I have just launched the new subscriber chat, and every Wednesday is AMA day… So if you have marketing, blog, or email questions, or anything in general then please ask away.
Hi Dan — I'd love to hear your thoughts about the incredibly fast progress being made in the AI space. There's quite a bit of doomsday chatter out there about how AI will adversely impact the world — including people's professions. I'm someone who's been pretty excited about the possibility of using AI as a partner for strategic and creative processes. But all of the negative commentary about it is starting to make me wonder if we're heading toward some weird sci-fi scenario in which human beings will no longer be needed for pretty much anything. How do you see AI impacting those in marketing — including writers, strategists and others?
I think there are a lot of changes coming, and a lot of people are going to find themselves out of work. I use AI all the time for research, for writing (Grammarly and ProWriting Aid). But I don't think AI is a negative thing.
For example, after playing with ChatGPT for a couple of months now, I can almost always spot content written by it. What it is useful for is coming up with outlines and then you can write about those etc. I am personally loving MidJourney for art, and for creating unique blog headers it is very useful. But again, to stand out, you have to do something different.
I think ultimately you are going to get a bunch of marketers using every bit of AI possible and they will all blend. The people who write good content, great emails, compelling subject lines, create great graphics will always stand out against these.
Since you no longer use Kartra for your exclusive content, where would those who bought the Renegade Email or Newsletter Bootcamp be able to log in and read, listen, and review the content?
I saw your recommendation of systeme.io. It looks like a pretty complete system but I've received a fair amount of unsolicited email from systeme.io users that ends up in my spam folder. Have you seen any deliverability statistics on their platform that you could share? I've filed a couple of spam complaints with systeme.io and they've never once responded to confirm they received them or care anything about it.
Personally I would connect your own SendGrid account. You can get one with a generous daily quota for nothing. DKIM and SPF setup are key to not hitting the spam bin these days on any service. I ran a test a couple of months ago on a shared SendGrid IP sending via the API. On a fresh domain with zero domain reputation with no DKIM SPF records I would end up in promo or spam. With these set up I would end in updates or inbox.
I personally still use my MailChimp account but for Systeme.io and their shared sendgrid account make sure you have a goor (or not bad) domain reputation adn setup SPF as a minimum. That way you are doing way more than most people using it.
With AI being integrated into everything, even search engines… it might be that soon you just enter what you wanna know in a search engine and it poops out what you wanna know on the screen.
I see some issues here: AI makes stuff sound factually while it could pull information out of its ass.
Further more if a search engine would display information directly on its page without going to a page it self then this will, in my opinion be the end. No visitors means no advertisement income, means no motivation to research and write new articles… which result that AI will not get fresh content… true a very doom scenario…
You hit the nail on the head here. No ads, no Google. Bing however are less concerned about this as they don't rely on ad revenue. I have been playing around with Bings integration with ChatGPT and I think the way they are doing it works well.
Sometimes you don't want to read a 2,000 word article on boiling an egg when a few lines of text will do. ( most American recipes spend twenty pages talking about ingredients, how their Grandma used to make it and tons of other pointless shit when you just want the recipe and measurements in units that make sense )
I do think however that AI will take over more of the results. I am writing an article about this at the moment.
One thing I do do think the integration will achieve is getting rid of the thousand of spam posts that are created like '10 things to do in Las Vegas' which are just crap affiliate pages. You ask Bing and it gives you a decent lineup.
Hi Dan - I’m thinking about starting a new newsletter. Is sub stack the place over mailchimp, activecampaign the usual ESPs. I’m figuring you must have a reason for being here, but just wanted to check!
I chose SubStack to launch this iteration of the newsletter because it is quick to put up content when I have an idea. You can have paid memberships with no technical setup. You get good search exposure, and you also show up on SubStack which brings a good amount of new visitors.
All-in-all though I like the simplicity, and the ability to just publish and my subscribers get notified. I can also create great content for paid subscribers. Hope that helps.
