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00:00:01
The Future of Newsletters: Use AI to Create Them Automatically
316 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of AI-Driven Marketer, Dan Sanchez dives into the world of newsletter automation using AI. He provides a sneak peek into his innovative process, demonstrating how marketers can leverage AI to streamline newsletter creation. Danchez shares practical insights, walking through the systems and tools he uses, including his CRM marketing automation platform, High Level, and the integration with ChatGPT. Learn how AI can transform your marketing efforts, making tasks like newsletter writing more efficient and less time-consuming. If you're a marketer looking to stay competitive and enhance your productivity, this episode is a must-listen.
Episode Timestamps:
00:04 - The concept of automating newsletter creation with AI
00:18 - Discussion on the blend of marketing automation and AI
00:34 - Addressing concerns about the human element in automated content
00:50 - Explanation of the principle behind the automation process
01:28 - Detailed walkthrough of the marketing automation platform
02:00 - Integrating AI with marketing automation tools
02:48 - Practical application: Building a newsletter with AI
03:45 - Querying OpenAI for dynamic content generation
04:00 - Using prompts effectively in AI-driven automation
05:10 - Creating dynamic and engaging newsletter content
06:20 - The importance of format and style in automated newsletters
07:10 - Real-world example: Automating a podcast-based newsletter
09:00 - Future potential and improvements in AI-driven content creation
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Transcript
Introduction to AI in Newsletter Automation
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the AI Driven Marketer. I'm Dan Sánchez, my friends call me Dan Sánchez, and today I want to give you a sneak peek. I gave a broad view of what I was doing with podcasting, but I wanted to show you how I'm automating newsletter creation with AI. Now, a lot of this isn't even AI. It's actually just, you know, straightforward marketing automation stuff. But with a little bit of AI magic sprinkled into what we were doing with marketing automation already, all of a sudden you can actually automate a full-blown newsletter and not have to actually write the content for it. Now, I know a lot of you writers out there are probably getting mad at me. You're like, oh my gosh, you're automating the whole thing? You're like, where's the human element?
00:00:46
Speaker
Like, I get it, like, ah there's a craft to writing and a lot of people are really romantic
Practicality in AI Content Creation
00:00:51
Speaker
about that craft. I am not, like, I used to be a graphic designer and I was romantic about the visuals and now I'm like, whatever, like, i'm I'm a marketer, I'm practical. If I can get it done without hiring a writer or writing it manually myself, I freaking will. And guess what, as AI tools get better, it's going to happen more and more.
Learning AI Tools for Marketing
00:01:08
Speaker
So let's let's get on the train and just figure out how to do it ourselves faster before everybody else. Um, and I realize that some AI models are better at writing the others. I'm just using chat GPTs. That's what my tool here integrates with. So let me show you what I'm doing because the principle of how I'm doing it is what's more important than the actual model that I'm using. Or even if you agree that it's a good newsletter content or not, uh, it's going to get better. And as the models get better, like it'll fix itself, but think about how to do this, learn how to build it now.
00:01:38
Speaker
so that we can be the ones actually doing the work of building these things later. Keep us competitive, right, in the marketplace. So, let's figure out how to do this kind of stuff as marketers. And I'm gonna show you behind the scenes of how I'm using this.
Podcast Viewing and AI Tools
00:01:49
Speaker
Now, ah if you're listening to this, I'm gonna be walking through the system. It's gonna be explaining it as I go through it ah to match with the visual. But just know that this is a video podcast and I i like to show stuff because there's a lot of show and tell involved with making these things. so If you're an Apple podcast, you can actually open up the video straight in your feeder. Just open up the episode all the way. Or otherwise, you can watch on aidrivenmarketer.com. You can watch it on YouTube. If you're on Spotify, sorry. They don't let me syndicate video there unless you're doing a Spotify app and I don't. So you'll have to open up the video.
00:02:24
Speaker
But here, I'm going into my app, which is a a journey builder of a kind.
