February 20, 2025 • 27 mins
This episode explores the imperative shift from a digital-first mindset to an AI-first approach in marketing, emphasizing how to incorporate AI into internal processes for enhanced efficiency and creativity. Throughout, I discuss strategic alignment, process documentation, custom AI models, training with quality data, and automation for maximum impact.
• Discussing the transition to an AI-first mindset
• Importance of aligning AI with marketing objectives
• Utilizing AI as a second opinion for marketing strategies
• Documenting processes for optimized marketing activities
• Creating custom GPTs tailored to brand needs
• Training AI with quality data for better outputs
• Scaling efficiencies through automation for marketing tasks
Learn More:
- Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
- Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
- Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
- Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
- Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
- Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
- All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's episode will not be just another conversation
about AI.
It is a call to embrace a wholenew mindset.
Are you still scratching thesurface of AI or ready to go all
in?
Today, I'm inviting you toshift from a digital-first
approach to an AI-first approach.
We'll talk big-picturestrategies and day-to-day tasks
(00:22):
that you can transform with AI'shelp.
This might just be the mostpivotal leap you'll ever take in
your marketing.
So stay tuned, because you willnot want to miss this next
episode of the your DigitalMarketing Coach podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
blogging, podcasting, vlogging,tiktoking, linkedin, twitter,
facebook, instagram, youtube,seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
there's a lot to cover.
Whether you're a marketingprofessional, entrepreneur or
business owner, you need someoneyou can rely on for expert
(00:59):
advice.
Good thing you've got Neil onyour side, because Neil Schaefer
is your digital marketing coach.
Helping you grow your businesswith digital-first marketing,
one episode at a time.
This is your digital marketingcoach, and this is Neil Schaefer
(01:22):
.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Hey everybody, this is Neil Schafer, your digital
marketing coach, and welcome tomy podcast, where I teach,
hopefully, inspire and empowermarketers, small business owners
, entrepreneurs, startups,content creators, service
providers, entrepreneurs.
You know who you are.
I just want to make sure thatyou know that you are in the
(01:43):
right place, so thanks forjoining me today.
Now this episode.
Well, let's put it this way youknow every one of these solo
episodes that I record.
The whole idea is that I wantto keep you in touch with the
work that I've been doing, whatI've been thinking, the books
I've been writing.
Really, the latest and greatestof Neil, of your digital
(02:06):
marketing coach, is in thepodcast.
I release content here before Ido anywhere else and when I
think about what to talk abouttoday, man, it's just about
digging deeper into AI.
We all know that AI is one ofthese central topics that we
talk about, but the more I talkto the people around me and the
(02:28):
clients, the more I realize thatthere are still a lot more that
can be done, and today'sepisode is really to hopefully
inspire and empower you to domore with AI.
Now, it's not the first timeI've talked about this.
It was back in episode number364.
This wasn't too long ago, right?
(02:52):
This episode, by the way, is402.
This is back in May 21st.
So, okay, it's been nine monthsand in the world of AI, that's
actually a pretty long time.
But back then I talked aboutmaking the AI shift and it was
really moving behind the hypeand really integrating AI in how
we work.
Well, today, consider this arevision of that, and you could
also consider it an updatedchapter for my book, digital
(03:13):
Threads.
In Digital Threads, in part sixscale.
I did have a dedicated chapteron AI and marketing and really
what I talked about there waspretty much generative AI and
content creation.
This goes well beyond that.
So think of it as an updatedchapter.
We're taking that concept ofdigital first and sort of
(03:34):
turning it on its head,exploring how to make AI the
center of all of our internalmarketing processes.
Digital first is still criticalfor how we market externally,
if that makes sense.
So it really is fascinating howquickly AI is evolving and how
much potential is still on topfor many businesses, as I
(03:54):
mentioned.
So let's start with the big ideathat I hinted at.
What does it mean to go fromdigital first to AI first?
You might be thinking, neil,I've already got my social media
channels.
I'm pumping out content on aregular basis, I'm engaging, I'm
running ads, I'm on LinkedIn,I'm blogging.
Isn't that enough?
Well, yes and no.
(04:14):
Digital first was all aboutmaking sure our external
marketing how we show up onlinewas optimized for the digital
platforms where our audienceslive.
And, as you know from thosethat have read my book, it's
about the SES framework, orsearch, email, social, and
making sure you have all of yourbases covered.
But behind the scenes, you havean internal marketing engine
(04:37):
room, and that's where it's timeto become AI first.
Every piece of content youcreate, every campaign you plan,
every piece of data that youanalyze, every strategy that you
want to revise, ai canturbocharge all of it.
So we still keep that digitalfirst presence on the outside,
as I mentioned, but on theinside, we want to be AI, to be
(05:02):
front and center, driving thestrategies and processes that
rely on, and it really beginswith aligning AI with our
objectives, strategies andtactics.
So if I was going to write abook on AI first marketing, I
would begin with this chapter,so before we even talk, or this
step.
So before we even talk aboutautomation or content generation
(05:23):
, which I'm going to get to.
It's crucial to circle back tothe basics.
Why do you do what you do?
What are your objectives?
Brand awareness, leadgeneration, sales growth.
Who are your target personas?
Have you developed them fully?
Have you confirmed that theyare the right personas?
Maybe AI has other ideas.
Right, if you feed all of thiscontext into your AI tools, you
(05:47):
can use AI as your very ownmarketing consultant.
I like to think of it as metaconsulting, and I don't mean
Facebook, meta AI advising amarketing consultant like me on
fresh angles and newperspectives.
It might sound wild, but, trustme, it is incredibly powerful.
And the key is after you put inall that information.
(06:07):
You ask ChatGPT or whatevertool you're using is there any
other question you have for meor any other additional
information that I could provideyou, to allow you to provide me
the best answer possible, orsomething along those lines, and
that will give you even moreadvice on what additional
information you want to trainthe AI with and that's another
(06:29):
topic I'm going to get to in asecond.
