34 | Why AI Needs Onboarding Before It Can Market Your Business

We have to treat AI the way that we would treat an agency. We've got to give it the knowledge that it needs first before we can ask it to create and strategize in brainstorm and consult with us. Without giving AI all of that knowledge, it's going to start looking for answers on the internet, which is going to guarantee that it gives you back generic advice and output that is going to lead you and your business down the wrong path. You're listening to Pretty Smart Marketing, the go-to podcast for coaches, course creators and online business owners who want practical AI assisted marketing without the tech row vibes. I'm your host, Taylor Marks, and let's get into it. Hello and welcome to the first official episode of Pretty Smart Marketing and the 34th episode of this podcast. Last week's episode was the very last week as launch confidential. If you didn't listen to it yet, that's where I spilled the tea on the whole backstory on why we've transitioned and what's coming up in the future for this podcast. Basically, we're not starting over, even though the name has changed, that's why this episode is 34 and not starting over with episode one again. Even though this podcast has a different name, the foundation of it has not changed. So we're still talking about marketing and messaging and funnels and strategy launches and the pre-launch runway, fire psychology and selling. The difference is that now we are looking at all of it through the lens of AI collaboration in today's ever-evolving AI-driven marketing landscape, because AI is here and it is changing the way that we work. Things are possible now that weren't possible before, but good marketing still matters. Maybe even more than ever because of the fact that people aren't trusting as easily nowadays. We're in a trust recession, so people aren't falling for sales tactics or fake urgency anymore and how you show up for your audience and having a really good strategy is more crucial now than ever. And AI is making that even more important because people who don't know how to use it are getting caught using it badly, which is backfiring for them. So they may get their work done a little bit faster, but if they're not using it right, then the work that AI is producing for them is not going to help them sell. So I want to start this new chapter with something that I think almost everyone, well maybe not almost everyone, but a lot of people using AI are getting wrong because it's the same mistake that I made in the beginning. I used to think that AI output was bad because AI itself maybe wasn't really all that it was cracked up to be. You know everyone was talking about how amazing it was or that you got to use the AI and people are using it and I just thought that maybe they were wrong. Maybe it just wasn't that great, but it turns out that was not the problem. So back when I was still running my done-for-you-marketing and as an agency, every new client that I brought on with me, the first step that I had every single one of them take was onboarding and nobody ever gets excited about that onboarding process. Like they want the funnel and the ads, the sales pages, and the launch plan, but no one wants the paperwork, you know, to sit on a Zoom call for like 90 minutes or two hours talking about this stuff. But I literally could not do my job without it because before I could build our funnel or write a single email or launch an ad campaign, I needed context. I needed to understand who they are, what they do, who they served, what they sound like, or what they want to sound like, what they absolutely do not want to sound like. I needed to know their budget, their goals, what's work before, what didn't work when they tried it, because the quality of the marketing that I could deliver for them was directly tied to the quality of the information I was given by them. And here's what I learned. The clients who gave us unclear context got results that reflected that lack of clarity. And it wasn't because they were bad clients or that they had bad offers or that their business wasn't good or that they didn't have all the potential to sell. But it was because we as a team were making decisions based on a really weak foundation. So fast forward to today, people are opening up chat GPT and they're saying, write me a sales page for my offer or write me an email sequence or give me some content ideas or let's plan out my launch strategy, which is basically the equivalent of spending $5,000 or $10,000 on an agency and saying, I'd like a funnel, please, but skipping the onboarding process. So of course, the output that they get is going to be generic because AI doesn't know anything about you or your business or your offers, your buyers or your brand voice. And that is when I started to understand that the problem wasn't with how I was using PROM. So it didn't matter how I asked for what I wanted. The problem was the context I was giving it or the lack of context in this scenario because AI can only be as strategic as the information it has access to, which means a really fancy, you know, two-page long prompt with weak context is still going to be producing mediocre marketing. So once I realized that AI needed the same kind of onboarding that we needed as a marketing agency with new clients, I started creating these files that I could upload whenever I opened a new thread. And I basically copied my client onboarding process. So I put everything into these files, my business, my brand story, who I help, how I help, what sets me apart from the rest of my competition, my audience, the demographics and the psychographics, everything about my offers and the customer journey, testimonials I've had case studies that I could share, how I want my brand voice to sound, and examples of content and assets that I love or that performed really well. So basically, the proprietary onboarding process that I took every new client through after they signed their contract with me, that's the onboarding process that I took AI through when I wanted to work with it. The exact information that I ask a client for before I created a single marketing asset for them, that's what I was giving to AI. And that's when everything changed. AI didn't get any smarter, but it just finally had the context that it was missing. So this is a very exciting time for online business owners right now, because we don't have to spend 5,000 a month or 20,000 a month on agency retainers anymore to get agency level results. With AI, we can do our own marketing and advertising now. Or if we're using it right, we can delegate to a small team to an assistant, basically anybody that you want to delegate to. If you use AI properly, you can create an SOP and hand it over to your assistant and they can do everything that your marketing agency would have done for you. But it's not going to work if all we're doing is paying for a premium chat GPT account and then giving it prompts. Without giving AI all of that knowledge, it's going to start looking for answers on the internet, which is going to guarantee that it gives you back generic advice and output that is going to lead you and your business down a bad path, the wrong path. So I made it freebie. I made it for you. It's called the five files and it gives you the exact onboarding framework that I use to turn AI into my marketing agency. So instead of just another tool for creating content, this is what I use to turn my AI into a marketing agency or marketing expert or consultant or strategist. So if you don't have it yet, grab it from the show notes right now. And over the next few episodes, I'm going to be breaking down each one of the five files individually. What goes in each file and why it matters for you and your marketing. So if you haven't yet, again, go download the five files freebie right now and then next week we're starting with file one, your business profile. So this isn't just like the biosection on your LinkedIn account. This is your story. It's who you help, the transformation, your differentiator, all of the details that make you you and your business yours. Because before AI can market your business, it has to understand your business. All right, people. That's it for today. Thank you so much for being here for the first episode of Pretty Smart Marketing. I'm really excited for everything that I'm about to share with you. And I will see you next week. If this episode helped you, go ahead and send it to a business friend who's also trying to market in the AI era without losing the human part of their business. And if you haven't grabbed it yet, check the show notes to download the five files freebie. It'll help you build your AI business brain once. So every time you open a new chat, AI already understands your business, your voice, your offers, and your audience. Basically less rewriting and yelling at chatty g, better content and strategy. I'll see you next week.