Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
AI's Impact on Marketing: Faster, Better, & Smarter Strategies
526 Plays21 days ago
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez shares an enlightening interview with Brooks Lockett, diving deep into the transformative impact of AI on marketing strategies and practices. The conversation uncovers insights into Dan's role at Social Media Examiner, the significant potential of AI in content creation, and the evolving landscape of AI adoption among marketers. They also discuss practical use cases, holistic frameworks for AI marketing, and the immense leverage AI can provide in enhancing both speed and quality of work. Tune in to gain a fresh perspective on harnessing AI to revolutionize your marketing efforts.
Resources:
- AI Copywriting Pro Newsletter: https://brookslockett.substack.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 AI still early; wide adoption expected soon.
04:26 I adopted ChatGPT Plus earlier than peers.
08:05 Video enhances and clarifies teaching complex concepts.
11:37 Teaching content helps you master the topic.
15:58 AI elevates marketing automation with personalization.
20:24 Funnels unify marketing strategies for holistic success.
21:04 Creating frameworks for AI marketing strategy development.
25:37 AI: Faster, better, smarter innovations unlock possibilities.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the AI Driven Marketer. I'm Dan Sanchez and today I'm syndicating an interview that I had with Brooks Lockett over at the AI Copywriting Pro newsletter. I thought Brooks' interview was so good that I wanted to syndicate it on my own podcast because he recorded the whole thing. I even encouraged him that he needed to start his own podcast. So hopefully Brooks starts his own show. But until then, go and subscribe to his newsletter over at Substack.
00:00:23
Speaker
Again, I will drop a link to the show in the description. So after you listen to this interview, go over to Brooks's newsletter and subscribe. And here's the interview.
Role at Social Media Examiner
00:00:32
Speaker
We kind of already dove into it a little bit, but maybe you can go deeper on like what exactly are you thinking for social media examiner and then we can get them into some of your other content stuff as well.
00:00:44
Speaker
So my my role at Social Media Examiner right now is twofold. I am a essentially a content creator. work at a higher social media marketing manager, and I'm like, don't want someone to manage it. You need someone to come in and create some unique ideas, someone that creates ideas not to promote, but to get attention. And I think that's the difference between a social media manager and a creator. someone A creator is someone with a track record of actually growing an audience.
00:01:11
Speaker
and has a discernment of what the audience wants. Luckily, I'm i'm a marketer's marketer, I'm a marketer's creator, so like I'm pretty in touch with what marketers like, don't like. I think it's honestly one of the best um audiences to work with because marketers love creative stuff.
00:01:26
Speaker
They love novel things yet when you throw in a right hook, they don't get bad You know what I'm saying? So they actually respect respect the right hook on occasion, especially if you could sneak it into something good Yeah, so I'm really looking forward to crafting some unique premises and angles for a content series within social media examiner and not not being like a topical leader face per se on social media marketing, but essentially being a creator, coming up with content, getting a friend of the camera, editing the videos and doing all the work to create a few content series for a social media examiner and promoting their, and working those into promoting their conference, promoting their paid communities.
AI's Transformative Potential in Marketing
00:02:07
Speaker
So that's a big part of it, but also like Mike is going big into AI. Like I talk about this a lot, but I'm like,
00:02:15
Speaker
There was a point last year when I started my own AI podcast where it's like I had this writing on the wall moment and I wanted to tell people everywhere like hey, AI is going to be a big deal. Hey, AI is going to be a big deal. It's coming for all of us kind of like before social media was big. i I knew that was going to be big. I remember before WordPress popped, I didn't like WordPress is going to be the thing that controls everything. That's the best solution out there. And now, you know, controls 45% of websites on the internet.
00:02:41
Speaker
but i didn't document my journey on that one i did with ai this time i started getting it i started i got in a it seems weird to say it was like a year after chat gpt came out when i started but it's still really early for ai even now like it's still early it hasn't crossed over into the you know the what is it, the adoption bell curve? It hasn't crossed over into that early majority where most people are using it. theyre all Let's say the early the whatever the group is before that is is pretty well, and i I bet it'll cross the chasm this this next year, where like most of the population's using AI on a regular basis, or a good majority of them.