Hi Dan, I previously built an audience (7k emails, 50k fans, 8k group) but have not emailed or posted for 3 years. New people still trickle in but only receive one email with their lead magnet delivered. Do you suggest I reengage them? Or start new? If reengage, how would you suggest doing that? Thank you 🙏🏼
If you are using Renegade Email then I would reengage and start a two way conversation with the list. If the 50k fans are for a FB business page then reengaging those is going to be a lot harder and I would look at post boosts which spark interaction to get the algorithm warmed up a little etc. As for the groups, I would try a Hands Up offer like I often do to create engagement.
Basically you put up a post and say comment below if you want a copy my report etc.. The comments signal to FB that your group is engaged and they keep on showing the post to more of the group and so on. It works really well. The next post that you make will also get a boost to the number of people that saw it etc.
Renegade Email - I have it but don’t know where to start. Where would you suggest I start for this? Or how do you suggest starting a two-way convo with the list?
Have a look at the Jeff Walker email first but please go through the content in the core module. It is mostly audio based, go for a walk and take it in. Tell a personal story about how you got involved in the niche, why you are still doing it etc.
I listened when I first bought but got a little overwhelmed with where to start, so was waiting for the live version - so I could chunk it down 😁 I’ll find the login and re-listen then go to Jeff Walker and implement. Thank you 🙏🏼
Hi Dan, just circling back here. I’ve been waiting for the rest of Notion info to be added so I can see the Jeff Walker training (assuming it’s part of the missing section). When will it be added or where else can I find it? Please and thank you 🙏🏼
I set up systeme.io. My debox book, course and a few lower value recordings for sale. I’ve got 6 pieces (1500 - 2000 words) of transactional content up. So my question is a 2 fold one.
I published and indexed all 6 knowing that I’ll still need to edit and improve each one and add opt ins etc. my thinning wad get into into google and get some back links to each post. is this ok or should I only publish when completely ready? How will google see it when I edit and upgrade over the coming weeks?
And I was recommend an app called Frase. To help optimise each post to help with rankings.
Have you any experience of this being worth while?
I am 100% for getting the content out there and indexed. Time is the one element about SEO we can't really control and with a lot of new sites it is all about getting out of Google purgatory. So publish as soon as you can then refactor later.
As for Fase, I have not used it but every time I have tried similar services they are all pretty much awful, if AI is involved in writing or seo optimising an article then I would throw it through this detector to make sure it passes before putting it out there for Google to take a look at.
Ok mate thank you. Frase is more about the connective keywords and me writing them into the copy myself so it’s my writing still and showing me where I’ve overused the keywords
And it compares my article to the top 10 listings and seeks to help make mine bette than there’s with the better spread of keywords
Seems ok as I’m writing it and the first article I did seemed to read better too once I’d made the changes.
I’ll throw it through the link and see what comes back :)
I would find a writing tool you are comfortable with which allows you to create note boards etc. I use living writer for all my writing with grammarly to pick up my mistakes. I create a new chapter for an article or email I am going to write, make some notes on the board. Then I write an outline, sometimes I ask ChatGPT to write an outline. Then I paste it in and flesh it out.
I find it useful to have a 'writing space' so this for me is livingwriter.com. I go full screen, it hides the interface when I type, and I feel like I am in the zone.
Please let me know how well it scored. I personally am not that bothered about good keyword spread. My goal is to make sure I follow the EEAT guidelines and that the post offers real value.
just ran it through and it says very unlikely that its ai generated. Now this is one that was all ai written then I have edited using Frase.
But I bought a batch of 20 ai written articles from a guy who's been working on a way to get more human content from ai and they were way better than I was getting from chatGPT. so I got 20 articles just to see how they were and for me to edit from. 1500 words. So I just ran 2 of his articles without any editing through and they both came back 'Unlikely to be ai written content'
so how do you go about getting each of the 4 sections of EEAT into place for google to see and know?
How long do you think will it take for the average local biz owner to catch up and replace freelancers and agencies tasks? Do you think AI will affect the use of CRMs?(question2;)
I think you will be suppressed at how little the normal business owner knows. I spoke at a business event in Liverpool last year. There were about 600 small businesses there and I asked for a show of hands who had ever heard of Fiver. About 20 people raised there hands.
