• 16:08
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
AI marketing, small teams, big budgets, content creation, human review, efficiency, SEO, passion, subject matter experts, interview process, voice search, small businesses, competitive edge, marketing tools, AI progress.
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Theresa Mintzer
Damon Pistulka 00:04
All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what time? What that means? It is time for stop being the best kept secret. And no, that is not Curt Anderson sitting right over there, that awesome person from our team. And and I couldn’t think of someone better to talk to about this topic of AI marketing for manufacturers and how small teams can compete with big budgets. Theresa, yeah, thanks for being here today. Thank
Theresa Mintzer 00:34
you. Thank you. It’s something we use all the time. It’s it’s very exciting, and it’s exciting to see just how much it’s changed. Just even in the last six months to a year, it’s crazy,
Damon Pistulka 00:44
yes, yes. So let’s, let’s take our, let’s, let’s just go back in the Wayback Machine and think about two years ago, when we were doing the process of, you know, helping people create content and and doing things like that, there was a fair amount of effort in getting a a blog post made even even with the transcript Correct,
Theresa Mintzer 01:10
yes, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t really doing the blog post then, but yeah, because you were, you know, taking a transcript which, in and of itself is never perfect, and then, you know, kind of creating the blog post from that. And what AI has been able to do is, is change that, because, you know, you’re really able to get the information from an expert, and then you can, you know, run it through the AI. And that doesn’t necessarily like, if create, like the you can have somebody on your staff do that without them having specialized writing training, things like that. I mean, I think that’s the big difference, is that you can, there’s a way, kind of to push that out to other people that you work with that don’t necessarily have that experience,
Damon Pistulka 02:03
yeah, yeah. And that’s, that’s, I think it doesn’t, you can’t, like, stick it, you know, stick a transcript at AI, and then just go, Okay, it’s good, post it. I mean, you need to do that human review, yeah. But it does make that taking all those little pieces and and parts of a transcript, and puts it into something that’s that’s fairly coherent right from the beginning.
Theresa Mintzer 02:26
Yeah, it’s just like a tool. I think that’s, you know, people who are like AI, but people been using AI for a very long time, because Grammarly is AI. Canva is a you know, the people have been using this. It’s just like another tool that we have in our tool belt to help create content, and this tool decreases that amount of time now that you need, but what we’re able to do is get information from experts and and let them review it at the end, so we you know, we know that that content is accurate. Like, we just had a client where they sent he was like, Oh, I’d like to change this or that so we still know that information is accurate, but we are able. It’s just a tool like anything else, yeah. My, my big takeaway from Ai,
Damon Pistulka 03:12
yeah, yeah. And I think really, when we talk about how small teams can compete with bigger budgets, it’s really getting scrappy with these kind of tools that that help us to be more efficient. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, because we, I mean, we’re typically not working with companies that have 10 people in their marketing department and those kind of things. So, yeah, it is. It is really a, you know, there’s a lot of companies out there where the founder may still be doing the marketing you may have a marketing person part time on your staff, and you’re like, how can we really increase what we do? And I think that there’s, there’s tools now that helps these small teams really increase their output well, and especially
Theresa Mintzer 03:53
like with a marketer who is very passionate another marketer, like a founder, they’re very passionate about what they do, and sometimes they love to talk about it, and they like to explain, you know, how they’ve developed their process or parts that they’ve created. And I don’t necessarily think that somebody who like works for an agency is really going to be as passionate about that tool or that part that they’re creating, or how they came about their business as that creator or the founder, and so when we can interview that founder about things that they’re passionate about and that they love, we are able to, you kind of relay that in a way that I think maybe people weren’t able to do In the past.
