An Extremely Long and Incredibly Detailed Attempt To Use AI In Content Marketing, With Lots Of Unedited Examples

Can AI really help marketers identify prospects, identify pain points, priorities, etc, and generate personalized content?

That’s the question this article sets out to explore in this article.

In my experience, B2B Content Marketing is one of those things that you can explain to pretty much anyone in three steps:

??

1. Identify your ideal customer(s)
2. Identify their individual pain points, priorities and KPIs
3. Create high-value content that shows them how they can relieve their pain, achieve their goals or maximize their KPIs, ideally in some way that relates to whatever product or service you’re selling.

In practice, of course, none of that is easy.

The good news, for those who are open to it, is that AI is kind of amazing when it comes to steps 1 and 2, and it’s getting better at step 3 every day.

Skeptical?

So was I, but then I tried it over and over and over.

The parameters for this experiment were start with the most minimal product information possible and then see how well AI could identify potential ideal customers, profile ideal customers and identify their pain points, priorities, KPIs, key behaviors, etc., and then generate personalized content.

And when I say “personalized,” I don’t mean “Hi [name],” or “as a [occupation], you’re faced with blah blah blah,” but angles and approaches tailored to who they are, what they care about, and how they are likely to act and react.

Pt. 1: Identifying Ideal Customers

An Ideal Customer Profile is a high-level customer composite that combines firmagraphic, demographic and/or psychographic data to help sales and marketing professionals personalize the way they sell and market to their respective target audiences. Developing ICPs is part art, part science — the art is how you define and differentiate your ICPs; the science is all the traits, tendencies and characteristics that are commonly associated with these types of people.

When done correctly, ICPs help you understand not only who your customers are, but how to convert them.

In most cases, ICPs come from a combination of customer research and observations, personal experience and professional expertise. The mix of those varies considerably, but usually comes down to budget: the bigger the budged, the greater the research.

(I’d love to say more research = better results, but that’s not always the case.)

To make this test easy, we used our own product, CMO Copilot , and started with a basic prompt that provided a short product description, a few key features, a brand name and a url.

Here are the two sets of ICPs AI suggested:

Test #1 Results:

1.

Profile: Freelancers & Consultants

Age: 30–45

Occupation: Digital Marketing Consultant

Key Adjectives: Independent, innovative, flexible, determined, tech-savvy

Rationale: They are constantly searching for tools to enhance their offerings to clients. The “CMO Copilot” will be useful since it automatically generates personalized content, and can adopt the persona of their different customers, a feature that would streamline their task of juggling many clients.

2.

Profile: E-commerce Leaders

Age: 28–40

Occupation: E-commerce Manager

Key Adjectives: Competitive, strategic, tech-savvy, results-oriented

Rationale: More than others, e-commerce managers often have a dire need to drive engagement and maintain buyer interaction. The AI for marketers and behavioral intelligence feature in the product would help them achieve this while maximizing returns.

3.

Profile: Non-profit Organizations

Age: 35–50

Occupation: Non-Profit Marketing Manager

Key Adjectives: Empathetic, mission-driven, budget-conscious, creative

Rationale: Non-profit organizations require effective tools to reach their target audience and donors, but they often operate under strict budgetary constraints. Therefore, the CMO Copilot tool is ideal for them as it offers a cost-effective solution for personalized, impactful, and innovative content.

4.

Profile: Tech Start-Up Founders

Age: 27–35

Occupation: Founder & CEO

Key Adjectives: Ambitious, risk-tolerant, innovative, multitasking

Rationale: Startup founders are always in quest of software that can simplify complex tasks and enhance efficiency. They need to continually generate creative and engaging content to capture audience attention. CMO Copilot is a tool that can manage these tasks effectively and stay in line with their budget.

5.

Profile: Higher Education Institutions

Age: 40–55

Occupation: Director of Marketing and Admissions

Key Adjectives: Strategic, student-focused, team-oriented, analytical

Rationale: To adapt to the changing higher education market, these professionals might be interested in an AI tool that can generate engaging content and improve their strategic planning. Particularly, the behavioral intelligence part of the tool would be beneficial in understanding prospective students and creating highly targeted campaigns.