But whether you'rebrainstorming a campaign or
analyzing audience data, ai canjust give you insights you might
never have thought of on yourown.
It's really the same concept ofuser-generated content, right,
that your customers will takepictures and or write a review
(06:51):
or whatever it might be, snap avideo and often the way that
they portray your product orservice or talk about it in a
review, it's just very differentthan the way that you talk
about it, and sometimes you'regoing to learn a heck of a lot.
You're going to be able toleverage that for your own
content creation, right?
It's the same thing with AI.
It's going to give you adifferent opinion.
Now, honestly, I love how itgives the second opinion.
(07:14):
Sometimes it's spot on, othertimes it sparks a new direction.
So, if you're feeling stuck,start by telling ChatGPT here's
my audience.
Here's what I'm trying toachieve.
What do you suggest?
You might be surprised at howspecific and creative AI can get
, and I actually did this todaywith a I won't say the name of
the person, but someone from mydigital first group coaching
(07:36):
community.
We had our one-on-one call andthis was the advice I gave them
Like this is the industry theywant to be in.
These are the marketingactivities that they've been
doing.
What haven't they been doingthat they should be doing?
How can they improve whatthey're?
already doing and do you haveany other advice?
And the more we fed it, thebetter and better and better the
answers became, and now mymember has this whole to-do list
(07:59):
, but they feel really empoweredby what, in this case, chatgpt
provided them.
So that's step number one.
Right, aligning AI with yourobjective, strategies and
tactics and really seeing ifthere's any optimization or
second opinions or developmentof those ideas that you can do
to improve your work.
Right, improve your strategies.
So the next thing is we want totake it down a notch.
(08:21):
We want to go from strategy nowto tactics.
So step number two is going tobe reviewing your marketing
activities and documentingprocesses and documenting them
so that they can be reviewed.
So one of the keys toleveraging AI in your marketing
is having your core activitiesspelled out in clear, repeatable
processes.
Look at every major taskcontent creation, scheduling,
(08:44):
community management, analytics.
Ask yourself, do I have thisdocumented somewhere?
The reason is simple Once youhave these steps written out,
it's way easier to see where AImight step in to handle a
portion or all of this workload.
It also gives you the abilityto train and teach the AI on
what exactly they should do toreplace you or compliment you in
(09:08):
completing that task.
So this is where I do a lot ofexperimenting with ChatGPT and
other tools.
Can AI draft an email sequencefor me?
I don't know, let's give it atry.
Can AI set up a social contentcalendar?
I don't know, let's give it atry.
These are tasks that I have todo.
Why not have an AI firstmentality and see how far I can
(09:30):
get with AI?
So if it can help me, fantastic, and if not, that's cool too.
But you won't know unless youmap it out and try.
And this is one of thehallmarks of having an AI first
mindset is trying everything AIfirst, even if it's things
you've already been doing, evenif it's things that you might
(09:51):
not think take up a lot of time.
Ai might not just do it fasterbut also better.
Really depends on the task.
But this is really where therubber begins to meet the road,
in my opinion.
All right.
Step number three creatingcustom GPTs or custom AI models.
So, after you've documentedyour processes, you've
(10:12):
experimented a little withChatGPT and you've realized that
for certain tasks, you know itmight make your life easier or
you might get better outputs byleveraging ChachiBT in part or
in full, and I mentioned youknow in part as well you don't
have to do everything in AI.
(10:33):
Ai first means you go to AIfirst to do it, and I'll give
you a very, very good example ofAI assisted content creation,
where it is partially using AI,not fully automated, but it
still provides great value andsaves me a lot of time and it's
really easy right.
I have gotten into the tointroduce the concept of custom
(10:55):
GPTs.
I have gotten into basicallygoing 360 degrees, full circle.
So I started with AI for thosethat remember with the tool
called Jasper, and I even had apodcast episode about going to
the Gen AI conference.
This was back February 14thI'll never forget, because it
(11:15):
was Valentine's Day, 2023.
Just literally, you know, lessthan three months after ChatGPT
came out and there was a vibe,there was a buzz in that room,
let me tell you and I was usingthe different recipes that
Jasper had.
So, hey, you want to create aTwitter post, use this recipe.
If you want to create aFacebook post, use this recipe.
And they were all very, veryspecialized recipes or templates
(11:39):
that allowed me to easily docertain tasks right.
This is very much generative AI.
So what's interesting and Italked about this before on this
podcast, for those thatremember.
But Jasper then changed theiruser interface.
They went more enterprise.
So, instead of having all theserecipes, you just had an open
chat, just like ChatGPT, and youhad these open conversations
(12:00):
and it would develop things foryou.
So that got me thinking, and itwas actually a webinar that
Jasper did where they describedthe prompts that they put into
Jasper to get output, and Iended up just using the same
prompts in ChatGPT and I wasable to get the same output.
And that's where I stoppedusing a lot of third party tools
and I started really doublingdown and tripling down on
(12:22):
ChatGPT, which is still myadvice for you today, for things
where you can use it.
Now I want to give you anexample of this, partially using
AI, and I'm trying to replacebasically all these tools I used
before.
I've already replaced Jasper.
In all honesty, jasper is agreat tool don't get me wrong
and if you're an enterprise thathas certain enterprise features
that are great for enterprises,just they're not that
(12:42):
appropriate for me and the sizeof my business right, and
perhaps the size of yourbusiness.
So one AI tool that I've usedbefore I no longer use because
it's also been replaced byChachiBT is a tool called
CastMagic.
Now, castmagic is also a greattool.
Nothing wrong with the tool,right, it is similar to Jasper.
It has these pre-made recipesso that you can plug something
(13:07):
in and get all sorts ofdifferent types of output.
Now I found out about CastMagicbecause a lot of people at
PodFest and this is anotherepisode you can listen to.
This was PodFest 2024.
I probably recorded it back inJanuary, february of last year,
but this was a tool that was onthe tongue of many of the
speakers Just feed your podcastor, you know, live stream into
(13:30):
CastMagic and it'll create allthese assets for you.