So I am guessing it is going to take the average Joe a while before they start tapping up MidHourney for a graphic.
As for AI's and CRM's I don't think it will be long before someone like SalesForce introducing complex AI's into the mix. I mean AI is already starting to impact with Microsoft bringing their AI to outlook so summarise threads, bringing it to Teams to automatically fill people in who join late and write up the meeting notes etc.
These are indeed interesting times, but I think human created content will still stand out.
Thanks, I hoped you would write something like that;) I can confirm from an own small bubble of local clients they dont understand most innovations incl AI. Definitely time to get more income streams, fast..
I have been testing "AiPRM" for a while and whilst it is excellent the articles it creates can easily be detected by the search engines as scraped content. You still need to create "Unique" content for your Blog conent and articles to get anywhere.
Google said it didn't mind Great Quality AI created and human edited content as long as it was properly attributed. It said content written by AI for the search engines rather than humans is the problem.
This is a good article which really sums up Google's point of view and uses BankRate as an example:
Google have just launched "Bard" to compete with the other so called Ai systems so they are obviously having to follow the crowd instead of leading the field like they normally do. So, watch out for some BIG changes in the way that most search engines classify and rank content in the comming months.
Hi Dan. I’d be interested in your insight and pitfalls to avoid when looking for a new niche. Is there any golden nuggets you’d care to share with us, thanks.
The golden rule, and really my main rule is that you have to be able to write about it every day (or make a video etc.) Secondly, if there is nobody selling digital products in the niche already then I would avoid it. And finally I like to see affiliate products because that way I can begin to generate income early days before I have something of my own to sell.
Personally I think the Renegade Email path where you build up a loyal following is the best route. Email will always be the most popular revenue stream. I think building a community around your brand is essential, and a lot of people do that with social and video. It just takes a lot more work than I am willing to do. I would rather write one email a day than have to create a YouTube short, a reel, a post etc.
I’d be interested in your experience in, and your opinion of using Twitter to build an audience that can be compelled to sign up to an email list by offering them valuable lead magnets.
I look at my experience with this. I follow tons of people on Instagram and follow a lot of people and hashtags on Twitter and I have never signed up to anything from Twitter. I think with Twitter you end up missing a load of posts from people. I think going forward it will be essential to sign up for the blue tick to get yourself noticed.
Personally I think the best way of getting leads is creating really valuable lead magnets (valuable enough to sell) and then piggyback on Facebook groups... and ultimately when the numbers work, use advertising.
So when you say piggyback on Facebook groups do you mean contribute to the conversation and rely on people checking out your profile where you have a link to your opt in page?
I think a mix of contribution and yes people checking your profile, and also providing something of true value for the group. Most lead magnets I see are low quality spam. My rule of thumb is, if you can't charge at least $10 for it then it is not worth giving it away for free.
I don't have a direct lead gen course. I build all my businesses around email. If you shoot me an email to danraine@gmail.com with more details about the niche I will give you my advice.
Ask here?
Hi Dan, it’s AMA day!
So, now that you’re off of Kartra, where can I find the training I had (Renegade Email system, and Newsletter training)?
Also, is it too late to request the Renegade Subscriber System from you?
Many thanks
Martin
Hi Dan — I'd love to hear your thoughts about the incredibly fast progress being made in the AI space. There's quite a bit of doomsday chatter out there about how AI will adversely impact the world — including people's professions. I'm someone who's been pretty excited about the possibility of using AI as a partner for strategic and creative processes. But all of the negative commentary about it is starting to make me wonder if we're heading toward some weird sci-fi scenario in which human beings will no longer be needed for pretty much anything. How do you see AI impacting those in marketing — including writers, strategists and others?
I think there are a lot of changes coming, and a lot of people are going to find themselves out of work. I use AI all the time for research, for writing (Grammarly and ProWriting Aid). But I don't think AI is a negative thing.
