“Do I really have to email my list every week?”

This is a question I get from my clients, prospective clients, and pretty much every business owner I come in contact with.

The answer is, YES!

How Many Touchpoints Does it Take to Make a Sale?

I’m sure you’ve heard the statistic that it takes 7-8 touchpoints to make a sale.

The truth is, it’s more than that.

According to Email Tool Tester, for a warm, engaged lead, it can take between 5 and 12 touchpoints. For a cold, unengaged prospect, it can take between 20 and 50 touchpoints.

Granted, “touchpoints” can be anything from an online ad to a retargeting ad, to a text message, and yes, an email.

However, all of this balances on how familiar your prospect is with your product or service.

If they’re already familiar with what you’re selling and are ready to buy, it will take far fewer touches than if they’ve never heard of you and have just joined your email list.

Thus, sending weekly nurture emails is the key to guiding your email subscribers to make a purchase.

Why Does It Take So Long?

Honestly, I think it’s because people have so much information thrown at them that it’s hard to absorb everything.

According to the website Frontiers for Young Minds, the average person is now trying to process as much as 74 Gigabytes of information every day. That’s the equivalent of watching 16 movies every single day!

When you consider that’s more information than the average 17th-century well-educated person would have received in their entire lifetime… Well, you can see we’re all a bit overwhelmed.

This means we need to hear the same information again and again before we fully absorb it and can act on it.

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about.

I work as a voting assistant for the Elections Division here in Ventura County. (I promise this example is not political.)

During the recent California state-wide Special Election, I repeated instructions to voters 5-6 times. This was built into our system in many ways to make sure they got in, filled out their ballot, and got out as quickly as possible.

These were people who had voted in previous elections, using the exact same voting process. They’d received special voting guides explaining the entire process, and the single ballot measure we were voting on, in the mail (not to mention all of the political ads and mailers). And they were voting in an off-year, special election, so you know they were dedicated voters.

Even so, repeating this information was necessary because they had tons of stuff on their minds, even as they were filling out the lookup forms and standing in front of me as I looked up their voter registration, so we could print their ballots.

We’re bombarded with so much stuff. Paying attention to all of it, all the time is utterly exhausting.

Which is why your nurture emails need to keep popping up in your subscribers’ inboxes to remind them of your existence and throw even more information at them.

Another reason it can take so long is that not everyone who joins your email list is ready to buy right away. For some of them, they’ll need to be guided or “nurtured” along to reach that point.

There’s a framework for this.

The 5 Stages of Awareness

Eugene Schwartz, one of the most famous copywriters in the world (well, the marketing and copywriting world, anyway), came up with this framework of a customer’s “5 Stages of Awareness.”

To give a quick overview, it works like this:

Unaware

These are people who are totally unaware of your product or service. And/or they are totally unaware of the problem that your product or service solves. This is either because they don’t have that problem or because they haven’t discovered it yet.

Problem Aware

Once someone discovers they have this problem, they reach this next stage. They know they have the problem that your product or service solves, but they have no idea how to solve this problem, or even that there may be a solution.

Solution Aware

Our next stage is where people become aware that there is a solution (or many solutions) available. They’re starting to research and are probably Googling “how do I solve/fix [Insert Problem Here].

This is the point where people usually read your blog posts, download your lead magnet, or take your quiz and join your email list.

Product Aware

Once they’ve started researching, they’ll become aware of the many products/services available to solve this problem, including yours.

You will still have people joining your email list at this point, because they’re still researching. This is where your weekly nurture email is the most useful because you can give them the information they actually want to receive (and absorb) about your product or service.

Again, you are nurturing them through these two stages of awareness to the final stage…

Most Aware

These are the email subscribers who click on the link in your emails and buy.

They’re ready to solve this problem, they trust you to help them, and they want to hand over their hard-earned cash.

It’s also the stage where people who have done research on your product or service but haven’t necessarily joined your email list will buy. (Always a nice surprise.)

The purpose of your nurture emails is to guide people through these stages of awareness (primarily the last 3) to the point of becoming a paying customer.

And because of the information overwhelm, you need to keep them engaged on a regular basis, so they remember who you are and why they’re interested in that product or service.