And it did.
And I used it for a while andthen I realized you know what?
I could just do it on my own.
I can just create a custom GPTthat mimics what I was doing in
CastMagic and I can fine do iton my own.
I can just create a custom GPTthat mimics what I was doing in
Cast Magic and I can fine tuneit for my own voice, my own tone
, customize the prompts and atany point, I can add or delete
(13:50):
from that, so I can customizewhat I do.
So this is where I will take atranscript, which I use otteria
for, and I will feed it into thecustom GPT that I created and
it will create all thesedifferent assets that I need for
this podcast.
So another one, and that's anexample where the AI is not like
going into Buzzsprout, you know, and actually filling
(14:13):
everything.
It is not completely automated.
I'm going to talk a little bitabout that at the end, but, on a
similar note, this is somethingwhere ChatGPT could provide me
all the outputs.
Another tool that I've recentlyreplaced although I'm still
subscribed to because it stilldoes a value is a tool called
Opus Clip or Opus Pro, and thisis a tool that, once again.
I had VidSummit last year and Ihave another podcast episode
(14:35):
about visiting there.
It was what everybody wastalking about.
They were sponsored, they werespeaking on stage, they were
doing workshops, and it is afantastic tool for taking a live
stream video, like theinterviews that I do for this
podcast, plugging it in andit'll give you 30 different
based on the filters.
You give it 30 different,basically short form videos
(14:55):
where you customize the captions, you check the captions, you
can reframe, you can add, youknow AI B-roll and you can
create, you know, a short formvideo that you can publish in
social media on all these sitesvery, very easily.
But what I realized was itdidn't give me all the editing
features that I wanted.
It wouldn't allow me to bringin a logo of the your Digital
(15:17):
Marketing Coach podcast or alogo of my book or perhaps a
sound effect or just differentMarketing Coach podcast or a
logo of my book or perhaps asound effect or just different
things.
That it felt a little bitlimited.
Also, when I was given these 30different episodes or 30
different snippets to go through, I wondered how it decided on
what they thought would be themost engaging, because I often
(15:38):
thought that most of the time itwasn't the best of the content.
So I experimented with bothOtterai and then ChatGPT,
because Otterai also has a chatfeature.
So I basically now take thetranscripts from Otterai, put it
in ChatGPT.
This is a different custom GPTbecause for this custom GPT I
(16:00):
wanted to go through and lookfor snippets between 30 to 60
seconds that have an educationalpoint, where something is
explained so that the listenercan learn something concrete.
And I've realized that it's notabout a quote unquote engaging
snippet.
It's more about that.
I'm talking about a specifictopic, that I can create a video
(16:21):
around, that someone can watchit from beginning to end and
learn something, just as if Iwas going to record a short form
video myself and I realized bydoing this I'm not asking for 30
, because even with an hourinterview I rarely find 30
snippets I want to use I'masking for, you know, 10, and of
those 10, maybe I only usethree or five or seven.
The most I've ever used iseight, but it helps me better,
(16:45):
you know, be in direct contactwith my own video, with my own
interview, with my own podcast,whereas if I'm using the tool
like Opus Pro, I feel a littlebit distant because it's already
coming up with this stuff forme With ChatGPT.
It's coming up with 10 ideasthat now I'm going in and
listening again and making surethat's what I want and then I
(17:06):
outsource it.
I have someone on Fiverr who isin South Asia who does it very
inexpensively and I basicallygive them the timestamps, the
title, the transcript, and to methat is a great way of having
AI partially or AI-assistedcontent creation right.
The AI is doing the heavylifting and then obviously
(17:27):
hiring someone to do the rest ofthe work for me instead of
using what everybody else isusing the same tool, the same
sort of captions, and I know youcan customize it but this way I
have a completely customizedoutput right, and going through
the process with ChachiBT, Ithink the quality is going to be
much better.
I mean, you tell me if you wereto go into my TikTok, my
Instagram Reels, my YouTubeShorts, if you look at the
(17:48):
short-form videos that I've beenpublishing over the last two or
three weeks, versus what Ipublished a few months ago,
there's just a big difference.
It's like night and day, right.
So this is an example of a taskthat I was using an AI tool for
that I decided to bring in theChachiBT to increase the quality
, which I believe it has, and itis only assisting me but
(18:09):
because I am able to hiresomeone very inexpensively to
finish creating the videos, andit's not something I have to.
You know, even within Opus Pro,there's still a lot of little
things you need to do tocustomize and edit what have you
.
This is just a much better useof my time and, I think, a much
higher quality product at theend.
So, everything I talked abouthere and I'm sorry for
(18:30):
digressing, but everything Italked about here is about
custom GPTs.
It's about once you documentthe process and you experiment
in a conversation with a largelanguage model, the next step is
you want to codify that.
So think of these specializedAIs such as custom GPTs.
I think in Cloud they're calledprojects.
They're specialized AIs thathave been trained specifically
(18:53):
on your brand voice, yourmessaging and your best practice
.
They are the recipes thatJasper used to have best
practice.
They are the recipes thatJasper used to have, right, the
templates that CastMagic has,but you are developing them and
fully fleshing them out andpersonalizing them, and you can
have one GPT that focuses on,say, blog outlines and SEO
optimization, another that'sspecialized in email marketing
(19:15):
copy.
Whatever tasks you do mostfrequently, at least my approach
right now, is to have very,very specific custom GPTs for
each one of those things.
Now, some folks prefer bundlingmultiple processes into a single
custom GPT.
Right, like you have an emailmarketing expert.
And some people name theircustom GPTs with, like human
names, like I'm going to askMary what she thinks about this
(19:37):
email sequence.
Right, so you could do it byfunction like that.
I just prefer to do it by task,right, so others like to keep
them separate.
Like me, it just depends on howyou define the work and all the
different tasks that you have,but the bottom line is that
these custom GPTs will getsmarter and more accurate the
more you train them with yourpast successes, feed them your
(19:59):
best content, your highestperforming campaigns, your brand
guidelines, even your stylequirks, and watch the magic
happen.