High Level CRM for AI Newsletters
00:02:28
Speaker
It's my ah my CRM marketing automation platform of choice called High Level. You can learn more about my whole toolkit at aidrivementmarketer.com slash toolkit, and it's listed there. um You can learn more about it, but I'm not doing a demo on high level here. I'm just in the automation builder where you could do you could do this with HubSpot. You could do this with other ah marketing automation tools, and if you can't now, then you will be able to soon. The thing that is the most interesting to me in these tools, right, because you have all these things you could do. Of course, you can trigger the journey by a form or a purchase or whatever the heck you do to trigger them.
00:03:03
Speaker
um And then, in the in these automation builders, you can create these paths. This one's a really simple, straight, linear path. There's no if-then statements to create different logic in this particular build. And you have all these different options in a marketing automation platform that you typically have available, right, to, you know, here I have, I could take in i can build, shoot, information to other platforms with a webhook, I can wait, I can ah send emails, text messages, I can tag contact records, I can move information from one field to another. There's like all these different things in high level I can do.
Enhancing Marketing with OpenAI's GPT
00:03:38
Speaker
Very cool. But the one that's the most interesting to me these days is because AI is this ability to go and query OpenAI and then capture its response in a different field for a contact or even for the whole account.
00:03:52
Speaker
And that's what I'm doing here, is I am using the GPT powered by OpenAI like element in the Journey Builder here in high level, and it gives me some options. I have the option to only go to GPT 3.5 Turbo if I want it to be faster and cheaper, or if I want it to be ah more robust chat GPT 4 Turbo. Hopefully in the future they add 4.0 and the 4.0 Mini to save to be faster and save more time, right? um But for now, those are the options it gives me. They have different action types ah here in high level. um Underneath that option, it's like Analyze Text Sentiment, Summarize Text, Translate Content. I almost always just do Custom. And here, you have your prompt. And this is where all the freaking magic happens.
00:04:34
Speaker
um They also have this little, before I get into the prompt magic of what you can do with this, it also has this awesome little temperature thing, which is kind of an API. If you're not used to dealing with OpenAI's API, temperature is just kind of a nice tool because you can literally tone it down. I think it's like 0.1 to 0.9. And a point one would be like, oh it's almost like instructing it to almost give you the most literal and most minimal version of what you're asking for versus 10, or sorry, if you give it a point nine, then it's like be more loose and more creative. I almost always get pretty dang close to like, no, just give me what I want, because I need to know it's going to work every time. Be less creative. So that's an example. Let me show you what I actually built in order to build a newsletter. So how do you automate a newsletter? Doesn't that create like horrible newsletter content?
00:05:20
Speaker
That's I'm sure what a lot of people jump to because I'm sure if you just go to chat GPT now and be like, hey, build me a newsletter for plumbers, it's gonna give you a really boring, like, article um like for plumbing as it does for blog posts. Even if you're more specific, hey, make me a newsletter for plumbers about how to stop ah PVC pipes from leaking after when they get from older homes or something. This is more specific and it's gonna yield a better article, but it's still gonna be lame content because it's not based on anything
Integrating AI in Content Workflows
00:05:47
Speaker
unique. In this case, I'm actually automating it. ah by winning content ah when the when the record passes through here, it will have a po a unique podcast episode transcript attached to it that it's going to be pulling from. And the prompt is very dynamic. Let me show you how I'm actually approaching prompts now. So I'm opening up the element of this workflow um in this this chat GPT element where I can essentially go and query chat GPT right here from my marketing automation tool.