00:03:18
Speaker
but Mike saw it too and started doubling down this spring, creating his own podcast, starting his old pain community, shoot his social media marketing world conference is, is like half AI driven. He's got his own AI ticket. If you only want the AI stuff, I'm like it's probably the biggest AI marketing conference there is now.
00:03:38
Speaker
and i was I was excited to join him to be to like work alongside Mike and his team to kind of push AI marketing to the forefront because I think it's it's inevitable that it's going to change everything we do in marketing for sure. i mean I think it's going to actually change a lot of things that we do in every part of our lives, but and in marketing, it's definitely going to, like five years from now, marketing will look much different than it does today.
00:04:01
Speaker
what's been What's been surprising about in terms of learning, like you said, you're kind of in in touch with what marketers want. Like when you started hammering the AI angle and going deeper on that or finding it, what's been like the audience feedback on that? Like what's today what specific points have you learned? And you're like, oh, that's surprising.
00:04:21
Speaker
I didn't realize how early I was until I started talking to a lot of my marketing peers, especially in tech, because the you know the people who work in SaaS and tech, they're usually a little bit more on the, they're they're more innovative, right? they They like tech solutions. They're more prone to try new things. Yet I was surprised that like even in spring of last year, most of my peers in marketing tech hadn't even started paying for something like a chat GPT plus yet.
00:04:48
Speaker
which is kind of an indicator that you're really starting to use it a lot if you're starting to throw your own money at it. I mean, 20 bucks isn't a month, but it's enough that like if you're not using it a lot, you're not going to pay for it. yeah um It It really started helping me understand like, wow, like I thought I was actually a little bit behind the ball here, but it's super early. That's been something that's been surprising. I even have some really, really smart peers that are that have I've had on my show talking about like That it's not like ai ai won't be that big. It'll be like a subsection of like martech and marketing ops Maybe it'll be like its own little maybe division at at at its biggest length and i'm like I don't think so I think it's going to change every vertical within marketing like hardcore like everything's going to look different for every single marketer and even the leaders like will will be ai enhanced in a way and we'll have a whole are all the frontline workers will be AI agents building things in the future and people will be all all what we used to be considered like a I don't know like an entry level person will now be a manager managing an AI team like that'll just be standard.
00:05:58
Speaker
But and you know, that's me thinking out a few quite a few years into the future, but I'm pretty confident that'll be the base. But not everybody
AI as an Essential Marketing Discipline
00:06:04
Speaker
agrees with me. So that's how I know that's the thing that surprised me is that this whole conversation around AI in marketing is still super early. Well, that what I think about, you know, the emergence of like search engines and the emergence of social media, the emergence of like email, like just different like, you know, kind of basic internet platforms that everybody kind of uses and captures those network effects. It it seems like over time, they just kind of in weird, wonky, unexpected ways like turn into emergent like marketing disciplines that some people go super hardcore and like do really well at and then and then eventually it seems like it's just a part of the mix you know It's just a big part of the mix that everybody just knows is there, yet very few were like a part of that origin story. Do you feel like that's sort of happening with LLMs and agents and workflows and all the different ecosystems popping up? Yeah, absolutely, I think.
00:07:06
Speaker
There's just a few players at the helm right now, which honestly I i love because you there's always a few people who get in early and define what the path is going to look like for everybody else. And that's that's why I love being early because you can actually start like cutting, forging your way through the jungle and actually setting a place for people to run behind you and make it easier for others. um think of like, like Mike, Michael Stelzner was one of those people who did it for social media marketing, not him in particular, but he, he created the stage for a lot of other thought leaders in the space to come and say like, Hey, this is how we should use social in order to drive marketing results. Someone's got to do it for AI and forge a path through that jungle. So hopefully I get to be one of those people there will be many helping people figure it out.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, you seem pretty fired up about it.