So that was a long section, asyou can imagine, but now we move
on to what I would say stepfour, or that was a long step.
So step four and I sort ofhinted at this at the end of
step three step four is trainingyour AI with quality data right
(20:20):
.
The custom GPTs mean nothingunless you upload the right
training data, you give itcontext, you give it examples,
then it could create somethingthat might just be better output
than you can get.
So this can be a little painfulat first.
I'm not going to lie, diggingup old documents, hunting for
top performing ads or emails orpulling metrics from your
(20:42):
successful campaigns, but trustme, it is worth it.
It is you do it.
Once you're done Like myLinkedIn profile analogy right
Once and done, maybe go back andlook at it every 90 days or, in
the case of custom GPTs, whenyou see the output, you might
want to edit them slightly.
You know fairly frequently, butyou're not going to have to go
through the process of giving itall that initial training data
(21:05):
again.
So, as I hinted at, ai worksbest when it has something solid
to emulate.
If your brand voice is casualand friendly, or maybe more
formal and B2B, give your AIexamples of that exact tone so
that it can replicate it right.
Look for, for instance, if it'sgoing to be social media posts,
(21:25):
find your top performing posts.
If it's emails, find your topperforming emails right.
It's not just nilly willyupload any and everything.
It's finding your topperformers, doing a little bit
of analysis right, finding thethings that best represent your
brand, your tone, your voice,and applying analytics to it to
say, okay, well, these were thetop 10 performing subject lines
(21:47):
over the past two years ofsending out weekly newsletters.
I'm pretty sure this is theformula I want to stick with.
And then uploading those andthen allowing ChatGPT or
whatever LLMUs to give youoptions right.
Then you're going to get a very, very good quality output.
So a lot of people said, hey,think of it like training your
intern.
Think of it like training a newemployee right, you want them
(22:12):
to learn from your best work,not from random stuff lying
around.
And then we get to step five.
I'm only going to go five stepstoday and I think over time
this will be divided intofurther steps, but I wanted to
provide somewhat of a frameworktoday so that you can work off
of it and you don't have to doall the steps immediately,
(22:32):
because this last step, in allhonesty, is something I've yet
to do.
I know about it.
I know enough about it to talkabout it.
I have not gone there yet, butI hope to go there in the not so
distant future.
So step number five is scalingefficiencies through automation.
So let's talk about automations, because this is where AI first
really starts to shine.
(22:52):
If you're familiar with toolslike Zapier or makecom I think
most marketers already havesubscriptions to one of them, if
not both of them you know thatyou can link different apps and
tasks together.
Now imagine chaining multipleGPTs or other AI tools together
with other tools in yourmarketing stack to create entire
(23:13):
automated workflows.
So it's the concept ofautomating workflows with a
zapiermakecom is not new.
What's new is including AI aspart of that solution, including
your custom GPTs, in everythingyou do when it comes to
automation.
So, for instance, maybe a newlead comes in via your website
(23:34):
form, immediately, an AI takesthat data, personalizes a
welcome email, shoots it offautomatically.
Or maybe record a quick voicenote about a new product launch
and it goes through atranscription AI, like Otter,
which then feeds into a GPT thatdrafts a blog post, which then
gets auto-uploaded to your CMSand then your editor can get
notified, and to your CMS, andthen your editor can get
notified and proofread it, andthen you're done.
(23:55):
So this isn't just saving time,it's really accelerating your
marketing.
Now, I'll be honest, some ofthese setups can get quite
intricate, but even small winsadd up quickly If you can
offload just one repetitive taskand automate the AI that is
attached with it.
That's time you can spend onhigher level strategy or
(24:18):
nurturing client relationshipsor developing relationships with
social media users orinfluencers or content creators.
Right, it's all about freeingup this time, and I should have
mentioned earlier on in thepodcast I had this aha moment a
few weeks ago, where it's likeman, I have a lot of free time
today, and it was the first timeI'd felt it in a while, and
(24:40):
it's because I think I'm justusing this AI first approach and
finding ways to not only makemy work better but also save me
time, and I hope that you, too,will get there with whatever
tasks that you have.
So here's my question for youhow AI first is your marketing
team right now?
How AI first is your businessright now?
(25:00):
Are you all in, maybe alreadychaining together multiple GPTs
and calling them and automatingeverything?
Or are you still on the fence,unsure if you're really getting
the most out of AI, or maybeyou're scared of AI privacy
issues?
Is it going to replace you?
Whatever it might be?
Wherever you are on your AIjourney, I'd love to hear about
it.
I was very upfront, saying, hey, I'm not at the automation
(25:22):
stage yet, I'd like to get there.
I am, you know, paving a pathto get there, but a path to get
there.
But send me an email, neil, atneilschafercom, or drop a
comment.
When I do publish this podcast,it goes to
podcastneilschafercom.
You can comment there, or justtag me on social right or just
(25:44):
DM me on social.
I think you know where I'm at.
I'd love to hear where you'reat and I'll do my best to point
you to resources or strategiesthat I think might be able to
help you.
So that wraps it up for today'sepisode on moving from digital
first to AI first.
If you found value in thisepisode, go ahead and subscribe
so you don't miss what's next.
Speaking of which, I have anincredible interview lined up
(26:08):
next week or I should say nextepisode with James Herman, and
we talk about advertising, thescience behind advertising, but
we also talk a lot aboutbranding and some of the short
form videos that I created fromour interview on YouTube.
You might have seen them on onTik TOK or LinkedIn or Instagram
.
There's some of my higherperforming ones, so I learned a
(26:29):
heck of a lot.
It is one episode that you willmake sure you don't want to
miss.
As always, I am here to helpyou build, grow and transform
your business using digitalmarketing and, now more than
ever, ai first marketing.
So all that's left to say isthis is your digital marketing
coach, neil Schaefer, signingoff.
(26:50):
You've been listening to yourdigital marketing coach, neal
Schaefer, signing off.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
Questions, comments, requests,links.