Damon Pistulka 04:39
Yeah. Yeah, this exactly, and it’s so, so easy with do it now. Fahad has a question here. Thanks, Fahad. You’ve asked several can AI replace humans? I mean, right now, you can generate content with AI. You could stick it up on your on your website, you could put it out, but without the human editing factor. And. Correcting and making sure that things are accurate. It is, it is still pretty iffy to do that. I would think, what do
Theresa Mintzer 05:07
you Oh, absolutely. In fact, I think it’s, it’s like you need that human for the interview. You also need, sometimes on the back end, somebody helping them with what they should be talking about or explaining, and then we’re doing a check after everything comes out of the AI, you know, typically they’re doing a check as well. Because what we want is, is we want that voice and that passion that they have for their business to come through, because ultimately, that’s how they’re going to sell their business, yeah, yeah, and their products,
Damon Pistulka 05:39
yeah, yeah. That’s a great point, because, you know, if AI comes out a little bit sterile, we can adjust it, edit the text manually to make it be better. There’s always little tweaks that you’re going to want to do to it that really enhance because as we we work with clients, and like I said, these smaller businesses, they’re not mega businesses. That everyone knows. When you’re working with a smaller business, it really is important to tell their story, why they’re unique, how they love what they do, like you said, the passion of the
Theresa Mintzer 06:11
founders, yeah, yeah, because I think they I love part of what I do is, is I learned so much about different businesses and companies, and why somebody has come up with the idea, or how they’ve pivoted, like all of those stories are so important. And I also think that the end customers appreciate that as well, because they understand that somebody’s passionate about their business. But if we were to just throw that into you wouldn’t get that from there’s their human touch involved with all of it. That’s what I like.
Damon Pistulka 06:44
Yes, yes. I’ll say Usman, thanks for stopping by today. He says, greetings from Usman says, yeah, just lot of great comments. And Fahad has known, I think those who learn how to use a I will get much benefit other than those, obviously, and that is, that’s really what we’re talking about today, is is, you know, just making it easier for us than more efficient for us to create things like we could if we did it ourselves, if we were professional writers and other things like that. But as we talk about, in a small business, you don’t have a staff of professional writers at your disposal and doing things like that. It’s just, it’s just a different thing.
Theresa Mintzer 07:26
Yeah, and a lot of small businesses don’t have the money to then spend on having somebody spend hours working on a blog post. You know, we’re trying to get out as much information for SEO and things like that, but also to educate customers and and like, you know, people buy from people they know, like and trust, and so we’re trying to get those wonderful stories from these businesses, you know, out as quickly as possible so people can discover them.
Damon Pistulka 07:55
Yeah, that’s a great point, because it, it really is. It’s, it’s it’s hard if we had to sit down and do a how to video or explain about a product or service in typing it out right? Much easier in an interview format like this, we’re talking in a conversational manner about it, which it’s easy for people to listen to, because someone can be a, you know, the customer, so to speak, in that and asking questions of someone about their business, about their product or service. But then, as you said, when we go to try to help with SEO, with businesses and get and get like we like to say, stop being the best kept secret and get wider known. You know, the AI is that tool that allows you to do that faster and more efficiently and in more places.
Theresa Mintzer 08:41
Yeah, and I also think it helps because of how we do it, where we’re interviewing someone and we have a transcript, I think it makes it easier for them to express themselves a little more like they can just talk about what they like and what their interests are and and ultimately, that’s what we’re going to be feeding into the AI adding, it’s adding their exact quotes and their knowledge, which I think is the most important thing. So yeah,
Damon Pistulka 09:11
yeah, I love that is. And you see how, how, as we’re working with AI gets better, and it does pull out the the specific quotes from those subject matter experts or the founders, to really let that passion so through, and that show through, and that information, yeah,
Theresa Mintzer 09:29
yeah, so, and I’m not sure you would always maybe get that if you weren’t, like, interviewing them on video and like it really is about their passion for what they’re doing. And that person that might seem cold in certain circumstances because they’re very technical, but when they start talking about what they love, that’s what you see,
Damon Pistulka 09:48
yeah, yeah. That’s a great point, because it’s easier to just let that come out in the conversation. Then,
Theresa Mintzer 09:54
yes, yeah, definitely. I think so, and I hope that that’s then what we’re producing. Then when. When people are reading it,
Damon Pistulka 10:01
yeah, yeah. Well, like you said, we have to keep the human in our marketing, because when we were selling to humans, right? We’re not this is not all bots that are buying the products and services we’re typically working with people. These are, these are kind of things that are a little more technical, a little more long term kind of purchasing decisions and and people really need to get educated. They need to get to know who they’re working with before they they go ahead and invest that time to take the next step
Theresa Mintzer 10:30
exactly well. And I think we’re also trying to extract that information out of the subject matter, like expert, because we want you know, in the end, we want those questions answered, so we’re trying to be that go between and again, AI is just a tool that we’re using to make that process faster. Yeah, because we can turn around, we can interview someone and get, you know, several blog posts from it. Yes. And for search, SEO, you know, even hopefully AI search, yes, you know, people are going to come by that information quicker, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 11:10
yeah. It is. It is interesting how answering those typical customer questions in these interviews helps you to get into the AI search, yeah?