Benefits of Video in Teaching
00:07:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah now what's fine Yeah, yeah Okay, and and and one thing that I think you have sort of cracked a little bit that I think is hard someone who does like written content Primarily like your videos and your Tara like prompted sharing over video. I think that is an interesting way to teach. It seems like video is kind of your preferred conduit for communication, ah which is hard. It's hard to do videos. It's not easy to do that. Especially when like I saw, I watched the video of 01 and you were kind of explaining 01 and like the the different like prompting methodologies and like how to even wrap your head around how it works. And you've done like lots of other things too. but like
00:08:40
Speaker
Has that helped you clarify, you know, like, I guess my question is like, how has doing videos like really helped you like hone and clarify like your message and refine with your audience and just kind of like, make it sharper over time for marketers to to kind of give some a little bit of backstory actually picked video for a couple of different reasons. One, i I like I slept in freaking English class in high school and that was a freaking mistake. Of all the classes that mattered in grade school, it was English. Like who knew, dude? Like every teacher swore like their class was important. English happened but happened to be the one because writing ended up being way more important than any other subject. My opinion.
00:09:20
Speaker
But I slept. I do okay writing now, but I knew and this was painful because I'm an introvert. So getting in front of the camera is actually kind of intimidating, especially like the amount I remember war courting my first video, it's still live on YouTube somewhere, but like the amount of retakes I had to do to get it was really difficult.
00:09:38
Speaker
And it just came with practice now. I love it Because now with AI you could just turn the transcript into a lot of really good things It's not a plus writing like in good writers know like hey, you're like you're never gonna hit like really great writing But I'm like man if you know how to prompt well becomes be writing Especially if what you threw down was was actually good. You had some good content in there now I use that but I also love video because you can I don't know right good really good writers could do this with the written word, but i'm not a good right writer so I can't do this with the written word, but you can like add inflection into your voice you can Pause and make it more dramatic and then bring it down to that fine point, you know So like I love being able to do that in video and it's more about the audio though But you know the facial expressions and the hand gestures and all the different things that make video really come alive I love that and it's helped me in a lot to do video because
00:10:31
Speaker
really teaching is the ultimate form of like mastery. If you can teach it and try to boil a a topic down, you're truly mastering it. like i I just talked about on an episode I just dropped in my own podcast about this process I have i call the 30-30-30 plan.
00:10:47
Speaker
it's essentially if you want to master and become an authority on any any topic any niche topic Find a topic that has 30 books on the topic or less read them all Which it sounds intimidating but I promise like if it's all on one really niche topic The first three books will have a lot of information every book after that It will be less and less content in the book that you actually have to read, because you can skim it. And it's all the same information. You're just looking for the new stuff. So reading 30 books feels more like reading 10, which anybody can do in a year. So read all the content. Find out where the industry is at in their thinking. Find out what gaps are missing. Go and interview 30 people on the topic to actually work through Socratically. Like right now, we're talking about a topic. And you you might find you know things that you didn't even know you knew by just having a conversation about it.
00:11:32
Speaker
but then actually going and writing I used to say 30 blog posts I think he honestly just create 30 pieces of unique content on a topic teaching it Like really forces you to master the topic because you're you're you're finding new areas that haven't been talked about before Which means you get to be the one to try to break it down and make it simple for people to understand in that process of thinking about it from a beginner's perspective What you didn't know before forces you to think in a way and truly master a topic when you can teach it well to others. So so doing that in the video is the way I prefer, but honestly, you could do it by the written word. The medium matters less than actually going and teaching. I just chose video because I feel like we're kind of in a video age where people are scrolling through, and I find that video can most easily be converted to the other mediums of audio and written word now. Definitely. Definitely. It's cool that all the tools are there. like but It's cool that
00:12:26
Speaker
yeah I feel like, and this is just me talking to somebody who doesn't do video but maybe should do more video in the future, is like it's like if you can really hone that, you're sitting there, you are able to articulate this niche topic in a delivery that other people don't have that's engaging, that that brings people into your orbit,
00:12:48
Speaker
It's like you can have a whole structure built around capturing that transcript, repurposing that transcript into other channels for even more expanded regions. Just like you can give it tentacles. Like I think the Dr. Octopus from Spider-Man 2, it's like you can just add all those claws to yourself and like do kind of 10 exit a little bit.
