Yearly Archives: 2023

MrBeast is a young YouTuber who has amassed an incredible following through non-traditional means.

If you combine the subscribers of all his channels, they would rank as the 7th most populated country in the world. His videos have been viewed more than 26 billion times. 

MrBeast is not just a storyteller — he also translates this attention into revenue. He earned $54 million last year, launched a range of chocolate bars, an apparel brand, and even a fast-food business. He is one of the world’s best marketers, capturing the attention of billions and turning many of them into customers.

Let’s explore the psychology behind MrBeast’s success, and how you can use it as a marketer to help grow your own business.

The Two Psychological Biases MrBeast Uses to Garner Millions of Views

1. He uses input bias to create hyper-engaging videos that amass millions of views.

How did MrBeast, who started his channel at 13-years-old, create a multi-million dollar business empire in less than a decade?

The first psychological bias MrBeast uses is known as the input bias. It means that the more time, effort, and money you sink into something, the more you’ll value it.

Studies show that you’ll enjoy food more when you see the effort that’s gone into creating it. Even when you haven’t made the food yourself, seeing the effort that went into cooking it can actually make you enjoy it more.

Additionally, house buyers who are given a list of properties and told the real estate agent stayed up all night preparing that list will rank the properties as better-suited to their needs than the exact same list created in seconds by a computer.

How MrBeast Leverages Input Bias

MrBeast has used input bias consistently to make people value his videos. One of his first viral videos was him cutting a table in half with a plastic knife. It takes him hours, and the content is undeniably dull — yet it has 3.5 million views. This was one of MrBeast’s first viral videos, and it propelled his fame. He sunk an extraordinary amount of time into creating the video, and people valued it, even though the activity was fairly worthless.

The time and effort it took also meant that no one else had done something like that before, which made the video unique. This video demonstrated MrBeast’s commitment to spending enormous amounts of time and effort into creating his content.

MrBeast quickly saw the success of this video, and created more just like it. Some examples: He read the longest word in the English language, said “Logan Paul” 100,000 times in 17 hours, and counted to 100,000. These videos have millions of views.

Showcasing the effort MrBeast sinks into his videos make people value it more, even if that effort is fairly unexciting. The video is boring, but it’s leveraging our cognitive biases to capture attention. MrBeast is a master of using behavioral science nudges to garner attention.

2. He leverages costly signalling to engage his audience.

Another one of the psychological principles MrBeast uses is costly signalling — which essentially states that the more money or resources someone spends to market their products or services, the more trust someone will have in the brand.

For instance, if you see a new brand on TV that has paid for an advertisement with a costly celebrity like Selena Gomez, you’ll assume the brand is relatively successful — due to the costs of television advertisements, as well as the cost of working with a major celebrity – and have more trust in buying their product.

Additionally, major brands like Patagonia use costly signalling to showcase their values. For instance, Patagonia declined to sell corporate vests to employees of firms that do damage to the environment, including oil companies, mining companies, and finance firms. This decision was a costly signal, and ultimately changed how people perceived the brand, making some value it more.

How MrBeast Leverages Costly Signalling

In the case of MrBeast, he gives away extraordinary amounts of money in almost all his videos, which makes them more engaging and makes him more trustworthy. His video in which he was offered his first brand deal is an excellent example of how he applied the principle of costly signalling.

The advertisers offered him $5,000 to promote their brand during one of his videos, but MrBeast wanted to give away all the money from the brand deal to a homeless person and film their reaction. He thought $5,000 wasn’t enough and pleaded with the advertisers to double their payment to $10,000 so that he could give away the full amount to a homeless person.

The brand agreed, and MrBeast went and gave away $10,000, which made the video even more engaging. This video was a turning point in MrBeast’s career, driving much higher numbers of views and propelling his subscribers to an even greater level.

MrBeast’s success as a content creator and businessman is not just due to luck or chance. He employs various tactics and strategies to grow his brand and engage his audience. In this post, we discussed two psychological tactics he’s used: input bias, and costly signalling.

However, there’s one more tactic that MrBeast uses that I haven’t covered yet. If you want to discover what it is, then you’ll have to listen to Nudge Podcast, where MrBeast reveals his secret weapon for building a successful brand.

So go ahead and give it a listen, you might just learn something new!

ChatGPT is generating a lot of buzz in the marketing industry, and if you’re a marketer, you’re probably wondering how to use the technology to its full potential.

Fortunately, I’ve compiled a list of 190 prompts to enter into ChatGPT to take the guesswork out of figuring out how to use the AI.

If you’re unfamiliar with ChatGPT, here’s what you need to know.

What is ChatGPT?