So, to answer the original question…

Yes, You Really Should Email Your List Every Week

I know this sounds intimidating. And I’m sure that your first thought is “but won’t that just overwhelm them with more information?”

No, not if you write an engaging email that helps and guides before it sells.

This is what we do every week in my Email Writing Accountability Group.

We write engaging emails that help your subscribers cut through the overwhelm and see why your product or service is the one to help them solve their problems.

The process is simple.

You spend the first 30 minutes writing your email.

For the next 30 minutes, I review everyone’s emails and give tips on where you can make it more engaging and value-packed for your subscribers.

You spend the next 20 minutes incorporating my recommendations into your first draft.

And voila, your weekly email is done.

All of my current group members are grateful for the help and attention, as well as for the dedicated time to do this task every week. More importantly, their emails are getting results!

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Email Writing Accountability Group, click on the button below.

Because your subscribers have said they’re interested in what you have to offer. Take the time to tell them about it, and to make it worth their while to pay attention.

By the way, I took this week’s landscape picture on my weekly beach walk at Surfer’s Knoll Beach in Ventura, CA. And the adorable “touchpoint” picture is of two of my cats, Arawn and Nanner.

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I admit it, I have a love/hate relationship with AI.

I consider it a useful tool that can help us humans in many ways.

It’s great at handling a lot of things that people don’t want to “waste their time” on, like analyzing data, consolidating large amounts of information into simple-to-understand talking points, and even setting up and running automated systems.

But it’s not a replacement for human beings or human interaction.

AI’s “Problem Child” Status

There is already a huge and growing loneliness epidemic happening in our world. People feel disconnected from each other and even from themselves. The constant use of AI as the “perfect solution” is contributing to this.

The more we allow AI to “do the thinking for us,” the more disconnected we may become. I realize that AI is useful for a lot of things, including basic therapy and interaction. But it cannot replace a real human therapist or interacting with each other on a regular basis.

Because of this, I strongly believe we need to keep the humanity in our communication with each other.

It’s why I write all of my emails, newsletters, and marketing collateral myself, and have for the last 15 years. No robots involved in the actual writing. Just lil’ ol’ me spewing out words onto the page.

It’s also why I respond personally when my subscribers reply to my emails and when you comment on my newsletters. We have a relationship. You are someone I value as one of my audience members. I honor and appreciate that and want to give you my best, including being the real, live, actual human who writes back to you. (FYI, you can become an email subscriber and get these newsletters delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, 4 days earlier than they show up everywhere else, at the bottom of this page.)

AI Is a Useful Tool

At the same time, I will admit I use AI.

I have tried using it to write my own copy, and generally speaking, I’m not that happy with the results. I have to edit heavily, which takes about as much time as it would for me to write original copy, so I don’t bother. And I like writing, so I’d rather do it myself.

I don’t let it write copy for my clients. I feel like that’s what they’re paying me for. Why would I give them anything but the best?

And again, my clients hire me because they want to build relationships with their subscribers and customers. In my opinion, having an actual human involved in those relationships is the way to go.

However, as mentioned above, AI is great for research and data crunching. I can give ChatGPT a bunch of data and ask it to pull particular themes from that data. It can do it much faster than I can.

It doesn’t always get it right. I find I have to be very specific with my instructions or it doesn’t give the feedback I’m looking for. Sometimes I feel like I spend as much time giving AI instructions as I would doing the research or data crunching myself. But I still use it.

And I did create the AI-Powered Subject Line Generator Workshop, which shows you how to use AI to write subject lines and writing prompts customized to your business.

AI is great at this type of brainstorming work, because it can pull ideas out of the information you give it that you may not have thought of yourself.

I’ve even used AI to write what I call a “Messy First Draft” of a piece if I am utterly stumped by writer’s block, just to get something on the page. Then I find the ideas I consider useful, delete the rest, and go on about my business.

I have said this before, I will say it again – AI is a tool.

It is not the end-all and be-all solution that so many AI companies are promoting it to be. It still has a very long way to go before it reaches that point.

Which is good for us humans in my opinion.

So yes, I do use AI. But when I do, I am what my friend and fellow copywriter, Steve Maurer refers to as the Human In the Loop (HITL).

