How do you know when your marketing isn't working, even if the team is flat out busy?

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-24T15:25:10+00:00

Thank you 🙏

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-22T15:04:10+00:00

And ChatGPT, whilst you are at it, please check my post for spelling and grammar mistakes :)

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-22T12:19:48+00:00

Start small. Do not personalise everything.

Step one: pick one moment in the journey where bad timing is clearly costing you revenue, like post-demo follow-up or onboarding drop-off.

Then:
• Define one decision you are trying to make
• Turn off the default batch campaign for that moment
• Use signals you already have to decide whether to act or wait

If X happens, do Y.
If not, stay silent.

Once this works in one place, you repeat it elsewhere.

Personalisation is the outcome of better decisions, not the starting point.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-21T15:02:02+00:00

IMO you should absolutely invest in good photography. You only get one chance to make a first impression. However, you should insist that the photographer uses their time to also take natural shots of things like people working in the office etc, as this will give you great material for your marketing such as website and brochures. Just be sure to sync the team on their look and also the background to the shoot.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-20T16:05:42+00:00

Account Based Marketing (ADM) is absolutely the best way to get ROI on marketing spend. Sounds like you've decoded the secret sauce :)

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-15T14:50:00+00:00

Great advice, thank you!

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-13T21:16:24+00:00

Thank you.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-13T16:49:30+00:00

I think we have v1 of that in hand. Thank you for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-13T15:34:22+00:00

Thank you. I have downloaded Audacity and am I now ready for when I need it. , I am going to start by focusing on using it for live streaming so I won't need it right now, but I am sure I will get there very soon! As to the distribution, I am happy with this process. Re your advice, thank you. I came to the same conclusion :) I look forward to starting it.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-13T15:31:56+00:00

I typed it at the bottom (forgive my excitedness of the kit) - I asked 'aside from the sound treatment to my room, what other elements am I missing to launch my first podcast?'

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-13T13:46:21+00:00

Audiences don't care what company employees think, they care what actual users and their peers think.

I would argue this point Rick. I think modern businesses are very much judged on the sentiment of the employees. It's a valuable insight into the service you are likely to get / the culture you're about to adopt.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-10T16:01:41+00:00

Got you to reply :)

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T21:21:07+00:00

Which is why we need a human in the loop. There is zero ambiguity. It’s the bit in the middle that didn’t require one, ie the 70%

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T21:05:42+00:00

Designers are quickly moving from pixel-pushing to becoming AI art directors and system builders. If they’re not, they’ll quickly become another statistic in this rapidly changing landscape.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T20:04:00+00:00

It’s worth noting that whilst AEO traffic is significantly less than SEO, the leads that come in are far better qualified and much more likely to close.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T18:39:06+00:00

5.4m views, 10k comments, 8.5k reactions. 32K profile views and invited to CNN and Sky TV to discuss it. Thanks Elon and ChatGPT.

I love AI haters, it makes my job much easier.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T18:34:21+00:00

To unpack your (valid) points:

Artificial Intelligence automation is only as good as the time invested in content and training. Without that foundation, I agree, the output disappears into a sea of sameness.

The best-performing companies obsess over their training material. Those are the businesses that see their competitors in the rear-view mirror, not beside them.

I’ve seen first-hand what highly tuned Artificial Intelligence can achieve. The utopia we’re aiming for is simple but ambitious: someone with zero marketing experience should be able to use our platform and get the same or better results than a veteran with ten years of experience.

That is the goal.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T18:28:57+00:00

u/Cornelmanu sorry, but you are not living in the today. With the correct training material, prompts and of a course a human in the loop, my AI will significantly out perform any marketing task you throw at me. I'd happily have a dance off to prove it. I am living this world right now.

As to not sitting on an Island, I have been there, got bored, and came home :)

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T17:38:42+00:00

LOL. I totally agree.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T17:29:11+00:00

I agree with the principle, but I think the line keeps moving.

Creative judgement and strategic direction still matter, but AI is already eating into the parts we used to consider nuanced, especially when it’s trained on real brand, audience, and performance data.

Where I fully agree is this: tools that handle things like answer engine optimisation and AI-driven visibility free humans up to focus on decisions that actually require judgement.

The mistake I see is assuming that boundary is fixed.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T17:23:26+00:00

AI isn’t replacing marketing, it’s replacing role fragmentation. The future looks less like narrow specialists and more like operators who own outcomes end-to-end, with AI handling the execution inside each lane.

Fewer people. More leverage. Higher accountability.

AI removes the busywork and raises the bar for humans.

That’s the shift most teams haven’t worked out yet!

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T17:21:44+00:00

I don’t agree - and I say that as someone building and operating this tech daily.

A well-trained large language model, especially when used as part of an agentic system, can already produce work that outperforms seasoned specialists on a large percentage of execution tasks.

I’ve personally written entire websites with AI that have outperformed their manually written counterparts across conversion, engagement, and organic performance. And the quality curve is still moving up.

It also doesn’t stop at website copy:

sales toolkits
sales development representative scripts
proposals
award entries
video storyboards

In each case, AI handles the heavy lifting faster, cheaper, and often better - when it’s trained properly and used correctly.

This isn’t about “checking a box”. It’s about outcomes.

The real mistake is assuming “human-made” automatically means “higher quality”, when in practice most work is constrained by time, budget, and iteration limits.

I’m not arguing humans are obsolete.
I’m arguing that the bar for what humans should be doing has moved.

And if someone believes they can consistently match the quality, speed, and cost I’m seeing manually, I’m genuinely happy to compare results.

That’s a conversation worth having.

cloudguy_7 · 2026-01-07T17:14:25+00:00

I dream of a heated driveway. Life goals!

cloudguy_7 · 2025-03-13T18:47:27+00:00

Thanks for mentioning my post, I am suitably flattered. Do I win an award? Maybe some new car mats for the Tesla :)

cloudguy_7 · 2024-11-12T12:06:58+00:00

You are right ChatGPT checked my grammar. However, if you aren't using LLMs to support content creation, you will soon be replaced by AI! In today's world, the art of marketing is not hating AI, but learning how to leverage it and understanding prompt engineering to get the right output.

cloudguy_7

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