00:06:17
Speaker
and it has this super long prompt, and let me let me kind of break down the prompt. First is kind of this beginning prompt. You are an expert copywriter who specializes in making fun and engaging content for, insert podcast name, see? I'm actually putting variable content in here because I plan on using this across multiple accounts and client accounts, and I don't want to have to rewrite it over and over again, so it just inserts the podcast name here, and then it goes on to state. Your current position is the editorial director for, a podcast name, a media brand focused on helping insert target audience and then insert value proposition, right? Because the value proposition is always going to be like it helps people with X, you know. So it sets a broad statement giving context to AI in order to know who it is and who it's working with and for, right? And then the instructions. Please repurpose the podcast transcript. I actually like when I create newsletter content,
00:07:12
Speaker
um with AI, I almost always tell it to write a LinkedIn post because for some reason, the way it formats a LinkedIn post is how I prefer content. I don't actually ever ask it to write a LinkedIn post if I'm actually posting to LinkedIn, but that's a different story. I tell it to write a LinkedIn post so and not a newsletter. So repurpose the podcast transcript into a LinkedIn post but do not include emojis because that it goes a little heavy there, right? Write in choppy sentences with a variety of sentence sentence lengths and a few extreme line breaks to add style. Bold one or two key phrases with an HTML strong tag. Write it as a standalone content piece with references ah referencing the original episode. Write in the first person of the podcast of the as the host directly to the audience using the pronouns you and I, right? So I'm giving it highly specific instructions
00:08:00
Speaker
and how to create this content. um I then go on and give some more instruction. I actually wanted to output it as HTML, and that's important later. I'll show you why it's important for me. It may not be important for you, but I wanted to give it to me in HTML because I'm going to format it in HTML automatically. I don't want to have to format it myself. I just want to stick it, jam HTML in the newsletter and have it formatted properly. So it's doing that for me. And then I insert the podcast transcript inserted
Formatting and Engaging AI Content
00:08:26
Speaker
dynamically here. I have it like like podcast transcript and then it has a merge tag for the episode transcript coming from the contact. linkedin And then I give an example of what a newsletter looks like, fully produced. And it's actually written in HTML so it knows like, hey, see see how this one's written in HTML? That's what I want. I want you to output it in HTML with the bold tags, with the P tags, with the unordered list tags in order to organize it.
00:08:50
Speaker
And then I even include a newsletter style guide that I'm dynamically inserting here right now, the merge tag, which is just a long freaking paragraph of how I want my ah the newsletter to be formatted. um I usually sit down with a client and discuss like what this style they want. And then I put it into a style guide. I use AI to help write it too. um And then and I insert that in there so it hits a little bit closer to what they're hoping for as far as the newsletter goes I'm also starting to do this for my own personal newsletter But this one I'm looking at particular is for a client um though. I'm usually using the same prop from um from account to account right now
00:09:26
Speaker
So that's cool, and that's working. It then queries chatgpt, I then move, use good old fashioned marking automation to say, hey, go ahead and take my response that I get back from chatgpt and insert it in this custom value. Cuz I'm going to take those custom values that it and injects the answer to the from the prompt into the newsletter later. um I'm even going to use it for other parts of the newsletter. so In this case, I only have two variable parts or sorry three variable parts of the newsletter. um One, it creates the body of the newsletter, the main thing. I also then take that body, so it writes the body, I then inject it into another prompt that says, please write a single sentence tse that ah so a single sentence to tease the topic of the newsletter, reference below. Remember to introduce the guest if there is one. Do not use emojis.
00:10:16
Speaker
Right, and then here's the newsletter body that chat GPT already delivered to me I'm now delivering it back to it for a second time To write me a little intro and you'll see how that plays out in the newsletter in a bit later and then of course I have some other pieces that I'm i've that is already in the system like I unfortunately, I wish I could automate the graphic design for the thumbnail for the newsletter, but It's just not there yet. Dolly just isn't good enough. Mid-journey is, but they don't have an API to tap into, so getting closer someday, Dolly will be able to automate that to part two,
Automated Newsletter Distribution
00:10:47
Speaker
but not yet. So I have to, up in before this gets kick-started, I have to upload an image into the system.
00:10:52
Speaker
and it moves the title around, moves some data around, and then goes and actually sends it to a different sequence I have here called the newsletter sender. um I won't explain how the automation works, but essentially from each guest that runs through the system, ah their podcast transcript turns into the newsletter, and then everyone gets this newsletter automatically. It essentially notifies the system, hey, we have new newsletter content, and by the next time they pass through this loop, ah It triggers saying, hey, we have new content, send the newsletter. So it sends the newsletter to the whole list automatically. I don't have to go in there and format or do anything. You could see here's the newsletter in high level before it's actually injecting the information into it. And there's a couple of different elements here. You could see here's a custom field for the newsletter intro, which chatgpt wrote. Here's the body we were talking about, that really long prompt that gets injected here. You can't see it, but there's actually this little custom thing where I'm injecting the thumbnail
00:11:48
Speaker
for the image of the newsletter too, and that's coming later on. And then of course there's like the static elements that are pretty much the same every time I have a, hey, watch watch or listen to the full episode of insert episode title on, and then I have links to Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and I'm always using the same links that just takes them to the top of the page since this email will only ever go out right after an episode is published, so whatever is on the top of Apple, Spotify, and YouTube will be the most recent episode that this newsletter is referencing. um And then I have a featured resource to get some leads out of the thing if they want to, and then of course links to social. But all this stuff is the same every time. I might make the featured resource dynamic later on. um Ultimately, you can use AI to come up with multiple pieces of content. It's not like you have to query a per newsletter subscriber too, though that would be kind of cool to customize it based on the subscriber. But you can actually, I could probably take this one podcast transcript and come up with different types of content.
