| Hey good folks and Thursday! I’m about to head out on vacation for the next week and a half, so I’m feeling a lot of senioritis today! But, it is a full day of meetings and at least 3 different blogs that need to get written sooo, let’s go!
Every content marketer or even marketing leader I chat with these days is well aware of how much the SEO and content marketing playbook has changed because of AI. Here is the general consensus across all of these folks: No one has the right answer right now. Every team and every company seems to be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks in terms of what drives performance, what their audience will care about, and what investors will care about. Even when you do feel like you’ve figured it out, some external change to an algorithm or a model or just a new shiny way someone else is doing something puts you back to square 1. That’s ok. Uncertainty is a driver for change and learning. Lean in. Everyone is trying to figure out AI content production at scale, ideally in a closed loop system. And in the next 3-5 years, most companies will have figured it out. But it’s the wild west right now––and the curious content marketer that leans in will have a real advantage in the future as someone who oversees these systems and ensures high-quality editorial no matter who or what is writing it. But, back to #1…no one has the right, complete answer right now. Production timelines have collapsed, likely for good. Product launches can happen in days instead of weeks or months. Year-long planning cycles? Mostly gone. Quarter-long planning cycles? You’re lucky if you get this. For many teams, we have most into monthly or even weekly planning cycles with evergreen programs side-by-side resources to move quickly on the next launch, AEO trends, etc. This is part of why so many people are trying to figure out AI content production at scale. The need for speed is critical, though right now, AI content production systems seem to get folks ~60-70% of the fidelity they need to publish. Humans aren’t going anywhere in this process just yet.
If you’re feeling behind, or really don’t want AI in your content production process, might I suggest a few ways to test things out that get you into the game and help speed you up: Claude to CMS publishing. That’s right, Claude can push content to your CMS. This saves my team ~20-30 minutes per article. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up real fast, especially when we have large launches. Claude CoWork automations. I have automations set up to draft email replies, tell me the most urgent tasks for each day, audit our content library weekly for areas out of alignment with our narrative / messaging, and so much more. Let this be your playground. Any task you do more than 1x a week, see if you can automate it here. Content marketing dashboards. Use Claude artifacts to build prettier and more user-friendly content dashboards including published content by themes, upcoming content, and analytics for it all. This can work better than Google Sheets or even your project management system for your sales team, execs, etc.
AI is changing marketing, and how marketers work, across every organization I talk to from ecommerce companies to major public SaaS players. Get your hands dirty. Get curious. Embrace the unknown. Help write the playbook for this next era.
A NOTE ON THIS ADVICE You do you! One content marketer’s best practices aren’t always right for another one, though I do try to distill out the main concepts and core practices I believe everyone can benefit from. That said, you must use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice given from folks on the internet. I am an expert, and this advice comes from my direct experience, but I am not smarter than you, and I have nothing to gain or lose because of what you do.
Thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think by replying to this email. Very excited to be here with y’all. Tracey |