Test #2 Results:

1)

Customer Profile: HR Manager

Age: 38

Occupation: HR Manager in a prominent tech company

Adjectives: Innovative, detail-oriented, curious

Rationale: They look for easy and innovative ways to attract potential hires and improve employee engagement. The behavioral intelligence feature of CMO Copilot can help them understand the likes and dislikes of their employees, enabling them to create personalized interaction and engagement strategies.

2)

Customer Profile: Digital Marketing Specialist

Age: 28

Occupation: Digital Marketing Specialist at a startup

Adjectives: Tech-savvy, ambitious, competitive

Rationale: They constantly need to provide fresh and engaging content in a crowded market. The feature of automatically generating personalized content in CMO Copilot can lessen their workload and ensure they maintain audience attention.

3)

Customer Profile: Product Manager

Age: 35

Occupation: Product Manager in a medium-sized business

Adjectives: Curious, goal-oriented, analytical

Rationale: They frequently require consumer insights for product development in a quick and automated manner instead of conducting time-consuming video surveys, interviews, or polls. The strategic planning and behavioral intelligence feature of CMO Copilot can help them understand consumers’ needs and behaviors, making it easier to develop products that suit the target market.

From my perspective, seven out of the eight are pretty good. The only one I’d question is the HR Manager, though I admit that the rationale makes sense within the context of the product prompt I provided.

Agree? Disagree?

Even if I’d never done any primary customer research, I think these results would be helpful. Given that I have done primary customer research, I can say they do align (for the most part) with the ICPs we created, and (obviously) they took a lot less time and cost a lot less money.

That raises the next question: Can AI take basic ICP parameters and run with them? Can it enhance and expand them enough to provide useful insights, suggest personalization strategies and tactics, and generally just bring them to life?

Pt. 2: Enhancing and Expanding ICPs

First, to recap: over two prompts, AI suggested a total of eight ICPs.

Since, in my experience, most B2B businesses do well with one to three ICPs, sometimes three to five ICPs, and occasionally five to seven ICPs, I’m just going to focus on the three ICPs which have the broadest use cases for our product.

ICP #1:

This is what AI suggested:

Profile: Freelancers & Consultants

Age: 30–45

Occupation: Digital Marketing Consultant

Key Adjectives: Independent, innovative, flexible, determined, tech-savvy

Rationale: They are constantly searching for tools to enhance their offerings to clients. The “CMO Copilot” will be useful since it automatically generates personalized content, and can adopt the persona of their different customers, a feature that would streamline their task of juggling many clients.

Here is the ICPs AI generated from that suggestion:

ICP #2:

This is what AI suggested:

Profile: E-commerce Leaders

Age: 28–40

Occupation: E-commerce Manager

Key Adjectives: Competitive, strategic, tech-savvy, results-oriented

Rationale: More than others, e-commerce managers often have a dire need to drive engagement and maintain buyer interaction. The AI for marketers and behavioral intelligence feature in the product would help them achieve this while maximizing returns.

Here is the ICPs AI generated from that suggestion:

ICP #3:

This is what AI suggested:

Customer Profile: Digital Marketing Specialist

Age: 28

Occupation: Digital Marketing Specialist at a startup

Adjectives: Tech-savvy, ambitious, competitive

Rationale: They constantly need to provide fresh and engaging content in a crowded market. The feature of automatically generating personalized content in CMO Copilot can lessen their workload and ensure they maintain audience attention.

Here is the ICPs AI generated from that suggestion:

Useful?

If you’re any kind of planner, yes.

Or stuck.

Or blocked.

Or one of those people (like me) who likes to have information they can “sit with” for a while as they think things through.

Plus, good ICPs ??? good strategies ??? good outcomes.

That said, since marketers these days are increasingly pressured to produce more and more content in less and less time, the real test of AI is whether or not it can take ICPs like these and use them to generate customized marketing management materials (creative briefs, marketing calendars, industry research, etc.) and various types of personalized marketing content (emails, sequences, headlines, etc.).