I do this for two very important reasons.

Reason #1: AI Doesn’t Always Get It Right, Whatever “It” Is

AI is great at pulling together a ton of information and spitting it out in digestible form. However, that doesn’t always mean it’s the correct information, nor is it always relevant to whatever I’m writing about.

I like to compare AI to that over-eager pooch who joyfully brings you your slippers, even though you asked it to bring you the paper. And even when you say, “Good dog, thank you for bringing my slippers, now please go get the paper,” it obediently wags its tail and picks up your slippers again.

AI will bring you exactly what you ask for. And it will frequently bring you exactly what you ask for over and over again, even when you ask for something else entirely, or you ask in a different way, hoping to get new information.

It will also make stuff up and even make up sources to go along with its made-up information. Not a great look when you’re speaking with authority on any subject.

Computers are designed to follow instructions. They are not designed to think for themselves. (At least not yet, though they seem to be getting closer and closer.)

Therefore, I review and, in many cases, fact-check all the information AI spits out before that research goes anywhere near my or my clients’ copy.

Which brings me to…

Reason #2: Keeping the Humanity In My (and Therefore Also My Clients’) Work

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. What it lacks is EI or Emotional Intelligence.

You may have heard about the chatbot that tech bros managed to pervert from a friendly, helpful artificial personality to a racist, sexist, homophobic, raging robot in a few hours.

“Tay” was created in 2016 by Microsoft’s Technology and Research division and released onto Twitter as an experiment. Within hours, users had subverted it from the “AI with zero chill” it was purported to be to spouting horrible responses that would offend pretty much anyone.

I was working at a tech company at the time and all of our developers were watching this in real time. Comments were flying around the office.

Within 16 hours, “Tay” was shut down and removed from Twitter.

According to Wikipedia’s article on Tay, “Artificial intelligence researcher Roman Yampolskiy commented that Tay’s misbehavior was understandable because it was mimicking the deliberately offensive behavior of other Twitter users, and Microsoft had not given the bot an understanding of inappropriate behavior.”

The Tay chatbot had no context for any of the information it was receiving. Therefore, it had no context for the information it put out. It didn’t understand how hurtful the words it used could be. It didn’t have a way to discern between “right” and “wrong” for any given situation.

Humans do.

One of the most important functions of my job, in my opinion, is deciding which words to use and ensure they convey the correct message.

Sometimes my inner Inigo Montoya has to step in and intervene.

Reason #3: AI Has No Emotions and No Experience

AI has no context for an experience. It can gather lots of input on what it’s like to bask in the sun while lying on the beach, listening to the waves crash against the shore. However, the output reads as flat and boring.

I can easily describe these actions, as well as how they make me feel because I’ve done them. I’ve experienced those emotions. I have these specific memories.

AI has no idea how to describe any of that because it’s never done it. And if it tried to bask in the sun on a beach, it would just gum up its robotic works. All of that sand is so bad for electronic circuits!

A huge part of what any marketing copy does is to evoke emotions. We are emotional creatures. We may all consider ourselves “rational,” but the truth is, every decision we make is based on emotions first, logic second.

If you’re expecting AI, which has no emotional context or experience of the real world, to be able to convey the emotional experience of getting positive results from your product or service, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

That’s why I firmly believe there needs to be a “Human In The Loop” at the very least.

I prefer to have a human doing the actual writing, even if they’re using AI as a research and brainstorming tool.

Please Consider This My AI Manifesto

This is how I use AI in my business and how I personally recommend that my clients use it in theirs.

And yes, I have plenty of clients who use AI regularly in their businesses for many tasks, from organization to data crunching, to yes, writing.

When they show me that writing, I can usually tell it was written by AI. And I point out where they can add in some EI (emotional intelligence). Where they can make it sound more human. More like the person (or company) that their readers want to get to know, like, and trust.

I do this regularly in my Email Writing Accountability Group, as well as for materials my clients bring me to “humanize.”

In the end, our humanity is the true currency we all deal in. And it is the most precious of all.

Please make sure you share this currency widely with your current and prospective customers, your subscribers, your team members, your loved ones, and even strangers on the street. The more of it we put out there, the more there is to go around.