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Marketing

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Business

27 ChatGPT Prompts for Content Creation and Social Media

9 ChatGPT Prompts for Analytics

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Email Campaigns

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Resume

11 ChatGPT Prompts for E-Commerce

23 ChatGPT Prompts for Customer Service

20 ChatGPT Prompts for Sales

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a publicly accessible tool owned by OpenAI. It uses natural language processing to pull information from around the web to answer search queries and fulfill content requests.

ChatGPT’s answers are original, meaning they are not copied and pasted from the web.

Aside from a paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus, the tool is free.

ChatGPT is one of the latest developments in AI tools. If you’re looking for other ways to integrate AI into your marketing workflow, you may be interested in HubSpot’s new Content Assistant.

Content Assistant is a suite of free, AI-powered features that help you ideate, create, and share remarkable content quickly and efficiently.

Now, let’s get into the wide range of prompts you can use to get the most out of ChatGPT.

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Marketing

1. “List [number] ideas for blog posts about [topic].”
2. “Write a minute-long advertisement script about [product, service, or company].”
3. “Create a 3-month social media campaign calendar for our product with the goal to [insert goal] and mention the channels we should focus on.”
4. “List [number] viral Instagram Reels ideas about [company, product, or service].”
5. “Generate [number] of viral TikTok ideas about [company, product, or service].”
6. “Create 3 call-to-action button ideas based on the contents of this blog post URL.” Then insert the URL.
7. “Create an advertising campaign about [company, product, or service] targeting [target audience]. Include key messages and slogans and choose the best media channels for promotions.”
8. “Write [number] Google Ad headlines from [URL].”
9. “List common challenges faced by [buyer persona description].”
10. “List the key marketing segments in [industry]. Which segment has the biggest opportunity for our [company, group, organization, business]?”
11. “Write marketing copy to make my marketing emails more engaging. The copy must be about our [product, service, or company].”
12. “Write an email subject line convincing potential customers to switch our service.”
13. “What are 10 main points that are crucial to marketers trying to acquire new customers?”
14. “Generate an AIDA for [product or service].”
15. “Write 5 tweets to generate interest in [product, company, or service].”
16. “Write a promotional LinkedIn post about [product or service].”
17. “Write 3-second Facebook Ad copy about [product or service].”
18. “Write a press release about our upcoming event. Include the event’s date, time, location, and purpose.” Make sure to give ChatGPT the necessary details.
19. “Generate 5 different YouTube descriptions for our video about [topic].”
20. “Generate questions for a Facebook poll about [topic].
21. “What marketing channels have the highest ROI?”
22. “List ways to market my brand on TikTok.”
23. “How can influencer marketing generate leads?”
24. “What marketing tactics should I leverage to reach my target audience.” Make sure to describe your target audience.
25. “What marketing channels have the lowest ROI?”

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Business

1. “What are the top trends in [your industry] for 2023?”
2. “What are the most important metrics to measure the success of our business?”
3. “List ways to reduce cost and increase profitability.”
4. “How can we use social media to increase brand awareness?”
5. “How can we improve search engine optimization for our business?”
6. “How can we improve our customer service experience?”
7. “What are some ways we can boost productivity and employee engagement?”
8. “What are the best tools for budgeting?”
9. “How can A/B testing improve our website’s performance?”
10. “How can we use automation to simplify our marketing and sales tactics?”
11. “List the ways we can use a webinar to increase brand awareness and leads.”
12. “What are the best practices for creating a strong company culture?”
13. “Generate ways to use virtual tours to showcase products and services.”
14. “List the benefits of using a digital asset management tool to organize and share company assets.”
15. “List the benefits of using a customer journey mapping tool to improve the customer experience.”
16. “Generate different ways to use augmented reality to enhance our [product or service].”
17. “How can blockchain technology improve business processes and boost security?”
18. “List the different ways we can implement a customer loyalty program to increase sales and retain customers.”
19. “How can we use customer testimonials to boost our brand’s trust and credibility?”
20. “What are some customer onboarding best practices?”
21. “What are some employee onboarding best practices?”
22. “What are common mistakes start-up companies often make?”
23. “How can I boost employee retention?”
24. “What are best practices in maintaining high morale within your organization?”
25. “What are best practices for start-up businesses?”