Pt. 3: Generating Personalized Content From ICPs

First, a point for everyone who’s worried AI will take their job.

The intention of this experiment isn’t some kind of John Henry-type contest , where a copywriter goes head-to-head with a soulless AI, but really just to see if AI can remove some of the drudgery marketers, marketing managers and content creators face every day, whether that means helping us get unstuck when we’re blocked, generating alternate versions of a headline, paragraph or call-to-action, or simply suggesting alternative angles, approaches and POVs we just might not get around to thinking up until an hour or so after our deadline has come and gone.

In other words, can AI help us, not replace us.

(Maybe GPT-7 will be able to replicate our intuitive leaps, copy our ability to empathize, and mimic our gut-level understanding of how to communicate with our fellow human beings, but for now, we’re the only ones who can do that.

So…

To do this analysis, I generated a lot of content, but I’m only going to post a few examples because I assume that if you find this experiment compelling, you’ll just sign up for an AI copilot or AI content generator like OpenAI , Anthropic , etc., and try it yourself, using prompts built around your product to create content targeting your audience.

Generative Content Result #1:

Prompt:

Act like a copywriter and write a short email for this product for this audience*

Response:

Subject: Unleash the Power of AI in Your Marketing Strategy ??

Hey there [Digital Marketing Specialist],

Looking to gain the competitive edge in the ever-evolving digital landscape? Meet CMO Copilot — the AI-powered marketing tool designed to revolutionize your strategies. Say goodbye to manual tasks and hello to personalized content creation, strategic planning, and even an AI chatbot that mirrors your customer persona. With CMO Copilot, adapt to search engine changes, target high-impact keywords, and measure ROI effortlessly.

Unlock the potential of AI in your marketing efforts today. Don’t miss out on this innovative and popular solution that guarantees safe and effective results. Ready to lead the pack? Check out CMO Copilot now at [Product URL] and turn your marketing game around!

Act now and make the smart choice.

Best regards,

[Your Name]

Generative Content Result #2:

Prompt:

Act like a copywriter and brainstorm subject lines for this product for this audience*

Response:

1. “Beat the Algo-Beast! Transform Your SEO Game With CMO Copilot”

2. “Master Marketing Metrics! Conquer ROI Woes with CMO Copilot”

3. “Words Are Weapons! Wield Power of AI-Crafted Content — Courtesy of CMO Copilot”

4. “Unlock the Secret Sauce of Keyword Strategy with CMO Copilot”

5. “Ditch Data Dread! Simplify Analytics with CMO Copilot”

6. “AI + You = Unstoppable Marketing Dream Team: CMO Copilot has Landed!”

7. “Attention Digital Gladiators: Dominate Digital Marketing Arena with CMO Copilot”

8. “Don’t Drown in Data, Ride the Wave — Say Hi to CMO Copilot!”

9. “CMO Copilot: Your Secret Weapon Against Fickle Search Engines”

10. “Feed the Funnel Frenzy: Watch CMO Copilot Work Its AI Magic”

11. “Don’t Let Your Competitors Lap You — Get Ahead with CMO Copilot”

12. “Join Elite Digital Strategists — Turbo Boost Your ROI with CMO Copilot”

13. “Stay Ahead in the SEO Jungle! Let CMO Copilot be Your Sherpa”

14. “SEO Algorithms Ruining Your Ranking? Not with CMO Copilot!”

15. “Astonishing! AI Crafted Content actually Boosts Conversion Rates: Discover CMO Copilot”

16. “Algorithm Got You Puzzled? ‘Copilot’ Your Way to SEO Supremacy”

17. “Don’t Miss Out — Get The Most Out of Your Marketing Analytics with CMO Copilot”

18. “LEAKED! The Secret to Outsmart Your SEM Competitors!”

19. “Welcome to the Future: CMO Copilot Powers up Your Persona-Based Sales”

20. “Ever Dream of an AI Partner, Digital Marketers? Meet CMO Copilot”

21. “Algorithm Armageddon? Not on CMO Copilot’s Watch!”