Now that I’ve planted this particular flag, I will ask you: What is your AI policy?

Do you use it in your business? Do you use it in your daily life?

How have the robots been incorporated into, or deliberately excluded from, your world?

Please comment below and share your thoughts with me, or email me at tanya(at)tanyabrodycopywriter.com

As mentioned, I respond to every comment and email. And I do want to hear your thoughts on AI and how you use it in your business.

Finally, I took this week’s landscape picture this summer while I was visiting my sister in the UK. It’s on the beach in the southwest of England, somewhere between Dartmouth and Torquay. I hope you enjoy it.

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Halloween is my favorite holiday, so this week, I want to talk about magic. Specifically about my magical philosophy.

The Magical Power of 3

I’m going to step out of the proverbial broom closet here and reveal (for those who may not know) that I am a witch. Specifically, I am Wiccan. This is a legally recognized, earth-based, pantheistic religion.

Most people would call me “Pagan.” Others might call me a “tree hugging dirt worshiper.” Both labels apply.

As a Wiccan, I practice magic. Not the creepy kind that involves eye of newt and toe of frog. My magic revolves around raising energy toward a positive intention.

When I practice magic, I do it at 3 levels.

I set one intention for myself.

I set one intention for my community

And I set one intention for the world.

The goal of this is to bring positive energy to each of these intentions so that I, my community, and the world benefit in some way.

Tying Magic Into Email Marketing

I do this in my email marketing too.

Whenever I write an email, run a sales campaign, set up a marketing system, I look at it from these 3 perspectives.

How will this benefit my customers?

How will this benefit my community?

How will this benefit the world?

This may sound a bit grandiose, but it’s pretty simple. My goal is always to make sure that everybody wins. Everyone gets something out of whatever it is I do, even if it’s a long-term after-effect.

Immediate and Long-Term Benefits

Long-time readers of my emails will know that I am forever going on and on about making sure you show the immediate and long-term benefits of whatever you’re selling.

I did this in the second issue of this very newsletter. That issue focused on AI slop and why I feel strongly that every business owner should personally write one email a week to their subscribers.

Much of this revolves around answering the “What’s In It For Me” question. Every one of us asks this question, consciously or subconsciously, every day.

The best way to do this is by showing the immediate and long-term benefits of whatever it is you’re offering. I even demonstrated this in that issue by talking about the immediate and long-term benefits of using immediate and long-term benefits in your marketing. Very meta, I know.

Here’s the magical bit…

You can use my intention practice in immediate and long-term benefits too.

I’ll use a random example of single-serving applesauce cups as an example:

One for Yourself

The immediate benefit is how your product or service helps your potential customers… well… immediately.

It’s usually the problem they want to solve and the reason they’re interested in your product or service to begin with.

To use our random example, let’s say your target audience is parents who want to give their kids nutritious snacks and lunch options. The problems they face is satisfying their kids and making sure they’ll eat the healthy food instead of junk food.

The immediate benefit of single-serving applesauce cups is that they’re a fun, sweet treat that you can put into your kid’s lunch box and they’ll actually want to eat it instead of trading it for junk food.

One for Your Community

A long-term benefit is how your product or service helps your potential customers further along in their journey. Think weeks, months, even years down the road.

Back to our example: Applesauce cups will give your kid a healthy boost of energy during the day, so they’re more engaged at school. This means they’re learning more and contributing to their classes, and gaining confidence in themselves.

This helps the community by being good role models for their fellow students and helping other kids be equally engaged. It also helps the teachers, who almost certainly appreciate having students who pay attention and participate in class.

One for the World

This type of long-term benefit is future-casting. It’s showing the benefits that will occur long past the time that someone uses your product or service. These benefits may not have direct correlation to that product or service, but you can still legitimately tie them to your original premise.

To return to our applesauce cups example…

By raising a healthy, happy child to become a healthy, contributing, confident adult, you are helping the world. Your child, whatever they choose to do with their future, will have similar values to yours and will carry those into the world with them. They’ll have a wonderful life and give back to their community and the world in turn.

All because you made the right choice by giving them applesauce cups in their lunch box.

Is that a stretch?

Maybe, but not really. Companies do this all the time in their advertising in blatant and subtle ways.