27 ChatGPT Prompts for Content Creation and Social Media

1. “Write an 800-word blog post about [subject], and include the following keywords in the headline, subheading, and body paragraphs.” Then, list the keywords you want ChatGPT to include.
2. “Write a list of blog titles that include statistics on [topic].”
3. “Write a YouTube video script about [product, blog, company, etc.].”
4. “Write a 100-word Instagram caption about [topic] in an informative and friendly tone and include relevant hashtags.”
5. “Write 10 YouTube headlines about [topic] and include the words [keywords].”
6. “Generate a Twitter thread about [topic].”
7. “Analyze this blog post for plagiarism.”
8. “Check this blog post for spelling and grammar mistakes.”
9. “Generate 5 ideas for YouTube videos about [topic, industry, company, service, product, etc.].”
10. “Create a script for a web series that educates viewers about [topic].”
11. “Write a script for an hour-long podcast episode about [topic].”
12. “Write an engaging script for a virtual product launch.”
13. Generate a simple, high-quality image for social media for a [type] company. The goal of the image must be to acquire new customers.”
14. “Translate the following company into [language]: [copy].”
15. “Write an outline for a blog post about [topic]. Include the keywords [keywords] in the headline and subheadings.”
16. “Build a reader persona for [page description].”
17. “Make the following copy more creative: [copy].”
18. “Simply the following copy to make it easy for Grade 3 children to read.”
19. “Rephrase the following copy.”
20. “Write an engaging video script about [topic].”
21. “What are YouTube marketing best practices?”
22. “What are common mistakes marketers make in content creation?
23. “What are best practices when marketing on Instagram?”
24. “How can companies find influencers to collaborate with?”
25. “What are the benefits of influencer marketing?
26. “List 5 ways to generate leads from YouTube.”
27. “List ways to convince customers to buy a product via Instagram.”

9 ChatGPT Prompts for Analytics

1. “What are the most important KPIs for [industry].”
2. “Write a SWOT analysis for our website traffic.”
3. “What is a good bounce rate for our website?”
4. “How do we boost leads on our website?”
5. “What are the best website analytics tools?”
6. “How can I track my company’s analytics on social media?”
7. “How did I determine which channel generates the most web traffic for my brand?”
8. “What social media platform generates the most leads?”
9. “How can I optimize my website to rank higher in SERPs?

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Email Campaigns

1. “Generate [number] subject lines for an email campaign about [product or service.].”
2. “Write [number] holiday-themed subject lines about clothes shopping.”
3. “What are the best subject lines to increase open rates?”
4. “What are best practices for writing an engaging email subject line?”
5. “Write 10 post-purchase email subject lines for [company].”
6. “Write the body copy for a promotional email campaign about [company] spring sale. Write in an upbeat and friendly tone.”
7. “Write a follow-up email for [your brand] with the subject line: [your subject line].”
8. “Write an outline for a weekly email newsletter from [brand] to [target audience]. Include an intro, main point, conclusion, and call-to-action in the outline.”
9. “What are best practices for writing engaging email copy for a marketing campaign?”
10. “List 5 topics I should write about in my next email newsletter.”
11. “How can I avoid my emails being marked as spam?”
12. “How can I improve my sender reputation?”
13. “How can I ensure my emails are easy to read and navigate on mobile devices?”
14. “How can I make my emails load faster on mobile devices?”
15. “How should I format my images and media to load properly on mobile devices?”
16. “List the most common reasons emails are not delivered to the inbox.”
17. “List the best practices for optimizing an email for mobile devices.”
18. “What are the most common reasons customers unsubscribe from email lists?”
19. “What are some of the best tools to manage marketing email lists?”
20. “How can I boost email subscribers?”
21. “How can I get off the email blacklist?”
22. “How can I improve my business’ email list?”
23. “What factors can decrease email open rates?”
24. “What factors can boost email open rates?
25. “List the top 5 email marketing tools.”

25 ChatGPT Prompts for Resume

1. “Write a summary showcasing my skills and experiences relevant to a Social Media Manager role.”
2. “Generate a summary highlighting my past achievements.”
3. “Craft summary demonstrating my ability to [skill.”
4. “Generate 5 bullet points highlighting achievements in [field].”
5. “Create bullet points about my most recent [job title] role highlighting my achievements.”
6. “Generate bullet points showcasing my ability to [skill.]”
7. “How can I make my resume stand out against other candidates?”
8. “What are common mistakes job seekers make on their resumes?”
9. “What are some resume best practices to improve my job search?”
10. “What are common formatting mistakes I should avoid in my resume?”
11. “Copyedit my resume for any spelling or grammatical errors.”
12. “What are some [industry] resume best practices?”
13. “What resume design tools can I use to make my resume stand out?”
14. “Review my resume and suggest improvement and edits.”
15. “What are the most important keywords for applicant tracking systems to include in my resume.”
16. “How can I make my resume more concise?”
17. “What should I include on my resume if I’m applying in [specific industry].”
18. “How do I tailor my resume to specific job postings?”
19. “How can I make my resume more visually appealing?”
20. “How can I make my resume more visually appealing?”
21. “How can I get my resume directly to the hiring manager?”
22. “How soon after submitting my resume should I follow up on a job posting?”
23. “What should I include on a marketing resume?”
24. “Based on this job description, what words should I include in my resume?”
25. “How do I condense my [number] years of experience into a one-page resume?”