Go to podcastnealschaefercom.
Get the show notes to this and200 plus podcast episodes at
nealschaefercom to tap into the400 plus blog posts that Neal
has published to support yourbusiness.
(27:12):
While you're there, check outNeil's digital first group
coaching membership community ifyou or your business needs a
little helping hand.
See you next time on yourDigital Marketing Coach.
Today's episode will not be just another conversation
about AI.
It is a call to embrace a wholenew mindset.
Are you still scratching thesurface of AI or ready to go all
in?
Today, I'm inviting you toshift from a digital-first
approach to an AI-first approach.
We'll talk big-picturestrategies and day-to-day tasks
(00:22):
that you can transform with AI'shelp.
This might just be the mostpivotal leap you'll ever take in
your marketing.
So stay tuned, because you willnot want to miss this next
episode of the your DigitalMarketing Coach podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
blogging, podcasting, vlogging,tiktoking, linkedin, twitter,
facebook, instagram, youtube,seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
there's a lot to cover.
Whether you're a marketingprofessional, entrepreneur or
business owner, you need someoneyou can rely on for expert
(00:59):
advice.
Good thing you've got Neil onyour side, because Neil Schaefer
is your digital marketing coach.
Helping you grow your businesswith digital-first marketing,
one episode at a time.
This is your digital marketingcoach, and this is Neil Schaefer
(01:22):
.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Hey everybody, this is Neil Schafer, your digital
marketing coach, and welcome tomy podcast, where I teach,
hopefully, inspire and empowermarketers, small business owners
, entrepreneurs, startups,content creators, service
providers, entrepreneurs.
You know who you are.
I just want to make sure thatyou know that you are in the
(01:43):
right place, so thanks forjoining me today.
Now this episode.
Well, let's put it this way youknow every one of these solo
episodes that I record.
The whole idea is that I wantto keep you in touch with the
work that I've been doing, whatI've been thinking, the books
I've been writing.
Really, the latest and greatestof Neil, of your digital
(02:06):
marketing coach, is in thepodcast.
I release content here before Ido anywhere else and when I
think about what to talk abouttoday, man, it's just about
digging deeper into AI.
We all know that AI is one ofthese central topics that we
talk about, but the more I talkto the people around me and the
(02:28):
clients, the more I realize thatthere are still a lot more that
can be done, and today'sepisode is really to hopefully
inspire and empower you to domore with AI.
Now, it's not the first timeI've talked about this.
It was back in episode number364.
This wasn't too long ago, right?
(02:52):
This episode, by the way, is402.
This is back in May 21st.
So, okay, it's been nine monthsand in the world of AI, that's
actually a pretty long time.
But back then I talked aboutmaking the AI shift and it was
really moving behind the hypeand really integrating AI in how
we work.
Well, today, consider this arevision of that, and you could
also consider it an updatedchapter for my book, digital
(03:13):
Threads.
In Digital Threads, in part sixscale.
I did have a dedicated chapteron AI and marketing and really
what I talked about there waspretty much generative AI and
content creation.
This goes well beyond that.
So think of it as an updatedchapter.
We're taking that concept ofdigital first and sort of
(03:34):
turning it on its head,exploring how to make AI the
center of all of our internalmarketing processes.
Digital first is still criticalfor how we market externally,
if that makes sense.
So it really is fascinating howquickly AI is evolving and how
much potential is still on topfor many businesses, as I
(03:54):
mentioned.
So let's start with the big ideathat I hinted at.
What does it mean to go fromdigital first to AI first?
You might be thinking, neil,I've already got my social media
channels.
I'm pumping out content on aregular basis, I'm engaging, I'm
running ads, I'm on LinkedIn,I'm blogging.
Isn't that enough?
Well, yes and no.
(04:14):
Digital first was all aboutmaking sure our external
marketing how we show up onlinewas optimized for the digital
platforms where our audienceslive.
And, as you know from thosethat have read my book, it's
about the SES framework, orsearch, email, social, and
making sure you have all of yourbases covered.
But behind the scenes, you havean internal marketing engine
(04:37):
room, and that's where it's timeto become AI first.
Every piece of content youcreate, every campaign you plan,
every piece of data that youanalyze, every strategy that you
want to revise, ai canturbocharge all of it.
So we still keep that digitalfirst presence on the outside,
as I mentioned, but on theinside, we want to be AI, to be
(05:02):
front and center, driving thestrategies and processes that
rely on, and it really beginswith aligning AI with our
objectives, strategies andtactics.
So if I was going to write abook on AI first marketing, I
would begin with this chapter,so before we even talk, or this
step.
So before we even talk aboutautomation or content generation
(05:23):
, which I'm going to get to.
It's crucial to circle back tothe basics.
Why do you do what you do?
What are your objectives?
Brand awareness, leadgeneration, sales growth.
Who are your target personas?
Have you developed them fully?
Have you confirmed that theyare the right personas?
Maybe AI has other ideas.
Right, if you feed all of thiscontext into your AI tools, you
(05:47):
can use AI as your very ownmarketing consultant.
I like to think of it as metaconsulting, and I don't mean
Facebook, meta AI advising amarketing consultant like me on
fresh angles and newperspectives.
It might sound wild, but, trustme, it is incredibly powerful.
And the key is after you put inall that information.
(06:07):
You ask ChatGPT or whatevertool you're using is there any
other question you have for meor any other additional
information that I could provideyou, to allow you to provide me
the best answer possible, orsomething along those lines, and
that will give you even moreadvice on what additional
information you want to trainthe AI with and that's another
(06:29):
topic I'm going to get to in asecond.
But whether you'rebrainstorming a campaign or
analyzing audience data, ai canjust give you insights you might
never have thought of on yourown.
It's really the same concept ofuser-generated content, right,
that your customers will takepictures and or write a review
(06:51):
or whatever it might be, snap avideo and often the way that
they portray your product orservice or talk about it in a
review, it's just very differentthan the way that you talk
about it, and sometimes you'regoing to learn a heck of a lot.