00:13:10
Speaker
I'll have to find video just to be more endearing. I, I went through a a long period, I think with a lot of other people where my brother introduced me to Casey Neistat back in like 2015, 2016. And I started watching his daily vlogs every single day. And what I did like, i I fell in love with that guy, man. He was doing really cool stuff every single day in his daily vlog. it really showed me the power of like video and how, how much more, how much more value you get and how much more,
00:13:40
Speaker
credibility and loyalty you have around like seeing a a face every single day. It's almost like you know that person when you're seeing them regularly, that you can't quite achieve the same level with with writing unless you are a really like, you're like a master writer, like you're writing some of the best selling books, obviously, like writers can get in your head and get into that narrative more.
00:14:01
Speaker
But I find video is an easy way to do it. We easier way to build that like relational level, which is why especially like if you start having some people watch your videos and they jump on a call with you, you have this experience sometimes where they're like, I feel like I know you. And it's it's kind of weird from the other ranks. You're like, Oh, hi, it's nice to meet you. But video does that more than any other medium I've ever I've ever had before because they've been watching you.
00:14:23
Speaker
And it feels like they have a relationship with you. So and it's a powerful medium. But like I said, master writers like can really do that really well on a totally different level. if you're like I love reading fiction for that love that reason, right because it gets in your head in a way that movies can't. yeah Yeah, definitely. Love that. do want to shift gears a little bit because it seems like you do some consulting work as well around AI, at least on your LinkedIn. You want to tell me a little bit
AI in Consulting and Marketing Automation
00:14:50
Speaker
about that? like How does that work?
00:14:53
Speaker
It's funny, over the last year and a half, i've I've been like a solo consultant, sometimes freelancer, depending on what they needed. I'm doing that less now because of the the new role as social media examiner. But i was i was a mix I was a weird mix of like helping people with podcasting, marketing automation, and then over the last year, because I started talking more about AI, I started helping people with AI.
00:15:14
Speaker
And at first, I just started blending AI and into the other things I did. So I'd help people launch a podcast. And then I'd be like, oh, cool. and Let's make some AI tools. And they'd be like, OK. And then I'd make their there they're production line for their podcast way more efficient. I'm like, you guys don't need to pay someone to write your show notes. like AI is really good at that, actually. Let's speed this up. Instead of coming up with a title, have AI come up with five. Here's a prompt to get the most out of it so that you can do it based on the show and make sure it doesn't mix up or doesn't overlap with the other shows you've done.
00:15:43
Speaker
was stuff like that and then it started becoming marketing automation like how do we inject AI into your automation in order to connect your automation to make it way more effective. ai Even back with like rudimentary AI was like filling in so many gaps that you couldn't achieve with.
00:16:00
Speaker
marketing automation, marketing automation before to customize and personalize thing was like a game of Mad Libs. Like you're like, okay, I'm going to inject a field here based on a drop down list I gave them earlier, right? Like there's only so many different things you can do with marketing automation based on like, drop down menus and insert this and AI. You like even on my own AI course, I personalize every email lesson based on the video based on information they gave me.