Buy-One-Give-One Programs

A lot of companies have Buy-One-Give-One programs where if you buy their product, they’ll give another of that same product to someone in need.

Here are a few examples you may have heard of:

TOMS Shoes: TOMS is the company that made this type of giving famous. Every time a customer buys a pair of shoes, TOMS donates a pair of shoes to organizations that distribute them in impoverished countries.

Warby Parker: For every pair of glasses purchased, they donate a pair to partner organizations that distribute them to people in need.

FIGS: If you’re in the medical field, you’ll recognize this name. FIGS makes scrubs for healthcare professionals. When someone purchases a set of scrubs, they donate scrubs to healthcare workers around the world who can’t afford or can’t get access to these uniforms.

Companies Partnering with Charities, Nonprofits & Civic Organizations

Lots of business, from multi-national corporations to your local plumbing company sponsor everything from major events to the local little league team.

Others may make regular donations to these types of organizations based on events within their own schedules each year.

Businesses that do this benefit by improving their brand’s image to their customers, their employees, and the world at large. (Immediate benefit)

They also get a nice tax break for their charitable giving. (Long-term benefit)

And they can feel good about the good they do in the world, whether it’s local or thousands of miles away. (Future-casting benefit)

See, it shows up everywhere if you look for it.

There are lots of ways to use the magical power of 3 model.

Applying the Magical Power of 3 Model to Your Own Marketing

As I mentioned, I use this model all the time.

One of my clients is Humanity’s Team, a nonprofit that promotes conscious living. Their primary product is a streaming service of transformational education programs.

Their mission is to make conscious living prevalent by the year 2040.

So a way to express the benefits of this mission would be:

When you live consciously, you change yourself for the better. You find your own peace, balance and connectedness to everyone and everything. You live from a higher state of being and find your true purpose and joy.

This carries over to your friends, family and community, who not only feel the positive effects of you living this way, but start to live this way themselves. The ripple effect spreads out to the entire world, so we all take better care of ourselves, each other, and our beautiful planet.

I realize this is a very specific example and it may or may not apply to your business.

However, I’m sure you have some way you can use this magical power of 3 model in your marketing.

My “spooky challenge” for you this week is to look at your own business model and figure out the immediate and long-term benefits your product or service offers to your customers.

Then go further and find the benefits that it provides to your community and to the world.

Then look at ways to incorporate these benefits into your next email.

The best part of this is, you don’t have to be a witch to do it, nor do you have to wait for the magic of Halloween for this to have a positive effect. This is magic you can do year-round and its effects keep growing.

This week’s ecosystem picture is from a trip I took to Highgate Cemetery in London in 2016. We went on Halloween, so it’s very appropriate for today’s issue.

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Welcome to the third issue of the Email Marketing Ecosystem.

The reason for my switch from a “standard” email to a weekly email newsletter is to grow my audience organically. I’m doing this by creating an “ecosystem” of incoming channels to add subscribers to my list. Thus, the name of the newsletter.

Part of the point of this newsletter is to show you this process, so today is the first of a monthly-ish behind-the-scenes look at what I’m doing and how it’s going.

I say monthly-ish because if there’s nothing to report, I probably won’t waste your time or mine on trying to find “results” to brag about. We’ll see how this goes. It’s all a grand experiment.

The First Week: Set Up and Definition

The first week after I created and sent my inaugural Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletter, I set up a new page on my website to house these issues and I published the first issue.

This took a bit of doing because I already have a blog on my website, which you’ve probably visited in the past. I had to figure out how to add a second “blog” function and set it up on the new page so it only displayed the Email Marketing Ecosystem entries as opposed to my entire blog catalog.

My “regular” blog is extensive and I don’t want to lose those posts. But I do want to separate what I’m doing now because it’s a different format.

I now have a “Newsletter” button on my main menu.

And I have a page dedicated to the Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletters that includes the list of published issues and a sign-up form.

My First New Publishing Platform

I also started publishing my newsletter on LinkedIn.

This was a very simple process of starting an article, telling LinkedIn I want it to be a newsletter, and copying my newsletter, pictures and all, over to the LinkedIn platform.