11 ChatGPT Prompts for E-Commerce

1. “Write a description for a [product type] and include [product attributes] and [keywords].”
2. “Generate a list of 20 audience demographics that would benefit from a [product or service].”
3. “Think like an e-commerce expert and write 10 frequently asked questions for [your website name and URL.”
4. “Think like an e-commerce SEO expert and write a meta tile for [your brand name] in the [inser industry] industry.”
5. “Behave like an e-commerce SEO expert and write a meta tile for [ product name], from the [industry name] industry.”
6. “Write a title page for [e-commerce website URL] and include [keywords].”
7. “Write a meta description for [e-commerce website URL].”
8. “Craft informative content for our e-commerce About Us page.”
9. “Act as an e-commerce expert and craft a product collection description for the [product] from [brand].”
10. “Act as an e-commerce merchandising specialist and draft a product title for [product] from [brand].”
11. “Create an e-commerce campaign for [product, brand, or service].”

23 ChatGPT Prompts for Customer Service

1. “What’s the best way to reach out to potential customers?”
2. “Generate a list of ways to improve customer service?”
3. “Create a template for an email response to customers inquiring about [product].”
4. “Write a customer service email that addresses the following pain point.”
5. “Generate 5 helpful suggestions for customers struggling with using [product].”
6. “What are the most frequently asked questions about our [product, service, company, brand]?”
7. “Generate a list of common issues customers have with [product name] and provide solutions for them.”
8. “Write four personalized messages for customers asking about our [product] in a friendly tone.”
9. “Generate 10 chatbot prompts related to our [product].”
10. “Create a help page that explains how to use [product].”
11. “List 10 phrases customer service agents can use to show empathy.”
12. “Provide a template to explain standard retail return policy.”
13. “Rewrite this paragraph to sound more friendly: [paragraph].”
14. “Chat as if you’re a customer who can’t log into their account.”
15. “Summarize the following knowledge base article to give step-by-step instructions.”
16. “Write 5 questions for a customer experience survey.”
17. “List the qualities of good customer service.”
18. “What are customer service mistakes companies often make?”
19. “How can I streamline the customer service process without losing customers?”
20. “What’s a friendly way to respond to this message from a customer?”
21. “Act as a customer service representative and answer the following question: [question].”
22. “List 5 different ways a chatbot can greet customers.”
23. “List 5 ways a chatbot can say goodbye to a customer.”

20 ChatGPT Prompts for Sales

1. “What are cross-selling opportunities available for my [type] business?”
2. “What are some creative ways to generate leads?”
3. “Create a personalized sale email for potential customers. Include [topic, brand name, promo offers, etc.].”
4. “What product customization would you recommend for this customer?” Include customer details in the prompt.”
5. “List 10 keywords people might use when searching for our [product].”
6. “Create five persuasive points to encourage customers to buy our [product].”
7. “List 3 compelling reasons our customers should buy [product or service].”
8. “List [number] personal branding types I can use for social selling.”
9. “What kind of content categories and topics can I create for social selling on Instagram?”
10. “Write a sales landing page description for [product].”
11. “Write a cold email to a prospective customer introducing my [company or organization] and how it can benefit them using [selling points].”
12. “Write a sales pitch about [product].”
13. “Act as a salesperson and market [product or service] to me.”
14. “Act as a salesperson and answer this question about [product or service].”
15. “Write the text for a social media ad highlighting the [product or service]. Highlight paint-point-specific questions.”
16. “Generate 5 buyer personas I should include in my cold outreach.”
17. “List 5 personal branding archetypes I could use for social selling on LinkedIn.”
18. “Generate a script to use when cold-calling start-up founders in my area.”
19. “Craft an answer to this sales question.”
20. “What questions should I ask potential buyers to uncover pain points and priorities to decide if they are a sales-qualified lead for my product?”

Using ChatGPT in Marketing

AI tools like ChatGPT can be manageable for marketers. The above prompts can help you craft marketing campaigns, answer pressing sales questions, and free up time so you can focus on the more creative aspects of marketing.

Now that you know the prompts, you’re ready to experiment with ChatGPT to see if it fits into your marketing processes.

Blogs and podcasts are both powerhouse marketing tools. But when comparing blog vs. podcast, which is the better bet for your business?

Podcasts and blogs have the power to nurture customer relationships and deepen brand loyalty. Both highlight authority and expertise. And both forms of content can boost traffic and generate leads.

Each format has benefits and drawbacks, and before launch, you’ll want to know which will offer your business the best ROI.

Let’s take a closer look at blogs and podcasts for content marketing and which is the best for your business. Keep reading, or jump ahead to the section you’re searching for:

• What’s the Difference Between a Podcast and a Blog?
• Blog vs. Podcast: Which Should You Start First?
• Blog vs. Podcast Statistics
• Why You Should Start a Blog First
• Why You Should Start a Podcast First
• How to Start Your Podcast or Blog Today

Blogs and podcasts have a lot of similarities. They’re both evergreen resources that offer education, insights, and storytelling online.