You're going to be able toleverage that for your own
content creation, right?
It's the same thing with AI.
It's going to give you adifferent opinion.
Now, honestly, I love how itgives the second opinion.
(07:14):
Sometimes it's spot on, othertimes it sparks a new direction.
So, if you're feeling stuck,start by telling ChatGPT here's
my audience.
Here's what I'm trying toachieve.
What do you suggest?
You might be surprised at howspecific and creative AI can get
, and I actually did this todaywith a I won't say the name of
the person, but someone from mydigital first group coaching
(07:36):
community.
We had our one-on-one call andthis was the advice I gave them
Like this is the industry theywant to be in.
These are the marketingactivities that they've been
doing.
What haven't they been doingthat they should be doing?
How can they improve whatthey're?
already doing and do you haveany other advice?
And the more we fed it, thebetter and better and better the
answers became, and now mymember has this whole to-do list
(07:59):
, but they feel really empoweredby what, in this case, chatgpt
provided them.
So that's step number one.
Right, aligning AI with yourobjective, strategies and
tactics and really seeing ifthere's any optimization or
second opinions or developmentof those ideas that you can do
to improve your work.
Right, improve your strategies.
So the next thing is we want totake it down a notch.
(08:21):
We want to go from strategy nowto tactics.
So step number two is going tobe reviewing your marketing
activities and documentingprocesses and documenting them
so that they can be reviewed.
So one of the keys toleveraging AI in your marketing
is having your core activitiesspelled out in clear, repeatable
processes.
Look at every major taskcontent creation, scheduling,
(08:44):
community management, analytics.
Ask yourself, do I have thisdocumented somewhere?
The reason is simple Once youhave these steps written out,
it's way easier to see where AImight step in to handle a
portion or all of this workload.
It also gives you the abilityto train and teach the AI on
what exactly they should do toreplace you or compliment you in
(09:08):
completing that task.
So this is where I do a lot ofexperimenting with ChatGPT and
other tools.
Can AI draft an email sequencefor me?
I don't know, let's give it atry.
Can AI set up a social contentcalendar?
I don't know, let's give it atry.
These are tasks that I have todo.
Why not have an AI firstmentality and see how far I can
(09:30):
get with AI?
So if it can help me, fantastic, and if not, that's cool too.
But you won't know unless youmap it out and try.
And this is one of thehallmarks of having an AI first
mindset is trying everything AIfirst, even if it's things
you've already been doing, evenif it's things that you might
(09:51):
not think take up a lot of time.
Ai might not just do it fasterbut also better.
Really depends on the task.
But this is really where therubber begins to meet the road,
in my opinion.
All right.
Step number three creatingcustom GPTs or custom AI models.
So, after you've documentedyour processes, you've
(10:12):
experimented a little withChatGPT and you've realized that
for certain tasks, you know itmight make your life easier or
you might get better outputs byleveraging ChachiBT in part or
in full, and I mentioned youknow in part as well you don't
have to do everything in AI.
(10:33):
Ai first means you go to AIfirst to do it, and I'll give
you a very, very good example ofAI assisted content creation,
where it is partially using AI,not fully automated, but it
still provides great value andsaves me a lot of time and it's
really easy right.
I have gotten into the tointroduce the concept of custom
(10:55):
GPTs.
I have gotten into basicallygoing 360 degrees, full circle.
So I started with AI for thosethat remember with the tool
called Jasper, and I even had apodcast episode about going to
the Gen AI conference.
This was back February 14thI'll never forget, because it
(11:15):
was Valentine's Day, 2023.
Just literally, you know, lessthan three months after ChatGPT
came out and there was a vibe,there was a buzz in that room,
let me tell you and I was usingthe different recipes that
Jasper had.
So, hey, you want to create aTwitter post, use this recipe.
If you want to create aFacebook post, use this recipe.
And they were all very, veryspecialized recipes or templates
(11:39):
that allowed me to easily docertain tasks right.
This is very much generative AI.
So what's interesting and Italked about this before on this
podcast, for those thatremember.
But Jasper then changed theiruser interface.
They went more enterprise.
So, instead of having all theserecipes, you just had an open
chat, just like ChatGPT, and youhad these open conversations
(12:00):
and it would develop things foryou.
So that got me thinking, and itwas actually a webinar that
Jasper did where they describedthe prompts that they put into
Jasper to get output, and Iended up just using the same
prompts in ChatGPT and I wasable to get the same output.
And that's where I stoppedusing a lot of third party tools
and I started really doublingdown and tripling down on
(12:22):
ChatGPT, which is still myadvice for you today, for things
where you can use it.
Now I want to give you anexample of this, partially using
AI, and I'm trying to replacebasically all these tools I used
before.
I've already replaced Jasper.
In all honesty, jasper is agreat tool don't get me wrong
and if you're an enterprise thathas certain enterprise features
that are great for enterprises,just they're not that
(12:42):
appropriate for me and the sizeof my business right, and
perhaps the size of yourbusiness.
So one AI tool that I've usedbefore I no longer use because
it's also been replaced byChachiBT is a tool called
CastMagic.
Now, castmagic is also a greattool.
Nothing wrong with the tool,right, it is similar to Jasper.
It has these pre-made recipesso that you can plug something
(13:07):
in and get all sorts ofdifferent types of output.
Now I found out about CastMagicbecause a lot of people at
PodFest and this is anotherepisode you can listen to.
This was PodFest 2024.
I probably recorded it back inJanuary, february of last year,
but this was a tool that was onthe tongue of many of the
speakers Just feed your podcastor, you know, live stream into
(13:30):
CastMagic and it'll create allthese assets for you.
And it did.
And I used it for a while andthen I realized you know what?
I could just do it on my own.
I can just create a custom GPTthat mimics what I was doing in
CastMagic and I can fine do iton my own.
I can just create a custom GPTthat mimics what I was doing in
Cast Magic and I can fine tuneit for my own voice, my own tone
, customize the prompts and atany point, I can add or delete
(13:50):
from that, so I can customizewhat I do.
