Marketing skills, Instagram highlights, and a boatload of beer – read more in this edition!

ChatGPT. Am I right?!

If your news feed is anything like mine, you've heard about the new tool every day for the past month and a half.

I jumped on and took ChatGPT for a spin early on. I was impressed. But not too much. I was curious to a healthy degree.

And this is precisely the type of reaction that, to me, makes the most sense right now.

However, I see a few camps of people going in all sorts of different directions. First, there are the ones who praise ChatGPT as their savior. Then there are the ones who warn this is the end of job security for copywriters. Some people seem to be scared to even try out the tool – like testing will be a sort of further validation.

The latter position is the most dangerous one, in my opinion. You have to know what's out there. We can't expect to kill off AI-based tools by ignoring them – no more than the Luddites succeeded in stopping the industrial revolution by breaking a few machines.

Instead, try. Play around. See what these tools can do for you – and where they fall short. In this way, you will up your technical skills and stay relevant. And you'll also understand the blank spaces left by AI that we can focus on as marketers – build up your capabilities there.

Sure, ChatGPT can immediately give you five ad headline variations for your new spring collection. But it can't know what your customers value in your brand or what words they use to describe it. So do the hard work of surveying customers, collecting insights, and building customer empathy. Armed with these findings, you'll do a way better marketing job than any automated tool. And with the help of an AI tool, you'll be able to get a lot more done.

AI is the way forward – but the A doesn't stand for 'artificial.' It stands for 'augmented' intelligence.

Stay curious and play around,

🤖 P.S. Have you already experimented with AI-enabled tools? What did you find most valuable about them? Drop me a line, I'd love to know!

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UP YOUR GAME

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Next-Level Marketing: Skills for Success in 2023

In marketing, there’s this sense that we’re in a constant state of flux. New channels sprout left and right every week. Consumers are evolving rapidly. A three-year pandemic, a major war, and a looming recession aren’t helping. How do you stay ahead of the curve and gain an edge over your competition?

In this post, I outlined some recent changes affecting marketers and what they mean for those who want to succeed. I’ve also listed my recommendations for resources that will help you grow as a marketer or a business owner.

HANDPICKED STORIES FOR YOU

whole and cut pieces of fruit, symbolizing content repurposing

9 Proven Copywriting Formulas (With Real-Life Examples)
I'm a big fan of everything that can kick-start your creative process and copywriting formulas are just that. Here's a post that will expand your database of such formulas and can help you next time you're faced with a blank page.

Account-Based Content Marketing in 9-Steps
If you're in B2B, then you're probably already familiar with ABM. This post talks about content marketing structured for ABM – that's to say, addressing the needs of specific target accounts. I love the specificity! You'll see the exact research process, content examples, and key steps.

14 Ways to Use Instagram Stories Highlights for Marketing
Story highlights can help you expand the lifetime of your most successful story content and tell a... story... to new users visiting your profile. If you haven't thought about creating Instagram stories, this post will give you some actionable ideas on where to start.

The Ultimate Guide to Digital PR
Have you ever built content designed to be pitched to media sites? This guide will help you plan your first digital PR campaign, from ideation to outreach. It's also filled with tool recommendations and specific examples.

The Definitive Guide to Brand Storytelling (+ Free Template)
I'm sharing this post, although I don't agree with all of it :) I especially like the section describing the most important elements for powerful brand storytelling: making it not just emotional but also realistic and convincing. The examples are worth a look at, as well. However, the section on story mapping steps isn't actionable enough - skip it.

CAMPAIGN WORTH SEEING

whole and cut pieces of fruit, symbolizing content repurposing

Budweiser reacted brilliantly to Qatar's ban on stadium alcohol sales at the World Cup

Budweiser "was caught without the ball," as David Meerman Scott says, during the FIFA World Cup. Right before the start of the games, host nation Qatar suddenly banned alcohol sales within World Cup stadiums. So Budweiser announced in a tweet that the beer planned for the stadiums would be donated to the winning country.

This is a fascinating example of newsjacking, and it got media coverage from media outlets, including CNN, Reuters, Sports Illustrated, Entrepreneur, FOX, CBS, and many others. While it might not taste as good as the revenue from direct sales, the coverage was sure a win, and it showed how a brand could make the most out of a bad situation.

FUN STUFF TO CLICK ON

Well, these were certainly on my reading list – hope you find them valuable.

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