.

I have covered three main topics: content marketing, personal branding, and email marketing optimization.

For each of them, you’ve discovered practical strategies to leverage the power of AI, especially large language models and image generation tools.

Now, if you’ve never used AI before, I hope this episode has motivated you to start experimenting with it.

And if you’ve already started, I’m curious to know what specific use cases have helped you so far.

You can DM me on Instagram. My handle is MacpreneurFM.

Next and outro

In the next episode, I will share with you how AI helps me prepare and produce the Macpreneur podcast.

That’s it for today.

If you haven’t done it yet, visit macpreneur.com/ai to grab your own copy of the Top 10 AI Tools Cheat Sheet.

This PDF will give you the edge that you need to boost your solo business in this fast-paced world.

Once again, it’s macpreneur.com/ai.

And until next time, I’m Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day.