Both a blog and a podcast can offer marketing opportunities for businesses. And it takes time, dedication, and knowledge to make a blog or podcast that people pay attention to.

The main way these two resources differ is in their format. Blogs are for reading or taking in visual information, while podcasts are for listening.

These differences make blogs a useful format for step-by-step instructions, data visualizations, and SEO. Users usually read blogs on desktop and mobile devices. Readers often seek out business blogs when they are trying to solve a specific problem.

At the same time, podcasts are great for interviews, networking, and brand engagement. Users often listen to podcasts when they are doing something else, like driving to work or cleaning the house. Listeners look for business podcasts when they are trying to learn about or keep up with an industry or niche.

As a creator, the main differences between podcasts and blogs are the way they’re made. Blogs need writing, and a lot of it. Editing, visual design, and SEO knowledge are also important skills for aspiring bloggers.

Podcasts require an audio skill set. Podcasters need to be able to speak in an engaging way, whether it’s a solo, two-person, or interview podcast. Sound editing skills are also a must.

Blog vs. Podcast: Which Should You Start First?

Some businesses have the bandwidth to start a blog and a podcast at the same time. That said, most will start these channels one at a time because of the scale of this investment.

This is an important decision with long-term impact. If you’re not sure where to begin, start with five key factors — audience, timing, resources, and cost.

Target Audience

Blog readers, podcast listeners, or both? To decide the ideal medium for your content, get clear about who you want to engage with, what they want to know, and how they access their content.

Your target audience is the group of people you want to reach with your blog or podcast. They’re the consumers who are most important to your business, so you want to create the media they need most.

You may not know who your target audience is. According to 2023 HubSpot research only 42% of marketers know basic demographic information about their target audience.

But if you have the data you need, it’s important to avoid assumptions about who’s reading a blog vs. listening to a podcast.

For example, there’s an assumption that most podcast listeners are young, between 18-34 years old. 2023 data from Edison Research and Amazon Music confirms that 55% of people in this age group listen to podcasts monthly. But it also states that 51% of 35-54-year-olds are listening to podcasts too.

On the flip side, some assume that blogs are for older audiences. But more than 25% of 5 to 18-year-olds in the U.K. are reading blogs online.

Timing

Another factor to consider is your ideal publishing schedule. To create a big enough audience to impact your business, you’ll need to think about the length of your content and how often you release it.

Per BuzzSprout global stats, the majority of podcasts (32%) last 20-40 minutes, and 40% of podcasts publish episodes every 8-14 days.

In comparison, the ideal length of a blog post is 2,100-2,400 words. And it’s recommended that small blogs should post new content 3-4 times per week.

Resources

Both blogs and podcasts need great content and unique branding to stand out.

But if you’re not sure how to start a blog or what it takes to start a podcast, a little research will quickly show you the resources it takes to launch.

For example, a new blog will need a powerful blogging platform, ideally with free hosting.

If you’re starting a podcast you’ll need some equipment to begin, like a quality microphone, headphones, and sound editor. You’ll also need to figure out where you want to host your podcast.

Once that’s all set, the most important resources you’ll need are time and organization. Is organizing your ideas a challenge for you? If the answer is yes, this free editorial calendar template can help you quickly turn your content ideas into a clear plan.

Cost

If you go the DIY route, it’s possible to launch a podcast or blog for little or no cost. But quality matters and the costs of running a blog or podcast can quickly add up.

For example, while the cost of launching a blog can be as little as $50, blogging is a long-term strategy. Even if you love writing, publishing 8,000+ words per week is a tough goal for anyone.

To meet this challenge, many business blogs hire full-time or freelance writers to create blog posts. The average cost for a single blog post is between $50-500. The actual cost will vary depending on the experience and rates of the writers in your niche.

Getting professional podcast production can also be expensive. Rates can run from $15-15,000 per episode depending on the experience of your editor.

Launching a blog or podcast is a big step. If you’ve reviewed the key areas and are still not sure which is the best fit for your business, let’s talk about how each of these content formats can impact your business goals.

Blog vs. Podcast Statistics

2022 HubSpot research shows that both blogs and podcasts hold value for business marketing. 33% of surveyed marketers are using blogs, while 28% are using podcasts and other audio content.

Both channels also hold value for 2023, with 26% of marketers starting a blog for the first time and 24% creating a podcast.

The data above confirms that the choice between a blog and a podcast is a business-specific decision. So, which content format is best for your business? To answer this important question, keep reading.

Why You Should Start a Blog First

Blogging is a powerful way to share product innovation, thought leadership, and educational tips. It’s an outlet to share what your team is passionate about and how you want to make an impact on your customers.

Here are a few other reasons you may want to start a blog before jumping into a podcast:

Blog Reach

The internet has over 600 million blogs (and counting). And HubSpot research says that business websites with blogs get 55% more visitors than sites without blogs.