00:12:43
Speaker
like have it say, hey, pull a list of the resources, hey, go and find the top five nuggets, um and then bullet point it out here, and I would inject that into a different part of the newsletter. You see how even just with one piece of content, the the transcript, you can actually query AI and then create multiple sections of a newsletter? It's really powerful. I'm personally just starting with this little intro statement and then having the image there and then having the body of the newsletter for starters. But as I perfect this and tweak it, I'm going to start adding more sections just based on the one content, maybe injecting a few more original pieces of content in order to keep it interesting and create a little bit more variety in this newsletter. But if you're looking at it like how I'm looking at it, this completely changes the game.
00:13:27
Speaker
I struggle to send out newsletters, but guess what? I'm going to be so consistent in my newsletter now, and I'm never even going to touch it again, because every time I publish an episode, I'm going to take that transcript, put it in the system, and then bam. After that episode goes live, this newsletter is going out. It's going to be awesome. Let's take a look at what that finished newsletter looks like. I just ran through multiple tests to try to get it up to a part where it looks good, and I'm like, okay, this is good enough that I would send it out now. um And so we see a working, this was the most recent one that I ran through based on an episode that I had on this podcast.
Quality of AI-Created Newsletters
00:14:01
Speaker
ah The closed mode podcast was Steven. So you can see here's our intro sentence, which it created based off of the newsletter body below. So you can see it's, oh, let's go back. It's injecting the newsletter intro. That's what's going there. The chat GPT wrote. And then here's our image, which links back to the website.
00:14:22
Speaker
and our actual content and it's actually pretty good like this is this is what i would have written if i were to write a newsletter for the content and it's this is this is how it reads ever notice how a single win in a basketball uh in basketball ignites the entire team suddenly everyone's shooting from downtown ah Hitting three is like it's nothing. That's team confidence. And guess what? It's no different in sales, right? Then he goes into relating on the court to confidence on the sales teams. Fantastic episode on closed mode. Check it out. um But it's a fantastic newsletter too. it It goes and it's all formatted because it rendered it in HTML. In the newsletter, I actually put it here in HTML so that it renders properly here. At least the box that I have it in is like an HTML box. Maybe I did. Maybe i it worked out anyway. um So let it all render properly here, and then a call to action that's static to go and learn more. And this newsletter is a good start. Of course, I like to have a little bit more variety in my newsletter, but this is a really good start. This is not a bad newsletter coming off the podcast.
00:15:23
Speaker
um So I'm really hoping that this is just one baby step I've taken to automating even a more robust newsletter
Encouragement to Use AI for Newsletters
00:15:30
Speaker
in the future. Hopefully it's giving you some inspiration to take some static content that you're already making. Maybe it's a webinar, maybe it's a YouTube video, whatever it is, if there's a transcript to it, you could be sending out a newsletter from it every single time that's interesting, visually unique with some static elements, some dynamic elements, some made from AI, some um for maybe some other inputs that you're giving it. um All you have to do is like inject it into a form and then click, uh, run the newsletter and then BAM, it sends it out. It's just an amazing time to be alive. If you're a marketer right now, leveraging these kinds of tools in order to automate what we used to take a huge team to do. Uh, it's I'm so excited to be automating my newsletter because I freaking hate writing it. So now to just put it on autopilot, I'm like, ah, finally, thank you AI. So take a moment to consider if you can automate a newsletter based on the content that you're already making.