So this is where I will take atranscript, which I use otteria
for, and I will feed it into thecustom GPT that I created and
it will create all thesedifferent assets that I need for
this podcast.
So another one, and that's anexample where the AI is not like
going into Buzzsprout, you know, and actually filling
(14:13):
everything.
It is not completely automated.
I'm going to talk a little bitabout that at the end, but, on a
similar note, this is somethingwhere ChatGPT could provide me
all the outputs.
Another tool that I've recentlyreplaced although I'm still
subscribed to because it stilldoes a value is a tool called
Opus Clip or Opus Pro, and thisis a tool that, once again.
I had VidSummit last year and Ihave another podcast episode
(14:35):
about visiting there.
It was what everybody wastalking about.
They were sponsored, they werespeaking on stage, they were
doing workshops, and it is afantastic tool for taking a live
stream video, like theinterviews that I do for this
podcast, plugging it in andit'll give you 30 different
based on the filters.
You give it 30 different,basically short form videos
(14:55):
where you customize the captions, you check the captions, you
can reframe, you can add, youknow AI B-roll and you can
create, you know, a short formvideo that you can publish in
social media on all these sitesvery, very easily.
But what I realized was itdidn't give me all the editing
features that I wanted.
It wouldn't allow me to bringin a logo of the your Digital
(15:17):
Marketing Coach podcast or alogo of my book or perhaps a
sound effect or just differentMarketing Coach podcast or a
logo of my book or perhaps asound effect or just different
things.
That it felt a little bitlimited.
Also, when I was given these 30different episodes or 30
different snippets to go through, I wondered how it decided on
what they thought would be themost engaging, because I often
(15:38):
thought that most of the time itwasn't the best of the content.
So I experimented with bothOtterai and then ChatGPT,
because Otterai also has a chatfeature.
So I basically now take thetranscripts from Otterai, put it
in ChatGPT.
This is a different custom GPTbecause for this custom GPT I
(16:00):
wanted to go through and lookfor snippets between 30 to 60
seconds that have an educationalpoint, where something is
explained so that the listenercan learn something concrete.
And I've realized that it's notabout a quote unquote engaging
snippet.
It's more about that.
I'm talking about a specifictopic, that I can create a video
(16:21):
around, that someone can watchit from beginning to end and
learn something, just as if Iwas going to record a short form
video myself and I realized bydoing this I'm not asking for 30
, because even with an hourinterview I rarely find 30
snippets I want to use I'masking for, you know, 10, and of
those 10, maybe I only usethree or five or seven.
The most I've ever used iseight, but it helps me better,
(16:45):
you know, be in direct contactwith my own video, with my own
interview, with my own podcast,whereas if I'm using the tool
like Opus Pro, I feel a littlebit distant because it's already
coming up with this stuff forme With ChatGPT.
It's coming up with 10 ideasthat now I'm going in and
listening again and making surethat's what I want and then I
(17:06):
outsource it.
I have someone on Fiverr who isin South Asia who does it very
inexpensively and I basicallygive them the timestamps, the
title, the transcript, and to methat is a great way of having
AI partially or AI-assistedcontent creation right.
The AI is doing the heavylifting and then obviously
(17:27):
hiring someone to do the rest ofthe work for me instead of
using what everybody else isusing the same tool, the same
sort of captions, and I know youcan customize it but this way I
have a completely customizedoutput right, and going through
the process with ChachiBT, Ithink the quality is going to be
much better.
I mean, you tell me if you wereto go into my TikTok, my
Instagram Reels, my YouTubeShorts, if you look at the
(17:48):
short-form videos that I've beenpublishing over the last two or
three weeks, versus what Ipublished a few months ago,
there's just a big difference.
It's like night and day, right.
So this is an example of a taskthat I was using an AI tool for
that I decided to bring in theChachiBT to increase the quality
, which I believe it has, and itis only assisting me but
(18:09):
because I am able to hiresomeone very inexpensively to
finish creating the videos, andit's not something I have to.
You know, even within Opus Pro,there's still a lot of little
things you need to do tocustomize and edit what have you
.
This is just a much better useof my time and, I think, a much
higher quality product at theend.
So, everything I talked abouthere and I'm sorry for
(18:30):
digressing, but everything Italked about here is about
custom GPTs.
It's about once you documentthe process and you experiment
in a conversation with a largelanguage model, the next step is
you want to codify that.
So think of these specializedAIs such as custom GPTs.
I think in Cloud they're calledprojects.
They're specialized AIs thathave been trained specifically
(18:53):
on your brand voice, yourmessaging and your best practice
.
They are the recipes thatJasper used to have best
practice.
They are the recipes thatJasper used to have, right, the
templates that CastMagic has,but you are developing them and
fully fleshing them out andpersonalizing them, and you can
have one GPT that focuses on,say, blog outlines and SEO
optimization, another that'sspecialized in email marketing
(19:15):
copy.
Whatever tasks you do mostfrequently, at least my approach
right now, is to have very,very specific custom GPTs for
each one of those things.
Now, some folks prefer bundlingmultiple processes into a single
custom GPT.
Right, like you have an emailmarketing expert.
And some people name theircustom GPTs with, like human
names, like I'm going to askMary what she thinks about this
(19:37):
email sequence.
Right, so you could do it byfunction like that.
I just prefer to do it by task,right, so others like to keep
them separate.
Like me, it just depends on howyou define the work and all the
different tasks that you have,but the bottom line is that
these custom GPTs will getsmarter and more accurate the
more you train them with yourpast successes, feed them your
(19:59):
best content, your highestperforming campaigns, your brand
guidelines, even your stylequirks, and watch the magic
happen.
So that was a long section, asyou can imagine, but now we move
on to what I would say stepfour, or that was a long step.
So step four and I sort ofhinted at this at the end of
step three step four is trainingyour AI with quality data right
(20:20):
.
The custom GPTs mean nothingunless you upload the right
training data, you give itcontext, you give it examples,
then it could create somethingthat might just be better output
than you can get.