Theresa Mintzer 11:19
Oh, yeah, definitely. I think so. And, you know, I think we have to think about just even Voice Search, like I have younger kids, they’re much more into, I mean, not younger they’re young adults who are professionals now and and they use AI a lot. I think that’s something that, you know, somebody that’s like marketing or not marketing, they’re older in manufacturing. Sometimes they don’t think about but these are the people maybe ordering the parts or searching for the parts, or trying to figure out how to get them, and they search differently. So we really need to hit everyone. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 11:55
that is a great point, because, you know, as we’re working with people, they may be older executives in a business and and they don’t search the same way that the people that are actually looking for their products, researching the product and then ultimately recommending that are purchased. They’re going to search a lot differently
Theresa Mintzer 12:16
well, and they might not be the one that ultimately does that purchasing decision, but they’re the person on the shop floor or, like, thinking, like, Okay, this is what I need to make this work. And we need to be for all of these, like, for those people too. We need to, which I think AI helps us with.
Damon Pistulka 12:34
Yeah, yeah. Very cool. So if you had to just say what is, what’s got you excited about this process, about what you’ve seen the progress, what are some of the things that really excite you and and seeing how this is helping these small teams really compete?
Theresa Mintzer 12:55
Oh, I think it’s going to, I think it’s just going to get better. And again, as long as as we keep in mind that we want to get this great information from our subject matter experts, the AI is going to get better. I just to see where it’s come in. The last year is just unbelievable. And so as that gets better, then we are going to be able to hopefully produce more content for these people, but also make it more streamlined for them. I think there’s definitely ways to do that too, so that they don’t have to have a marketing expert, you know, on there, that, you know, we can train them. They can learn how to do this themselves.
Damon Pistulka 13:33
Yeah, yeah. I really think that’s one of the key points in in how these tools are helping small teams compete, is things that were left to a marketing agency that cost him, you know, sometimes 10s of 1000s of dollars can now, can now be handled, at least in a lot of respects, with with a much smaller team, or using AI as a tool to help
Theresa Mintzer 13:55
them. But I think it’s about educating them why they need to do this to begin with, and then, and then also educating them about how it works, right? Because, even if we could just hand them something, but they don’t quite understand how it works, it’s not going to help them, but it is then making it this, you know, it’s making this whole process better for people who would not have been able to even financially, be able to do this. So it’s kind of like, it’s going to help them, you know, like these small I mean, it’s just so neat, like learning about all these smaller market manufacturers and and it’s just going to help more of them. I think in the future, yeah, it’s
Damon Pistulka 14:35
going to be able to give them, like you said, it brings the tools, more affordable, tools, more efficient tools that allow that small teams really do a ton more and things they could never do before.
Theresa Mintzer 14:46
Yeah, and help them be more competitive in the market, right? Like, if they can get their information out there and, and, and I would think it would make them more competitive, because they’ve got this way to really talk about their passion, right? And. In a way that maybe some big corporate, you know, wouldn’t necessarily be able to do, but you’ve got this guy who’s running like a two person CNC shop who really cares about his business and what he’s doing and and through this process, is able to get that out there in a way that he was never able to do that before.
Damon Pistulka 15:18
Yeah, yeah. That’s so cool. That’s so cool. Well, Theresa, thanks for stopping by today. So much fun talking with you. You’re doing it every day. Maybe you know, getting the content rolling, helping these small manufacturers really learn how to do these processes, and helping them do it every day. Thanks for stopping by.
Theresa Mintzer 15:40
Have a great day. Take care. Have a great weekend. All right, I want to
Damon Pistulka 15:43
just say, before we wind out, I want to say, Fahad you had some questions there. Sorry, I can’t help you. I’m, I don’t, don’t really can’t understand how to get recruited by a recruiter, but I can tell you, if you go out and connect with the right people on LinkedIn, you got a much better chance. So thanks everyone for being here. We’re going to close down for now and we will be back again next week. Have a great weekend. You.