00:16:26
Speaker
with a custom lesson and every single lesson's unique based on based on the role who they sell to and what they their their role in the company to give them customized lessons. And it's like, that was impossible before with marketing automation. And then building custom GPTs ended up becoming a thing that I was helping people do. did a case study on that on my show about how I used, I worked with another marketing consultant who was doing a lot of Consulting around helping companies prepare for the future really interesting subjects these kind of a futurist so he's he had a method and a model of helping kind paint a picture of different future scenarios and spotting risks and likelihoods of future opportunities as well as risks in order to prepare for them now he had a very clear defined model, but it would take him two weeks to walk through the model and to build it and i'm like
00:17:13
Speaker
oh my gosh, we can build a whole custom GPT that will do this in like 30 minutes. It still was hard, but like imagine imagine something that used to take you 80 man hours, now only takes you 30 minutes. It's so fast that you could literally just do it live with clients on a call now. yeah that's what That's what we built for his business and now he's using that custom GPT with clients and like is yeah accelerating his value because you know speed is everything. If you can you could do nothing in an industry but improve the speed of delivery,
00:17:43
Speaker
It's a game changer. ah ah so It's mind blowing the amount of leverage you can get out of this. And it's crazy how people so just don't even realize it. They don't even know. and it's like yeah it's like And then you see the people who like, and I don't blame them. I don't blame them. I think they'll come around eventually. You see people posting about like, they they they put some really generic input in CHI GPT. And then of course, it fits out something generic and then they go see I told you, and it's like, um, so, so no, I think, I think it's important for there to be a healthy, you know, sort of creator economy around these
Creating AI Marketing Frameworks
00:18:23
Speaker
subjects. And you can already tell to your point, it's just so early. It's just early.
00:18:28
Speaker
what What kind of are your, you know, you don't have to give away like your secret sauce and stuff, but in terms of like looking in the next one to three years, what what what are your general plans for content and just educating the market and just creating a sort of movement around these things for for marketers?
00:18:52
Speaker
have no secret sauce. if i like a seen As soon as I have a really, really good idea that i I feel like people, that is useful for me, I literally try to publish it as fast as possible. There's no secrets. Because like anything you figure out, somebody else will figure out. I just i honestly just try to get it out there faster.
00:19:10
Speaker
But I think cut I try to be the really practical person. There's all kinds of conversations happening around AI. There's the theoretical stuff of like doom and gloom and really hyper ah like utopia kind of stuff with AI. I don't get into that stuff. I'm like, screw it, that stuff will figure itself out. All I want to know is how can I use AI to like improve my craft and get more results as a marketer like now and maybe around the very near future, like in the next couple of months, maybe that if I can start preparing for it.
00:19:39
Speaker
And that's what I try to cover. So I'm trying to cover the most useful, ah ah most practical use cases that are most helpful for me and other marketers. I'm also trying to not just get like individual use cases but more holistic frameworks to approach the topic of AI.
00:19:54
Speaker
For example, a really helpful framework that was like, it it just made the whole difference for me around digital marketing was Ryan Dice's approach to digital marketing. He's like, look, every single channel has a top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel component. so so break Look at all the different channels in these three buckets, and you'll see how all of this can fit together more holistically.
00:20:18
Speaker
And then he went through and created courses around like social media, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, email marketing, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel. And just kind of put every kind of put a bow on how all these channels could work individually and then together to create a holistic experience. So as you were thinking about strategies and weaknesses and where you were falling off or where you were doing well, you could actually look at it as a system and approach it that way.
00:20:44
Speaker
AI marketing still needs that. So I'm trying to come up with frameworks and tools to help marketers think about this new topic. I have a few already around how to approach AI as an individual to mastery, like steps that can be taken. i' I won't explain it here, but i can I can give you a link to a show I did earlier on that. Even I came up with a five ah framework around the five types of AI marketing.
00:21:07
Speaker
to consider for your your your team and how to approach it. I'm also now trying to think about like how to create a framework that leaders can look at in onboarding their team into AI marketing. I think a lot of leaders, marketing directors, VPs, are asking like, how do I, okay, this is clear, but I don't know how to like, some of my team is like crushing it and some of them aren't.
00:21:26
Speaker
what can we do with the whole well How can we create a program for the whole team where I can measure everybody's improvements in adopting these new tools? so Because you don't want to get left behind as a department. you want to yeah well Not everybody will take to it like a duct of water, but some people need to be helped and kind of like nudged along while other people need need a space to play. so It's coming up with frameworks to help people's thinking around the topic that I'm most excited about. But coming up with the practical use cases is always fun too, is I like to get my hands dirty and trying out little little tactical things that really help. Would you say, Dan, just so I understand it, is it like trying to get people in your audience to see like the second and third order effects of using using
AI's Impact on Work Processes
00:22:11
Speaker
the tools? like I guess if I think of an example for me, it's like two years ago, I wouldn't have thought that
00:22:17
Speaker
using Claude will help me write more emails, which then means I can do the thing I've always wanted to do, which is do a daily email because it's it's it's you either it's either impossible to ignore, or you just completely ignore it all together, you know, it's hot and cold, I've always wanted to do that. And it's like without AI, that would be probably five to 10 times harder yeah to do and to hit quality and volume.