I published exactly the same thing my subscribers saw in their inboxes, minus a few phrases that were specific to an email like the “name” field and my standard sign-off.

The only other changes I made were to clarify some of the text that referred to things my subscribers already know, so someone new to my world wouldn’t be confused.

Then I hit “Publish.”

LinkedIn asked me to create a post about my new newsletter, which I did, and it was launched into the LinkedIn world.

When I went onto LinkedIn on Tuesday to publish the second issue, I discovered to my delight that I already had 71 subscribers. As of writing this issue, I have 76.

Considering that I published my first issue 9 days ago, I’m quite happy.

Spreading the Word About My Newsletter

Those of you who also follow me on social media know that I post fairly regularly on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

As far as “exposure” goes, I think I get the best results on LinkedIn. My main audience is small business owners and that is where many of us hang out. I do get decent results on Facebook. I am not a big Instagram user personally, so I don’t get a lot of followers there.

During the first week, I posted 3 times on each platform. Most of the time, my links went to my new Newsletter page on my website. I did direct LinkedIn users to my LinkedIn newsletter once during this time.

If you look at the picture above, you’ll see my stats for the past 14 days. Again, my LinkedIn newsletter has been live for 9 of those 14 days as of today.

I only had 35 article views, but 320 people saw my posts about the newsletter and 4 people engaged (meaning liked) the newsletter.

When I look at my overall LinkedIn analytics, I see that my post impressions and follower counts are up a bit.

I am intermittent when it comes to engaging with others on LinkedIn. I am trying to spend more time there and less on other platforms, as this one is more useful to my business. I hope that as I become more active and post more issues, these stats will continue to rise.

Second Week: Expanding My Reach

This past week has been spent establishing my newsletter on two platforms that are brand-new to me: Substack and Medium.

I have been on LinkedIn for years and have been posting fairly regularly, so I expected some quick results.

I’ve never spent a lot of time on either of these new platforms, so I’m just learning the ropes. They’re both basically blogging platforms with the chance to earn money through the platform. I’m sure there’s a lot more to them than that, I just haven’t delved in enough to figure out what that means. That’s on this week’s to-do list.

I did decide to join Medium as a paid member because it looked like that was a good idea, if not a requirement to publish there. I have not looked into whether there is a similar membership to publish on Substack. I don’t think there is. I believe publishers decide whether they want to charge for their content or not. I don’t plan to at this point.

Setting up and publishing on each platform was fairly easy. I added the issues from the last two weeks and let the platforms do their thing.

On Medium, my stats show that my newsletter was “presented” 4 times, meaning it showed up in feeds or was sent in an email. I am not terribly surprised, being a brand-new newsletter on a well-established platform where I have no presence. Still, that’s more than I was expecting.

On Substack, my newsletter got 22 unique visitors from “direct” sources, meaning people found it on Substack. Again, more than I was expecting.

I did absolutely nothing to promote my newsletter on either of these platforms. I just published two articles on each. So the fact that anyone found them is a good thing in my world.

Plans as I Move Forward with My Newsletter

My goals for the coming week are to figure out how to get my newsletter to load automatically onto Medium as soon as I publish it on my website. There are plugins for this, which I am researching right now. If I can do this, it will be one less step each week.

I’m also looking into good ways to promote my newsletter on Medium and Substack without using social media to drive traffic to these platforms. Remember, my goal is to get more subscribers to join my email list. Meaning the list I own and have control over.

While I am happy whenever someone subscribes on these other platforms, I don’t control those lists. They could disappear and I would have no recourse. I would much rather have those names and email addresses in my ESP, where they can choose to stay or go of their own accord.

So, there’s your first update on how it’s going. I’d say I’m making slow but steady progress.

I hope these updates will help you as you grow your own email lists and continue to write to your subscribers, wherever they may find you.

By the way, I took the picture at the top of this post in January when I visited Santa Cruz Island, part of the Channel Islands National Park. I take a lot of nature pictures, so I’ll probably include one in most of my newsletters. Again, it’s that whole ecosystem thing.

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AI Slop is taking over the internet.

Internet users spot it a mile away, they hate it, and a lot of them are calling out the companies and content creators that make it.