This impressive reach is part of the reason that blogging is one of the top content strategies for businesses.

SEO

SEO is the practice of developing content to improve search engine rankings. Simply put, a business website with a blog is more likely to get traffic. These are just a few reasons to add a business blog:

• New blog posts give customers more reasons to visit your website
• Blog content can attract people to your site before they become customers
• Blogs ranking on Google can build brand awareness for your business
• Including keywords in authoritative and helpful blog posts can drive traffic to your website

Blog SEO can get the word out about your business, but depending on the scale of your operation, it can take time.

You may want to start a blog first because competition, keyword saturation, and other factors can impact how quickly your blog starts bringing in the traffic you’re looking for.

Blog Brand Awareness

Blogging builds trust and visibility for your brand because it highlights what you know. Blogs are also easy to share, quote, and repurpose. This gives your business more opportunities to gain awareness with viral content.

Blogs are also great brand-builders because they make it easy to highlight your authentic brand voice. You can also use blog content to boost paid advertising and brand content on other platforms, like YouTube videos.

Blog Conversions

Blogs also create a direct path to conversions. Whether you’re hoping to generate qualified leads for your sales team or free trial subscriptions for a SaaS product, a blog can be a big boost.

For example, say your business sells fishing supplies, like handmade flies. Then, you write a blog post with fly fishing tips that soars to the top of the search engine results page. Inside that post is an offer for a free PDF with instructions to make a simple fly for bait.

All someone reading that post has to do is click on the offer. That one click can give your business a lead for follow-ups, and you can send that lead emails about upcoming sales, special offers, and more.

Combining the power of SEO to bring in organic traffic with easy conversion opportunities is what makes a blog so useful for any business.

Keep in mind, once you’ve grabbed attention, it’s important to deliver consistent high-value content. This is what will make your blog a destination for knowledge building, not just a one-time find.

Check out this post for more blogging benefits.

Why You Should Start a Podcast First

Podcasting is a great way to broadcast your brand to an enthusiastic audience. You can use podcast content to connect with complementary brands and influencers and build authority and trust.

Let’s talk about how starting a podcast before a blog could boost your brand.

Podcast Reach

Podcasting gets more popular every year, growing from 65 million U.S. listeners in 2017 to over 140 million listeners in 2022.

And according to 2022 Statista research, 79% of adults in the U.S. are aware of podcasting, up from 22% in 2006.

Networking

Starting a podcast is a great way for businesses to build a network of complementary influencers, partners, and more. Some of the most popular podcasts feature interviews with industry leaders.

Your podcast host or hosts lend a human voice to your brand. Podcasts put a knowledgeable person from your company in conversation with industry experts to tackle current topics and share advice, often with a touch of lighthearted humor. You can also ask your audience what they want you to cover and whether they have questions you can answer.

The interview format makes it easy for your business to connect with important stakeholders. It gives you something valuable to offer new connections while also creating useful content for your audience.

If you are a great podcaster, this opportunity might also lead other podcasts to feature your talent, further increasing your brand reach.

Podcast Brand Awareness

A podcast creates a consistent voice in your audience’s world. If your listener base is consistent, they won’t just recognize your brand name. Instead, your business will become a trusted voice, offering authoritative ideas. This can lead listeners to spread the word about your brand.

The popularity of podcasting has created a persona that organizations like NCS call a “power subscriber” — consumers who subscribe to six or more podcasts. 68% of these subscribers actively buy and seek out the products they hear about during their podcast listening.

Podcast Conversions

While many listeners actively convert after listening to a podcast, the conversion path for this content channel is less direct. Many brands use podcasts to educate users about new products and offers. Then, they add unique tracking codes or URLs to track conversions from podcast episodes.

But people listening to podcasts in their car or on a walk can’t press the CTA button the moment the inspiration hits. Instead, they must choose to return to your website to explore and fill out a form.

Podcasting can influence conversions by increasing brand awareness. But it offers fewer immediate opportunities for leads and sales.

How to Start Your Podcast or Blog Today

Choosing between the two isn’t always necessary. Some companies benefit from offering both. And the two can build on each other if your team has the budget and the time.

Whether you’re starting a blog, a podcast, or both at the same time, there are some tips that can make the process go more smoothly.

Here are the first steps to lay the groundwork for a successful launch.

1. Come up with a unique angle.

Content without a strategy can sink fast. To create a blog or podcast with staying power, you need a great idea — something unique to your business. And it can’t just be a great idea, it has to be an idea that you can consistently explore over time.

To find your unique angle, start with a broad topic. This topic is usually related to your business products and industry. Then, revisit your mission statement. When you look at your topic through the lens of your business vision, you should have a one-of-a-kind angle for your content.

