"Your job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.” - Seth Godin, SuperMarketer. 

If there’s one great marketer who you may guess would be anti-AI, it may be Seth Godin.

He is one of the most prolific, and influential marketers.

At the core of his marketing philosophy is standing out in the marketplace with innovation, differentiation, and emotional narratives.

Some examples from his books:

• 'Permission Marketing' shifts the focus from intrusive to invited engagement, fostering trust and relevance. 

• 'All Marketers Are Liars' highlights the power of authentic narratives that align with audiences' beliefs and values. 

• 'Tribes' advocates for leadership that galvanizes communities around shared interests.

• 'Linchpin' encourages the cultivation of indispensable personal attributes that drive innovation. 

This week, I came across a great interview with Seth Godin

Here’s the part that I found most compelling, and actionable:

Marketers need to adapt and evolve in response to AI. Rather than clinging to outdated roles, use AI to augment your work (doing the repetitive, mundane tasks that don’t require creativity).

If AI can do it, then you shouldn’t.

Leverage AI to enhance productivity, and focus on creative and interpersonal skills that AI cannot replicate.

The only way to stay relevant is to continuously learn and adapt to using AI in your day to day.

This strategic pivot isn't just about efficiency; it's about freeing up our most valuable asset—our creativity.

"Great marketing is the generous and audacious work of saying, ‘I see a better alternative; come with me.’" he writes in This is Marketing.

AI is that better alternative path.

Let’s dive in to learn exactly what that could look like 👇️ 

💡 Strategy: Leverage AI for Scale, Focus on Human Connection

The strategy this week is to figure out when and where to use AI.

Use AI for scale, productivity and efficiency but compete on uniquely human skills of creativity, emotional intelligence and connections that drive growth.

The combination of leveraging AI as an optimizer while remaining human-centric is a key applicable strategy for marketers derived from Seth Godin's perspectives.

Some high level guidelines:

1. Use AI tools extensively for execution of repetitive marketing tasks like content creation, data analysis, campaign management to scale productivity.

2. Shift more attention towards understanding human behavior, creativity, building connections and trust - things AI currently still struggles with.

3. Keep continuously learning about AI capabilities to free up strategic and creative thinking while ensuring marketing remains human-centric.

4. Focus on high-level strategy of harnessing AI to enhance marketing while doubling down on the human element of empathy, emotion and relationship building that drives engagement.

🔍 Use Case: Where to Apply AI in Repetitive Tasks?

Generative text is a great place to start implementing AI. Here are a few ideas:

• Content Curation: AI can help in curating content for your audience by sifting through vast amounts of related online material and picking out the most relevant pieces. Here is a great example of automating the curation with Make.com.

• Content Performance Analysis: Automate the tracking of content metrics (like page views, shares, and time on page) to understand what content resonates best with your audience.

• Predictive Content Creation: AI can generate topic ideas and drafts for content that is likely to perform well based on historical data and trending topics.

Email Marketing Tasks Ideal for AI:

• Email Subject Line Testing: AI can test and optimize email subject lines to increase open rates and click-through rates.

• Email Campaign Analytics: Analyze the performance of email campaigns to determine the best performing content and strategies.

• Audience Insights: AI can analyze social media conversations to gain insights into audience preferences, interests, and sentiment.

🤖 Prompt: A Universally Applicable Prompt Framework

Marketers rely on frameworks for simplicity, speed, and scale. Why reinvent the wheel if there’s a proven formula?

Same goes for prompts.

Sometimes it’s nice to have an old reliable prompt that you can use for quick reference.

Here’s a prompt outline that covers the key areas that you should include in your prompts, with the placeholders for you to specify for each use case:

Act like a [Specify a role],
I need a [What do you need?],
you will [Enter a task],
in the process, you should [Enter details],
please [Enter exclusion],
input the final result in a [Select a format],

Here is where I got the prompt from, where you can fill in the blanks and copy the generated prompt:

So if I use the prompt to generate newsletter ideas for SaaS marketers, here’s what I got:

🔬Experiment: Discover New Avenues for AI Automation

So if you take Seth Godin’s advice, how do you decide exactly what you can automate with AI?

Here’s how you can determine that:

• Audit Your Daily Tasks:

  • Begin with a comprehensive audit of your daily marketing tasks. List everything you do in a week, categorizing tasks into repetitive, analytical, creative, and strategic.

  • Goal: Identify tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming but necessary for operational success. These are your candidates for AI automation.

• Prioritize Tasks for AI Automation:

  • Prioritize the list based on time spent and potential for automation. Use criteria such as the availability of AI tools, the complexity of automation, and the impact on freeing up human resources.

  • Goal: Select 2-3 tasks that are high on your list for immediate AI automation experimentation.

• Select the Right AI Tools:

  • For each task identified, research and select the most suitable AI tool. Consider factors like ease of integration, cost, scalability, and user reviews.

  • Goal: Implement AI tools that are a good fit for your specific marketing needs, starting with a trial period to assess effectiveness.

• Set Up a Control Group:

  • Before fully automating a task, set up a control group where the task is still performed manually. This will help you measure the effectiveness and impact of AI automation.

  • Goal: Compare the performance, quality, and efficiency of AI-automated tasks against manual efforts to evaluate the benefits.

• Monitor and Measure Results:

  • With the AI tools in place, closely monitor the outcomes. Look at metrics such as time saved, increase in productivity, improvement in performance, and any impacts on creativity and strategy development.

  • Goal: Quantify the benefits of AI automation to justify further investment and identify areas for improvement.

• Iterate and Expand:

  • Based on the results, iterate on your approach. Refine how you're using AI for the tasks you've chosen and consider expanding AI automation to new areas based on your learnings.

  • Goal: Continuously improve and expand your use of AI in marketing, always seeking new ways AI can free up human creativity for higher-level tasks.

By experimenting with AI to automate mundane tasks, you free up time for the creative and strategic activities that AI can’t do as well as you, the human. 😃 

Remember, the goal of using AI isn't to replace the human touch but to amplify it, ensuring that every your marketing effort is as impactful, engaging, and remarkable as possible.

📖 Resources: Seth Godin on Branding & Marketing in the Age of AI

Here is the interview with Seth Godin and Stephen Houraghan, Brand Masters Podcast:

✍️ Prompt Engineering Basics

Here’s a great resource for creating prompts from Writer.com

A few takeaways:

• Four Rules of Working with Generative AI:

  • Adopt a "beginner's mindset" to account for AI's lack of common sense.

  • Choose the right AI tool based on capabilities, data security, and workflow integration.

  • Always fact-check generated content due to AI's tendency to make unfounded claims.

  • For longform content, work prompt-by-prompt to manage editing and fact-checking efficiently.

• 5-Question Framework for AI Writing Prompts:

  • Who, What, Where, Why, How: Provide clear instructions and context for optimal output

🎥 Open AI Releases Text to Video

Yesterday, OpenAI unveiled Sora, an AI model that can generate realistic video from text prompts.

Sora is capable of creating videos up to a minute long, maintaining visual quality and adhering to the user's prompt. It can also extend existing videos or fill in missing frames.

Video is making huge leaps this year, check out this video:

That’s it for this week, stay Super, Marketers.

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