According to Wikipedia major corporations like Coca-Cola, Paramount Pictures, and Activision have all been accused of creating AI Slop in recent advertising campaigns.

It’s shown up in politics, music, books, and all over social media. In fact, social media companies like Meta have created tools to help users generate more AI Slop.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did an entire episode on AI Slop in June. And yes, some of the images and videos he showed were hysterical, as were some of his comments. I watched it. It’s brilliant.

And yes, AI Slop is showing up in your inbox as well.

What Is AI Slop?

In case you didn’t see the LWT episode or you have magically managed to escape this bizarre internet phenomenon, here is the definition of AI Slop, again, according to Wikipedia.

“AI slop is low-quality media made with generative artificial intelligence. It is characterized by an inherent lack of effort and is currently being generated at an overwhelming volume. Coined in the 2020s, the term has a pejorative connotation similar to spam.

AI slop has been variously defined as “digital clutter”, “filler content [prioritizing] speed and quantity over substance and quality”, and “shoddy or unwanted AI content in social media, art, books and […] search results”.”

Examples have been:

• Images of Jesus made out of shrimp, (yes, it’s a thing, I don’t understand either)
• A picture of Donald Trump with Taylor Swift while she was wearing a t-shirt that said “Swifties for Trump”
• Fake articles purporting to give advice on everything from cooking to plant care.

That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

I’m sure you’ve seen AI Slop, even if you didn’t realize what it was.

Now that AI platforms are getting better at creating realistic images and video, and starting to write more like humans, it’s just going to get worse.

People HATE AI Slop

The common reactions to AI Slop on the internet are that it’s formulaic, soulless, and fake.

Humans can sniff out AI Slop, even when it’s convincing. And they’re becoming so jaded that they’re calling real content, made by other humans, AI Slop because they see it everywhere.

No one likes this stuff. So why do people (the primary source of AI Slop) keep doing it?

Because it attracts attention. And in a world that is full of noise and chaos, everyone wants attention focused on them.

Personally, I would argue that the best way to get attention and stand out from all of the AI Slop, noise and chaos, is with original, authentic content, whatever form that may take for your business.

I’ve said this before; I’ll say it again. Humans want to engage with other humans. We are social creatures. We thrive on our collective humanity because we’re all interconnected. This goes back to the whole ecosystem theme of this newsletter.

We want to connect. We want to understand each other. We want to engage with real, authentic expressions made by and for humans.

AI is a great tool. And it can help spur our creativity. But if we give it our ideas and let it take over, it generates… well… slop. It may look or sound cool, but is it really an expression of us if we don’t create it ourselves?

AI is Artificial Intelligence Not Emotional Intelligence

To me, this is the biggest difference between humans and current AI.

AI can give us information. It can even describe an experience, based on what it has scraped from the internet, books, movies, and other data used to teach it.

But AI has not lived that experience. It doesn’t have memories or emotions associated with that experience.

It’s not meant to be able to do this. It’s a tool. It’s not that advanced. AI companies may claim that it can, or that it will be able to someday, but we’re not there yet.

What Does All of This Have to Do with Your Email Marketing?

Two things, one technical, one human.

First, the technical aspect.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) spam filters are getting really good at filtering out AI Slop.

A lot of spam emails are AI generated, so the spam filters look at the content as well the headers, attachments, etc. In terms of the text, spam filters are looking for repetitive word patterns, synthetic tone, and similarity in content.

All issues with AI generated content.

So, if you’re using AI to write your emails and not reviewing that text before you hit send… i.e. you’re generating AI Slop… your emails will get caught in the spam filters.

As I have said many times before, this causes a world of problems, the worst of which is that your sender reputation is tanked and your domain is blacklisted.

Now, the human aspect.

As mentioned above, humans want real, authentic connection with other humans.

That means your subscribers, your ideal customers, want to connect with you.

They don’t want your vague ideas parsed by a Large Language Model and turned into something that sounds jargony, “strategic” and bland, like it could have been written by an 11^th grader.

They want your ideas. Your opinions. Your feelings.

They want to know who you are, so they feel confident buying from you.

This comes back to the whole “Know, Like, and Trust” factor. People want to know who they’re giving their hard-earned money to when they make a purchase.

