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Coffee talk! Where the coffee does the talking ☕
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Just topped up my second cup and ready to rant 😂
Today's topic: Where AI can actually provide value for an SMB marketing strategy right now vs what's still hype?
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Oooh, making my brain work today 🤪
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At your service 🙇
It feels like the lowest barrier to entry for SMBs to use generative AI is with content, and there's so much talk about how AI can be writing your content and saving so much time. But to me it is soo glaringly obvious when something is written with AI. Even something as simple as a Slack message that has been crafted by AI feels so inorganic to me without some heavy editing.
And if I have to edit so heavily, is it actually saving me any time on the back end?
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Agreed. I think right now it's pretty tough for SMBs to get the promised value out of AI.
For me, the best value isn’t content generation, but when I have to ask "how do I...." generative AI can be super helpful and save a lot of Google searches.
But as far as generating something you'll publish? It's garbage unless you've really refined your prompts and your point of view.
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Totally. I think the reduction is Google searches has been the biggest value I've been able to capture out of gen AI.But as a more experienced marketer, I still find myself scratching my head on where else I could be tapping into additional benefits (without signing up for more $$$ tools). So for a marketer on an even smaller team with less budget, it feels like the learning curve may be too steep to even dig in.
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Yes. I find the most value when a task sucks...Like formatting data, or configuring DNS records. That's when I lean on AI to help.
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Smart. I clearly haven't engrained AI into my workflows deeply enough yet because I still suffer through those awful tasks 🤣waste. of. time.
I also think it's easy to fall into the trap of "should I be doing this with AI? what else can I do with AI?" which leads to a rabbit hole that I rarely have time for. The tradeoff between figuring out what I can be doing with it vs just actually completing the task myself is still something I struggle with. I have a hard time delegating - even to AI.
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But I agree, I wonder were other SMB marketers stand? I think if you have an early adopter mindset, you have a leg up and are probably using ChatGPT in creative ways. At the same time, technology is evolving so fast. After 10+ years in SaaS and marketing, I'm finding it more difficult to latch on to new tech. Maybe because I'm old more experienced - 40 vs. 28. But I've also seen some flash-in-pan techs come and go, that I'm a little more selective in what I'll sign up for. Are things moving too fast? Or is it an age/experience curve?
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Yes - part of me has doubts about whether the juice is worth the squeeze at this point. But then I wonder if that makes me sound old? 🤣
I don't think it's going anywhere, but I also don't know if it's at the point where it can provide the promised value like you said.
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Right? I feel like I came of age in a time where businesses hadn't figured out how to use social media yet. Think of how far that has come!
(came of age in saas and marketing)
I agree with your thoughts on delegation. It's kind of like a dumb assistant that you have to give context to, and then you can ask for help. Is it worth the extra time?
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Exactly!
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What would you like to see in the next evolution of AI tools that could truly help you be a better marketer?
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I've seen some very cool AI functions for product marketing built on top of Notion so I'm excited to continue exploring that.
I think I'd like to see an evolution of collaboration - so brainstorming, suggestions, ideas that aren't just run of the mill, generic suggestions that could apply to any and every business. If I ask ChatGPT how I can improve a feature announcement, I want it to come back with criticisms and ideas that aren't just like "try an emoji" or "use these three bullet points that help you write a generic customer email."
I'm sure with enough training, it can do those things now. But I don't have the time to teach it all of the nuance and brand voice that we've spent years crafting. Right now it feels like an unpaid intern - I'm looking forward to AI actually living up to the co-pilot title that so many companies are giving it.
What about you?
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I would love help on the data side. I spend so much time on attribution, reporting, tracking...and rarely do I uncover a silver bullet. It would be nice to hand that off to AI to focus more on campaigns and getting our message in front of our audience.
Questions I'm always asking are, is my tracking set up correctly? I've spent hours on calls with Google Tech support on the Google Ads side, and they can't even help with that. Is this data right? How do I pull a specific report?
AI could be a huge help in that area.
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Yesss, let it take over all of those admin-type operations and leave the fun stuff to you. I just keep circling back to this AI quote from Joanna Maciejewska every single time:
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So true!
What are the Notion features that you are loving for product marketing?
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There's a very smart product marketer, Jess Petrella, who used to work at Unbounce who basically built a whole suite of templates and frameworks in Notion for product marketers to use. She did the heavy lifting on the back end prompts and has essentially built a toolbox that SaaS product marketers can use as a jumping off point for a lot of their most important projects like messaging, positioning and GTM launches.
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That's awesome! So like an outline so you don't have to start from scratch. That’s super helpful in product marketing if you’re at a company like ours that doesn’t have a great feature release cadence. It’s tough to get into a rythm and process when we have several releases in a row, then nothing for months.
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Exactly!
I like the idea of being able to do all of the heavy lifting and setup at once and then having a creative companion you can go back to that doesn't require training every time.
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Yes. I think it will be interesting has marketers learn how to incorporate AI into their process. There is already SO much content. Will it be more difficult to break through the noise with AI? Can human copy and creative help brands stand out in a sea of AI content? Or will it really be, who can use AI the best? Or who has the most budget for the best AI tools?
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So true. It's like how can you break through the massive quantities to make sure you're ingesting (and creating) quality content both as a marketer and as a consumer?
I also just don't even know where to look to keep tabs on the evolution of AI. There are so many newsletters, sites, social posts, Substacks. It's like drinking from fire hose, and I have a hard time focusing on any of it!
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It's definitely tougher now. I think it's going to all come back to positioning and truly understanding your customer.
Agreed on the firehose! My brain can't take it! And so much of it is just regurgitation of the same ideas.
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Amen!
If you figure it out, let me know 🤣
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I'm just going to hide under a rock until someone else figures it out 🤣
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Sounds like a foolproof plan to me haha