00:22:40
Speaker
Is that kind of what you're saying? It's like, that's not necessarily so direct, but it's like a second and third order effect of just being more efficient and, you know, having a system to to put your words on it. Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
I think there are two different things. I'm trying to come up with frameworks that give people like a map of even how to navigate this new land. But also, one of the things I have been talking about is thinking about even ways can improve AI can improve work for everybody, but even collectively as a team. I like to think about AI in three different ways, helping people move faster, like you're talking about. It becomes a quantity game. like If I had more time, what else would I do? Well, AI is going to help you do that.
00:23:20
Speaker
But all AI can do more than that. It can do more than just help you do more and faster. It can help you do better. Like the stuff I can do now because of AI is drastically better. I can come up with much better ideas, because I might have a few creative ideas. But if I give those as examples to AI and be like, okay, now let's, here's some examples of where I want to go with the show idea a new podcast or something. Give me some more like this.
00:23:44
Speaker
Oh, so good, especially if you have a few like really good ones in the as examples. so AI will extend them and you might get a new idea that's better than your ideas, or you might get some ones that compliment it, or you exhaust all the different ideas. You're like, no, I'm feeling good about the ideas I produce. It'll just sharpen you and make your ideas and your work better. For me, who's not, I'm an okay writer, but I'm not i'm probably like a C plus writer. elevates me to a B plus writer because now I can write much chat and Claude can write better than I can.
00:24:12
Speaker
I have to write a LinkedIn post and be like, okay, rewrite this and make it more concise. And it always does better than my original, even my final draft, it's better than that my final draft. I'm like, okay. Like, I'm just going to have to run this through AI every time because it's better than me at this. Fine. I've um written a lot of posts for LinkedIn, so it's just sad, but it is what it is. I'm not romantic about the craft of writing or even producing video. I'm just like, hey, if it's more effective, let's do that. But that was a two, like faster, better, but then there's another category of smarter.
00:24:42
Speaker
Once you do faster, which is where I recommend people start, how can you do what you're already doing faster and not how can you use AI to make it better? There's this other category of smarter and I kind of think about it in two ways.
00:24:53
Speaker
One, AI is a really great coach and consultant if you would ask good questions and help help you to guide your consistent your thinking and what what things you should arc arc should be considering for a thing. It's really helpful for that. But there's even a new realm of things that are made possible AI that aren't like you could have never considered before.
00:25:13
Speaker
like think like It's not just faster, it's not just better, it's it's new. It's innovation now. And I actually think walking through that progression of doing things faster, doing things better will begin to train your mind in thinking about things that weren't even a possibility before. you start to do those things and you start to use AI regularly, all of a sudden you'll start to be open up the new possibilities of ways of serving customers and reaching people and even creating ideas and putting out content that were impossible three years ago.
00:25:41
Speaker
So that's kind of how I've been coaching people on how to think through AI, do it faster, do it better, and then do it smarter. Yeah, that's Polish stuff, man. That's exciting. why I can't stop talking about it. I'm like, yes, like that's why I honestly why I wanted to work at social media examiner. I'm like, wait, I can get paid to do this full time now. Yes, please. I could have kept going solo. But you know, even the market for AI stuff is still slow. And I'm still doing a lot of marketing automation and podcasting work to to pay the bills. So to be able to do it full time or nearly full time is is
00:26:16
Speaker
I don't know. Awesome. so I get to think about it more now. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's a really exciting way to just like be excited for what you do every single day, even more. So it props to you, man. And thanks again for this interview. Thanks again for listening to this interview. It comes from the AI copywriting pro newsletter. Go and subscribe over at sub stock link in the description.