Featured resource: Mission and Vision Statement Templates

Once you have your angle, make sure your other decisions support that idea. For example, if you’re creating a podcast, use music and sound effects that enhance your distinct vision.

2. Focus on your skills.

Scale matters when it comes to starting a podcast or blog in a saturated market. While some small businesses can create a new team to make their blog or podcast a success, many will need to start with the team they already have, even if it’s a team of one.

This means being honest about your likes, dislikes, and what you can commit to long-term.

For example, say you love chatting with clients and colleagues and have a hard time sitting in front of a computer for too long. It may make more business sense to start a blog, but you’re more likely to create a great podcast and stick with it.

3. Assess your marketing team.

Has someone been pushing your company to create a blog and tossing topic ideas your way for the past year? Maybe they’ve even been writing shorter posts for LinkedIn already.

Is there someone on your team who devours podcasts? Or someone who knows podcasts in your industry and understands what works and what doesn’t?

Before you begin building your podcast or blog, find the knowledgeable and passionate marketers on your team who may want to get involved. This one step can make blogs and podcasts more manageable with a better chance of success.

4. Get to know your competition.

You need to know what’s out there so you don’t churn out content that your audience has already seen. Begin with some competitive analysis to figure out if your idea is enough to stand out.

Featured resource: Competitive Analysis Templates

Then, dig into the details of your unique blog or podcast. Research long-tail keywords to help you brainstorm niche topics that separate you from the pack on both platforms.

Podcast enthusiasts: Do some research into podcast SEO to help your podcast surface on popular podcast platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more.

5. Find the right tools.

Content is fun to create, but it takes attention to detail for it to make a difference for your business. One way to make the content creation process more effective is by choosing the right tools.

Blogging Tools

Tools for blogging that can help you make it happen include:

• Blog maker
• Editorial calendar template
• Persona creator
• Keyword planner
• Blog idea generator
• Content assistant

These tools can help you add a blog to your website. They make it easier to focus on building a content calendar, targeting the right audience, and creating the best content.

For example, an AI content assistant can also help you quickly create outlines and draft copy to speed up the writing process.

Check out this post for more blogging tools.

Podcasting Tools

Podcast tools can help you streamline production and releases. And audio equipment like microphones and headphones aren’t the only tools you’ll need for podcasting.

Online tools for your new podcast include:

• Recording software
• Audio editing software
• Podcast hosting

As your podcast grows, you may want to look into more advanced tools to promote your podcast and improve lead conversion.

For example, Casted offers a podcast marketing platform that integrates with a company’s existing customer relationship management (CRM) and content management system (CMS) tools.

HubSpot customers: The Casted integration connects podcast listening data to your CRM. This lets you see what your contacts are listening to and what they click.

6. Prepare, prepare, prepare.

There are great resources for how to launch a blog or start a podcast. But once that exciting flurry of activity is complete, the work has only just begun.

For a blog or podcast to make a difference for your business, you need to prepare to make every post and broadcast great. When you’re writing a blog, this might mean drafting a clear outline, doing time-consuming research, or fact-checking. If you’re preparing for a podcast, it might be a warm-up routine, sound checks, or learning about volume levels.

The more you prepare for each blog and podcast, the more likely you are to create a trustworthy resource that your audience loves.

7. Create value.

37% of podcast listeners in the U.S. hear about new podcasts from friends, family, and coworkers.

The best way to get that word-of-mouth endorsement is to create content that people need and want.

This means your content should be both useful and engaging to your audience. As you grow, ask for audience feedback and respond to both positive and negative comments. Set clear expectations and be sure to consistently meet them. Finally, give your audience ways to engage and find ways to reward them for that engagement.

Which is better, a blog or a podcast?

Both blogs and podcasts can increase your marketing reach and nurture customer relationships.

Choose the strategy that makes the most sense for your company, your in-house talent, and your customers, and you’ll see winning results.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

We’ve all had days where we struggle to get out of bed and start our day or when we’re pushing through fatigue to execute a crucial project.

But what happens when those days start to feel like the norm, and you can’t remember the last time you felt motivated at work? That’s burnout.

While we all experience bad days at work, burnout doesn’t have to be inevitable. To help you stay in the groove at work, we will explore ways to avoid burnout and some signs of burnout to watch out for.

What is burnout?

Common Causes of Burnout

Signs of Burnout

How to Avoid Burnout at Work

How Employers and Managers Can Prevent Burnout

What is burnout?

Burnout is a form of work-related stress that manifests in physical and emotional exhaustion, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Burnout is not a medical diagnosis; however, researchers and experts believe other conditions, such as depression, or circumstances like family life and personality traits, can influence burnout.

No matter the cause, job burnout can negatively affect your mental and physical health, so it’s essential to beware of its common causes, which we’ll explain.

Common Causes of Burnout

Below are the most common causes of job burnout.