So this can be a little painfulat first.
I'm not going to lie, diggingup old documents, hunting for
top performing ads or emails orpulling metrics from your
(20:42):
successful campaigns, but trustme, it is worth it.
It is you do it.
Once you're done Like myLinkedIn profile analogy right
Once and done, maybe go back andlook at it every 90 days or, in
the case of custom GPTs, whenyou see the output, you might
want to edit them slightly.
You know fairly frequently, butyou're not going to have to go
through the process of giving itall that initial training data
(21:05):
again.
So, as I hinted at, ai worksbest when it has something solid
to emulate.
If your brand voice is casualand friendly, or maybe more
formal and B2B, give your AIexamples of that exact tone so
that it can replicate it right.
Look for, for instance, if it'sgoing to be social media posts,
(21:25):
find your top performing posts.
If it's emails, find your topperforming emails right.
It's not just nilly willyupload any and everything.
It's finding your topperformers, doing a little bit
of analysis right, finding thethings that best represent your
brand, your tone, your voice,and applying analytics to it to
say, okay, well, these were thetop 10 performing subject lines
(21:47):
over the past two years ofsending out weekly newsletters.
I'm pretty sure this is theformula I want to stick with.
And then uploading those andthen allowing ChatGPT or
whatever LLMUs to give youoptions right.
Then you're going to get a very, very good quality output.
So a lot of people said, hey,think of it like training your
intern.
Think of it like training a newemployee right, you want them
(22:12):
to learn from your best work,not from random stuff lying
around.
And then we get to step five.
I'm only going to go five stepstoday and I think over time
this will be divided intofurther steps, but I wanted to
provide somewhat of a frameworktoday so that you can work off
of it and you don't have to doall the steps immediately,
(22:32):
because this last step, in allhonesty, is something I've yet
to do.
I know about it.
I know enough about it to talkabout it.
I have not gone there yet, butI hope to go there in the not so
distant future.
So step number five is scalingefficiencies through automation.
So let's talk about automations, because this is where AI first
really starts to shine.
(22:52):
If you're familiar with toolslike Zapier or makecom I think
most marketers already havesubscriptions to one of them, if
not both of them you know thatyou can link different apps and
tasks together.
Now imagine chaining multipleGPTs or other AI tools together
with other tools in yourmarketing stack to create entire
(23:13):
automated workflows.
So it's the concept ofautomating workflows with a
zapiermakecom is not new.
What's new is including AI aspart of that solution, including
your custom GPTs, in everythingyou do when it comes to
automation.
So, for instance, maybe a newlead comes in via your website
(23:34):
form, immediately, an AI takesthat data, personalizes a
welcome email, shoots it offautomatically.
Or maybe record a quick voicenote about a new product launch
and it goes through atranscription AI, like Otter,
which then feeds into a GPT thatdrafts a blog post, which then
gets auto-uploaded to your CMSand then your editor can get
notified, and to your CMS, andthen your editor can get
notified and proofread it, andthen you're done.
(23:55):
So this isn't just saving time,it's really accelerating your
marketing.
Now, I'll be honest, some ofthese setups can get quite
intricate, but even small winsadd up quickly If you can
offload just one repetitive taskand automate the AI that is
attached with it.
That's time you can spend onhigher level strategy or
(24:18):
nurturing client relationshipsor developing relationships with
social media users orinfluencers or content creators.
Right, it's all about freeingup this time, and I should have
mentioned earlier on in thepodcast I had this aha moment a
few weeks ago, where it's likeman, I have a lot of free time
today, and it was the first timeI'd felt it in a while, and
(24:40):
it's because I think I'm justusing this AI first approach and
finding ways to not only makemy work better but also save me
time, and I hope that you, too,will get there with whatever
tasks that you have.
So here's my question for youhow AI first is your marketing
team right now?
How AI first is your businessright now?
(25:00):
Are you all in, maybe alreadychaining together multiple GPTs
and calling them and automatingeverything?
Or are you still on the fence,unsure if you're really getting
the most out of AI, or maybeyou're scared of AI privacy
issues?
Is it going to replace you?
Whatever it might be?
Wherever you are on your AIjourney, I'd love to hear about
it.
I was very upfront, saying, hey, I'm not at the automation
(25:22):
stage yet, I'd like to get there.
I am, you know, paving a pathto get there, but a path to get
there.
But send me an email, neil, atneilschafercom, or drop a
comment.
When I do publish this podcast,it goes to
podcastneilschafercom.
You can comment there, or justtag me on social right or just
(25:44):
DM me on social.
I think you know where I'm at.
I'd love to hear where you'reat and I'll do my best to point
you to resources or strategiesthat I think might be able to
help you.
So that wraps it up for today'sepisode on moving from digital
first to AI first.
If you found value in thisepisode, go ahead and subscribe
so you don't miss what's next.
Speaking of which, I have anincredible interview lined up
(26:08):
next week or I should say nextepisode with James Herman, and
we talk about advertising, thescience behind advertising, but
we also talk a lot aboutbranding and some of the short
form videos that I created fromour interview on YouTube.
You might have seen them on onTik TOK or LinkedIn or Instagram
.
There's some of my higherperforming ones, so I learned a
(26:29):
heck of a lot.
It is one episode that you willmake sure you don't want to
miss.
As always, I am here to helpyou build, grow and transform
your business using digitalmarketing and, now more than
ever, ai first marketing.
So all that's left to say isthis is your digital marketing
coach, neil Schaefer, signingoff.
(26:50):
You've been listening to yourdigital marketing coach, neal
Schaefer, signing off.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
Questions, comments, requests,links.
Go to podcastnealschaefercom.
Get the show notes to this and200 plus podcast episodes at
nealschaefercom to tap into the400 plus blog posts that Neal
has published to support yourbusiness.
(27:12):
While you're there, check outNeil's digital first group
coaching membership community ifyou or your business needs a
little helping hand.
See you next time on yourDigital Marketing Coach.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.