22. “Skyrocket Your SEO ?? Grab an AI Wingman: Meet CMO Copilot”

23. “Try Not to Squirm: Watch CMO Copilot Demolish Digital Marketing Challenges”

24. “ANALYTICS ALERT! Crush Your Campaigns with the Power of CMO Copilot”

25. “Brace For Impact! CMO Copilot Set to Revolutionize Digital Marketing”

Generative Content Result #3:

Prompt:

Act like a social media marketer and brainstorm a list of influencers to partner with to publicize this product to this audience*

Response:

1. Collaborate with Neil Patel (SEO Expert & Digital Marketing Influencer) to demonstrate the impact of CMO Copilot on improving SEO results. We can organize webinars or educational videos where he can explain complex SEO elements in simple terms and highlight how our tool simplifies those tasks.

2. Partner with Gary Vee (Entrepreneur and social media guru). He could host a podcast discussing the importance of having solid data analytics for bettering marketing strategies; further bolstering this point by highlighting how CMO Copilot can simplify this task.

3. Initiate a campaign with Rand Fishkin (One of the top SEO influencers) focusing on the importance of keyword research. He could illustrate CMO Copilot’s keyword effectiveness feature and how seamlessly it fits into a marketer’s workflow.

4. Arrange a collaboration with Marie Forleo (Online Business Strategist) to promote how CMO Copilot helps manage content strategy. This could take the form of a video series or blog posts that emphasize the difficulties of managing content strategy and how our tool can overcome those.

5. Work with Andrew Foxwell (Social Media & Facebook Ads Expert) to highlight how CMO Copilot can help manage and optimize ad campaigns. Foxwell could host a specialized webinar or workshop to elaborate the process using our tool.

Rationale: The above-mentioned influencers are credible and well-respected figures in digital marketing. By associating CMO Copilot with them, the tool will earn a greater reputation. It’s also likely that their large follower bases might have members encountering the same problems our tool can solve, thereby increasing the chance of high engagement and potential conversion rates. Each influencer was chosen based on a key pain point identified in our audience parameters to provide a comprehensive view of our tool’s features and benefits.

Generative Content Result #4:

Prompt:

Suggest jobs-to-be-done for this product for this audience*

Response:

Given the parameters and the Audience, Messaging, Company, and Product details, here are five ‘jobs-to-be-done’ frameworks for a Marketing Consultant:

1. When struggling to understand consumer behavior, I want to leverage an AI-powered platform that uses behavioral intelligence, so I can create personalized campaigns that better cater to customers’ preferences and increase conversion rates.

2. When overwhelmed by the fast-paced changes in digital marketing strategies, I want to use a technologically-advanced and innovative AI software that keeps pace with market trends, so I can stay ahead of the competition and enhance my brand positioning.

3. When understanding and predicting consumer behavior, I want to leverage the AI chatbot feature of CMO Copilot that mimics customer personas, so I can engage with my customers on a more personal level and better predict their preferences.

4. When faced with the daunting task of collecting and analyzing relevant market data, I want to utilize an AI-powered solution, so I can receive precise and valuable insights for strategic planning, leading to improved decision making.

5. When struggling to identify the right target audience for our marketing efforts, I want to utilize an AI tool with user-persona building capabilities, so I can identify and reach the right people, therefore ensuring efficient use of marketing resources and enhancing lead generation.

Generative Content Result #5:

Prompt:

Act like a marketing manager and write a creative brief for a campain for this product targeting this audience*

Response:

Creative Brief

Project Overview:

We are developing a marketing campaign for CMO Copilot, an AI-powered software for strategists in the marketing sector. This campaign will aim to entice digital marketing specialists by highlighting our product’s overall utility, especially in solving their common pain points.

Audience:

Our primary audience is digital marketing specialists, particularly millennials working in the social media department. They reside in a competitive landscape and grapple with an array of challenges from adapting to search engine algorithm changes to formulating effective content strategies. They strive to ensure ROI measurement, keyword effectiveness, and traffic growth. They are confident, assertive, and rational, boasting a knack for embracing new adventures.