For example, after playing with ChatGPT for a couple of months now, I can almost always spot content written by it. What it is useful for is coming up with outlines and then you can write about those etc. I am personally loving MidJourney for art, and for creating unique blog headers it is very useful. But again, to stand out, you have to do something different.
I think ultimately you are going to get a bunch of marketers using every bit of AI possible and they will all blend. The people who write good content, great emails, compelling subject lines, create great graphics will always stand out against these.
Thanks, Dan! I completely agree!
This may be a handy resource list for some members,
https://plugin.surf/
Since you no longer use Kartra for your exclusive content, where would those who bought the Renegade Email or Newsletter Bootcamp be able to log in and read, listen, and review the content?
Why is your business located in Luxembourg and how did you set this up?
Business friendly policies... and it’s lovely summers ;)
Hi Dan,
I saw your recommendation of systeme.io. It looks like a pretty complete system but I've received a fair amount of unsolicited email from systeme.io users that ends up in my spam folder. Have you seen any deliverability statistics on their platform that you could share? I've filed a couple of spam complaints with systeme.io and they've never once responded to confirm they received them or care anything about it.
It would be nice if there was something like this: https://www.emailtooltester.com/en/blog/email-deliverability-january-2023/
Thanks,
Jim
Personally I would connect your own SendGrid account. You can get one with a generous daily quota for nothing. DKIM and SPF setup are key to not hitting the spam bin these days on any service. I ran a test a couple of months ago on a shared SendGrid IP sending via the API. On a fresh domain with zero domain reputation with no DKIM SPF records I would end up in promo or spam. With these set up I would end in updates or inbox.
I personally still use my MailChimp account but for Systeme.io and their shared sendgrid account make sure you have a goor (or not bad) domain reputation adn setup SPF as a minimum. That way you are doing way more than most people using it.
Thanks for your reply! I haven't looked at systeme.io too closely yet but will do so in the near future.
With AI being integrated into everything, even search engines… it might be that soon you just enter what you wanna know in a search engine and it poops out what you wanna know on the screen.
I see some issues here: AI makes stuff sound factually while it could pull information out of its ass.
Further more if a search engine would display information directly on its page without going to a page it self then this will, in my opinion be the end. No visitors means no advertisement income, means no motivation to research and write new articles… which result that AI will not get fresh content… true a very doom scenario…
Wonder what’s your thought about this.
You hit the nail on the head here. No ads, no Google. Bing however are less concerned about this as they don't rely on ad revenue. I have been playing around with Bings integration with ChatGPT and I think the way they are doing it works well.
Sometimes you don't want to read a 2,000 word article on boiling an egg when a few lines of text will do. ( most American recipes spend twenty pages talking about ingredients, how their Grandma used to make it and tons of other pointless shit when you just want the recipe and measurements in units that make sense )
I do think however that AI will take over more of the results. I am writing an article about this at the moment.
One thing I do do think the integration will achieve is getting rid of the thousand of spam posts that are created like '10 things to do in Las Vegas' which are just crap affiliate pages. You ask Bing and it gives you a decent lineup.
Hi Dan - I’m thinking about starting a new newsletter. Is sub stack the place over mailchimp, activecampaign the usual ESPs. I’m figuring you must have a reason for being here, but just wanted to check!
I chose SubStack to launch this iteration of the newsletter because it is quick to put up content when I have an idea. You can have paid memberships with no technical setup. You get good search exposure, and you also show up on SubStack which brings a good amount of new visitors.
All-in-all though I like the simplicity, and the ability to just publish and my subscribers get notified. I can also create great content for paid subscribers. Hope that helps.
Hi Dan, I previously built an audience (7k emails, 50k fans, 8k group) but have not emailed or posted for 3 years. New people still trickle in but only receive one email with their lead magnet delivered. Do you suggest I reengage them? Or start new? If reengage, how would you suggest doing that? Thank you 🙏🏼
If you are using Renegade Email then I would reengage and start a two way conversation with the list. If the 50k fans are for a FB business page then reengaging those is going to be a lot harder and I would look at post boosts which spark interaction to get the algorithm warmed up a little etc. As for the groups, I would try a Hands Up offer like I often do to create engagement.