There are dozens if not hundreds of companies out there doing whatever you do. Do you share their ideals? Are you an ethical company or person? What do you stand for?

You have to answer all of these questions, along with the “What’s In It For Me” question every consumer asks before they make a purchase.

This is why I advocate writing a weekly email, from you, by you, for your subscribers.

It’s why I do this every week, and have for the last 7 years. (Yes, it really has been that long, I just checked. Wow. 🤯)

It’s also why I’m distributing these emails beyond my email list, which is new for me. I want more people to know who I am, what I think, how I feel, and what I stand for.

And yes, I want more people to work with me to write their own emails. This is what I do for a living, after all.

But Writing Emails Is Hard and Time Consuming…

Yes, it is. Trust me, I wrote this one. And as mentioned, I’ve done this every week for 7 years.

And I write every word myself.

Do I use AI? Yes. I used Perplexity to research a lot of this week’s newsletter. But all of the words, all of the thoughts, all of the ideas came from me.

AI is a great tool. But it’s not you.

It’s getting better at replicating our voices, but it still can’t replace us. It can’t replicate our life experiences, our thought patterns, our innate humanness.

I realize that I am a good writer. I have a degree in creative writing and theater. I am a trained direct response copywriter. I’ve been doing this for 15+ years. I have an edge over most people. That’s why companies of all sizes hire me to do this for them.

But I also know that when it comes to expressing your beliefs, sharing the passion for what you do, and showing your ideal customers who you are, you’ll do a much better job than I, any other copywriter, or AI ever can.

Which is why I advocate for you writing this one email a week yourself.

Do I Have to Write Every Word Myself?

Honestly, no.

Yes, that’s what I do. And I know a lot of other business owners, thought leaders, and visionaries who do the same thing.

But this is where AI is actually useful.

With careful prompting and input from you, most LLMs can churn out a decent messy first draft.

From there, you can go through and revise it to make it your own. And I really mean make it your own.

The majority of members in my Email Writing Accountability Group use AI to start their emails. I really don’t have a problem with this. Staring at a blank page, having no idea what to write is hard.

But during our group review time, when my eyes are on everyone’s emails during our writing sessions, here are my 3 most common critiques for everyone’s emails:

• It doesn’t answer the “What’s In It For Me” question.
• I don’t see immediate or deeper benefits, telling me what I’ll get.
• It doesn’t sound like you.

During these sessions, I work with my group members to improve their writing so all three of these critiques are resolved.

And all of my group members say they’ve had great responses to their emails, and an uptick in sales. Because that is what this is all about.

So, to model my own behavior, I will now clearly address these 3 common critiques here in this rather long email.

The “What’s In It For Me” Question and Deeper Benefits

For you as the business owner, writing your own emails once a week lets you express yourself and share who you are with your subscribers and ideal customers. They get to know you through these regular nurture emails and have an easier time saying yes when they’re ready to buy.

For your customers, they’re getting a direct connection with you. You’re bringing them into your community, which makes them more loyal to your business. They’ll buy again and recommend you to their friends and family.

Making Your Emails Sound Like You, AI Generated or Not

This is exactly what the Email Writing Accountability Group is for.

This is true whether you write every word yourself or you have help from ChatGPT or Claude.

I work with you to establish your voice and help you come up with topics every week, if needed. Then you write for 30 minutes.

Once your first draft is written, I give you that necessary feedback, so you can “make it sound like you.” In some cases, this is just smoothing out what’s already there. In others, I help you figure out what you’re actually trying to say, so you can do a better job of expressing yourself.

You get another 20 minutes to incorporate those edits into your email.

And voila! You’re done with your weekly nurture email and you or your VA can load it into your ESP to deliver to your subscribers. (FYI, this is the immediate benefit of the Email Writing Accountability Group.)

So, there you are. Examples of me practicing what I preach.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Email Writing Accountability Group, please click on the button below.

Whatever you do, please avoid contributing to the AI Slop that is taking over the internet.

You’ll be happier, your customers will appreciate you for who you are and what you do for them, and your business will thrive. 

And just to end this newsletter on a happy note, here is a very cute, definitely not AI slop picture of two of my cats, Lugh and Arawn.