Guidelines:

Our intent is to create authority and infotainment tonality in our campaign. Emojis should be avoided, but optimal use of FOMO could work in our favor. Our messaging should quote expert opinions where possible, emphasizing the product’s innovation, popularity, and safety. We’ll strive to convey that purchasing CMO Copilot is the smart decision.

Features to Highlight:

- Strategic planning

- Behavioral intelligence

- Generative content

- Personalized content generation

- AI chatbot adopting customer persona

KPIs:

Our KPIs encompass follower growth, engagement metrics, reach and impressions, content metrics, conversion and click-through rates, traffic, referral metrics and more.

Messaging Strategy:

Subject Lines Suggestions:

- “Why CMO Copilot is 46% More Effective: The Revolution of AI in Marketing”

- “Supercharge Your SEO Strategy with CMO Copilot”

- “ Wave Goodbye to Marketing Pains with CMO Copilot”

Subtext:

Take the intellectual route in your digital marketing journey with CMO Copilot — the smart buy that guarantees results.

Voice and Tone:

Maintain an authoritative voice with a sprinkle of light-heartedness, making the content palatable and enjoyable. Though educational, ensure the overall tone exudes enthusiasm and excitement about our product’s capabilities.

Visuals:

Visuals should reflect the innovative nature of the product. Consider displaying a vivid portrayal of how our AI-driven multi-feature product can resolve our audience’s pain points.

Call to Action:

Encourage users to have a firsthand experience with the demo available on our website.

Resources:

Use https://www.cmocopilot.com as the primary resource for information on the product’s features and benefits.

And the winner is?

If I was a journeyman copywriter I might be worried.

If I was a market researcher, I might also be worried, but I’d probably be outwardly dismissive, too, since AI isn’t 100% there yet in terms of research, and doesn’t really provide the data-based validation I’ve always thought was at least half the reason marketers are willing to pay so much for primary research.

On the other hand, if I was a creative director, agency owner, marketing manager, CMO, VP of Marketing, product marketer, sales manager or any kind of content strategist, I’d be trying to figure out how to incorporate generative AI into my workflow.

As for the AI-generated copy I’ve included above, I think all of it is workable.

I’d definitely tweak a lot of it here and there, and make sure I fact-checked all the claims and stats, since it made some of those up, but rewriting is always easier than writing, so being able to not start from a completely blank page would be a huge time saver.

Not to mention the fact that everybody in marketing has those days where they just don’t have time to sit down, clear their head, tune out the daily chaos and bang out… an email… a blog post… a creative brief… an opportunity assessment… a landing page… an industry overview, etc.

But finding five minutes to have AI do the first draft? That’s always doable.

Helpful? Yes.

Good for humanity? I don’t know.

I think the only way to respond to AI is to adopt a kinder, gentler version of “adapt or die,” which in marketing usually means “adapt or become a consultant for a few years until you can retire or find something else to do.”

++++++++++++++++++++++

TL;DR

AI is a must-have tool for marketers and content creators, whether they like it or not.

It’s great for drafts of just about anything, especially personalized content for specific audiences/languages. You do have to fact-check everything, and revise the occasionally-clunky phrase or paragraph, but it definitely saves a lot of time when you’re busy, blocked or struggling with the 32nd draft of something you’re sick of working on.

Marketing materials AI produces are generally pretty good, unless you’re super particular about how things are framed and/or formatted, since it isn’t always consistent that way.

Research? It defintely passes the smell test in most cases, but it’s important to view any suggestions with a critical eye. Not because they’re wrong, but because AI doesn’t qualify, quantify, or validate its conclusions.

As for generating fresh ideas and perspectives, it’s hit and miss.

(Then again, I’ve been in plenty of brainstorming sessions that took more time and effort, but didn’t produce anything better than what a “brainstorm ideas for…” prompt gets you in just a couple of seconds.)

#AI #b2bmarketing #AIatWork #marketing #contentmarketing

*Please Note: I used CMO Copilot for both ICPs and to generate content. Because it incorporates extensive audience parameters and product parameters directly into the prompt, I’ve simplified the prompts listed here so this article doesn’t turn into an eBook.