Basically you put up a post and say comment below if you want a copy my report etc.. The comments signal to FB that your group is engaged and they keep on showing the post to more of the group and so on. It works really well. The next post that you make will also get a boost to the number of people that saw it etc.
Awesome, thank you. Noted on hand raisers 🙏🏼
Renegade Email - I have it but don’t know where to start. Where would you suggest I start for this? Or how do you suggest starting a two-way convo with the list?
Hi Dan... my login is with Kartra and not working. Will Systeme logins be sent out soon? 🤞🏼🙏🏼
Have a look at the Jeff Walker email first but please go through the content in the core module. It is mostly audio based, go for a walk and take it in. Tell a personal story about how you got involved in the niche, why you are still doing it etc.
I listened when I first bought but got a little overwhelmed with where to start, so was waiting for the live version - so I could chunk it down 😁 I’ll find the login and re-listen then go to Jeff Walker and implement. Thank you 🙏🏼
Hi Dan, just circling back here. I’ve been waiting for the rest of Notion info to be added so I can see the Jeff Walker training (assuming it’s part of the missing section). When will it be added or where else can I find it? Please and thank you 🙏🏼
I set up systeme.io. My debox book, course and a few lower value recordings for sale. I’ve got 6 pieces (1500 - 2000 words) of transactional content up. So my question is a 2 fold one.
I published and indexed all 6 knowing that I’ll still need to edit and improve each one and add opt ins etc. my thinning wad get into into google and get some back links to each post. is this ok or should I only publish when completely ready? How will google see it when I edit and upgrade over the coming weeks?
And I was recommend an app called Frase. To help optimise each post to help with rankings.
Have you any experience of this being worth while?
I am 100% for getting the content out there and indexed. Time is the one element about SEO we can't really control and with a lot of new sites it is all about getting out of Google purgatory. So publish as soon as you can then refactor later.
As for Fase, I have not used it but every time I have tried similar services they are all pretty much awful, if AI is involved in writing or seo optimising an article then I would throw it through this detector to make sure it passes before putting it out there for Google to take a look at.
https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier
Ok mate thank you. Frase is more about the connective keywords and me writing them into the copy myself so it’s my writing still and showing me where I’ve overused the keywords
And it compares my article to the top 10 listings and seeks to help make mine bette than there’s with the better spread of keywords
Seems ok as I’m writing it and the first article I did seemed to read better too once I’d made the changes.
I’ll throw it through the link and see what comes back :)
Sometimes I think extra tools just complicate things and actually stop you just getting content out there.
i feel this. I know what I wanna write and just want it to rank and generate good leads.
I would find a writing tool you are comfortable with which allows you to create note boards etc. I use living writer for all my writing with grammarly to pick up my mistakes. I create a new chapter for an article or email I am going to write, make some notes on the board. Then I write an outline, sometimes I ask ChatGPT to write an outline. Then I paste it in and flesh it out.
I find it useful to have a 'writing space' so this for me is livingwriter.com. I go full screen, it hides the interface when I type, and I feel like I am in the zone.
Please let me know how well it scored. I personally am not that bothered about good keyword spread. My goal is to make sure I follow the EEAT guidelines and that the post offers real value.
just ran it through and it says very unlikely that its ai generated. Now this is one that was all ai written then I have edited using Frase.
But I bought a batch of 20 ai written articles from a guy who's been working on a way to get more human content from ai and they were way better than I was getting from chatGPT. so I got 20 articles just to see how they were and for me to edit from. 1500 words. So I just ran 2 of his articles without any editing through and they both came back 'Unlikely to be ai written content'
so how do you go about getting each of the 4 sections of EEAT into place for google to see and know?
How long do you think will it take for the average local biz owner to catch up and replace freelancers and agencies tasks? Do you think AI will affect the use of CRMs?(question2;)
I think you will be suppressed at how little the normal business owner knows. I spoke at a business event in Liverpool last year. There were about 600 small businesses there and I asked for a show of hands who had ever heard of Fiver. About 20 people raised there hands.
So I am guessing it is going to take the average Joe a while before they start tapping up MidHourney for a graphic.
As for AI's and CRM's I don't think it will be long before someone like SalesForce introducing complex AI's into the mix. I mean AI is already starting to impact with Microsoft bringing their AI to outlook so summarise threads, bringing it to Teams to automatically fill people in who join late and write up the meeting notes etc.
These are indeed interesting times, but I think human created content will still stand out.
Thanks, I hoped you would write something like that;) I can confirm from an own small bubble of local clients they dont understand most innovations incl AI. Definitely time to get more income streams, fast..
Hey Dan,
First, a tip, have you tried the “AIPRM ChatGPT chrome extension”? It’s mind blowingly amazing?
Second, a question, I’m going all in on the Blog and Consistent Content Creation.
Yet, promotion trumps creation.
Once a quality article is created and posted, will you walk me thru the Mind-Of-Dan Advanced Promotional Strategy for getting traffic to the blog.
What is Dan’s traffic strategy?
Thx in Advance 🙌🏻
I have been testing "AiPRM" for a while and whilst it is excellent the articles it creates can easily be detected by the search engines as scraped content. You still need to create "Unique" content for your Blog conent and articles to get anywhere.
Absolutely. Any content needs to pass this...
https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier
SEMrush did a post recently saying that google isn’t bothered about ai content. But that’s not right?
Google said it didn't mind Great Quality AI created and human edited content as long as it was properly attributed. It said content written by AI for the search engines rather than humans is the problem.
This is a good article which really sums up Google's point of view and uses BankRate as an example:
https://medium.com/inkwater-atlas/google-responds-to-bankrates-use-of-ai-to-write-content-1aee404774d8
That makes a lot of sense. Using ai to write the base then edit and personalise seems a good play. Still saves time
It is also surprisingly difficult to do. Here is a little challenge for you.
Ask ChatGPT to write an article on 'how to cook a hard boiled egg' then score it. Now you rewrite it and see if you can pass the article as human.
Google have just launched "Bard" to compete with the other so called Ai systems so they are obviously having to follow the crowd instead of leading the field like they normally do. So, watch out for some BIG changes in the way that most search engines classify and rank content in the comming months.
Hi Dan. I’d be interested in your insight and pitfalls to avoid when looking for a new niche. Is there any golden nuggets you’d care to share with us, thanks.
The golden rule, and really my main rule is that you have to be able to write about it every day (or make a video etc.) Secondly, if there is nobody selling digital products in the niche already then I would avoid it. And finally I like to see affiliate products because that way I can begin to generate income early days before I have something of my own to sell.
Are content and community the next must-have funnel?
Personally I think the Renegade Email path where you build up a loyal following is the best route. Email will always be the most popular revenue stream. I think building a community around your brand is essential, and a lot of people do that with social and video. It just takes a lot more work than I am willing to do. I would rather write one email a day than have to create a YouTube short, a reel, a post etc.
Hi Dan,
I’d be interested in your experience in, and your opinion of using Twitter to build an audience that can be compelled to sign up to an email list by offering them valuable lead magnets.
Cheers, Gary.
I look at my experience with this. I follow tons of people on Instagram and follow a lot of people and hashtags on Twitter and I have never signed up to anything from Twitter. I think with Twitter you end up missing a load of posts from people. I think going forward it will be essential to sign up for the blue tick to get yourself noticed.
Personally I think the best way of getting leads is creating really valuable lead magnets (valuable enough to sell) and then piggyback on Facebook groups... and ultimately when the numbers work, use advertising.
Thanks Dan.
So when you say piggyback on Facebook groups do you mean contribute to the conversation and rely on people checking out your profile where you have a link to your opt in page?
Cheers 👍
I think a mix of contribution and yes people checking your profile, and also providing something of true value for the group. Most lead magnets I see are low quality spam. My rule of thumb is, if you can't charge at least $10 for it then it is not worth giving it away for free.
I don't have a direct lead gen course. I build all my businesses around email. If you shoot me an email to danraine@gmail.com with more details about the niche I will give you my advice.