1. Heavy Workload

Overwork is one of the main causes of burnout and can lead to several health issues, such as weight loss, body pain, exhaustion, and more.

A study revealed that working 55 hours or more per week is associated with a 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease.

2. Feeling unappreciated

Paying employees their worth is essential, but adequate payment is only one part of the equation. Without positive feedback, rewards, and recognition among peers, it’s easy to feel like your hard work is going unnoticed.

Feeling unappreciated or undervalued at work can build resentment toward your job, leading to burnout.

3. Micromanagement

In a survey, 59% of employees said they’ve worked for a micromanager. And of those, 68% reported a decrease in morale, and 55% said it hurt their productivity.

It’s hard to feel any motivation or passion for your work if your employer constantly tries to control your every move.

Feeling like your manager or employer doesn’t trust you to do your job without someone looking over your shoulder adds stress. And stress is just one step closer to feeling burnt out at work.

4. Poor relationships or a lack of support

Feeling part of a community and having a support system is essential to maintaining mental health. A study shows 48% of workers lack emotional support when managing daunting tasks.

Without camaraderie among colleagues, it’s easy to feel isolated — especially when looming deadlines and massive projects create stress.

Signs of Burnout

Burnout can sometimes creep up on you slowly before you even realize what you’re feeling. To help you fight against burnout, here are some signs you need to look for.

1. Lack of Energy

No matter how much you love your job, there will be days when the last thing you want to do is get out of bed and work.

There will be times when you have to push yourself extra hard to complete a project or when you’re counting down the days until the weekend.

However, the lack of energy associated with burnout goes beyond those moments. Burnout-related exhaustion is more chronic and less associated with a specific task or project. And it doesn’t go away after a vacation or a relaxing weekend.

2. Cynicism Toward Your Job

If you question whether your work matters or you’ve grown disinterested in your job, that could be burnout reeling its head. This is especially true if you remember being much more enthusiastic about your work.

3. Changing Sleep Habits

Everyone has their preferred time to wake up or go to bed, but if your sleeping habits change drastically — you could be experiencing burnout.

For example, let’s say you’re a morning person who has no problem getting dressed and out the door by 7:30 a.m.

However, recently, you find yourself hitting the snooze button more often than not, or you don’t feel energized for the day because you spent all night staring at the ceiling. This is a sign of burnout.

4. Drop in Work Performance

Perhaps you were always punctual in the past, but you’ve recently started missing deadlines. Or, you struggle with aspects of your job that you easily handle.

Exhaustion, disinterest, and disorganized sleep habits can all result in a drop in your quality of work.

How to Avoid Burnout At Work

I reached out to professionals across different industries for their perspectives on fighting burnout. Here are some tips they suggest:

1. Know what energizes you and what drains you.

Women’s health professional Margaret Ruvoldt says she feels at her best when the energy she puts into work is less than what she gets from it. She says burnout happens when that equation no longer works.

“So I keep an eye on what gives me energy at work and what drains me. That answer is different for everyone — which is great because, on teams, we can balance one another,” Ruvoldt explained. on teams

“If I’m solving complex problems, learning, and I have an opportunity to develop people — I’m getting a ton back,” she said. “If the relationships are bad, the direction is unclear, or I’m in a role that doesn’t allow me to learn — I’m drained.”

Ruvoldt says if she feels burnout, she seeks ways to move toward the things that give her energy and away from what drains her.

Pro Tip: Keep a list of aspects of your job that you enjoy and aspects that drain you. When you feel burnt out, refer to that list to see if you can shift your focus to less draining tasks.

2. Keep the end in mind.

Consultant and HubSpot Admin Jon Martin says to keep the end in mind and to consider the big picture.

“In 25 years, what is going to matter — that you took your wife on a date, went to your son’s basketball game, or finished building that killer HubSpot report?” Martin said.

He continued, “When we allow daily and weekly tasks to override our investments in what is going to matter long term, we start to need to find our significance in the short-term things.”

Martin says a job is important but only because of what it allows.

“A job isn’t an end in itself,” he explained. “A job matters because it allows you to learn new things, make money, and work for organizations you care about. All those things pale when you put them into the perspective of time.”

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to use your PTO to take time off to focus on things like family or your mental health.

3. Feel your feelings.

HubSpot partner Trish Lessard says burnout needs to be physically let out of the body in order to deal with it. For Lessard, that physical release can be through laughter, screaming into a pillow, or sobbing over a sad movie.

“Give yourself the permission you need to self-heal by feeling,” Lessard said. “After the release, I usually find myself on a quest for some inspiration.”

To find inspiration, Lessard will visit a bookstore or call up some friends.According to Lessard, the point is to stimulate the brain to release all the good it is designed to do.

“Burnout happens because we are human. We need to remember that being a superhuman isn’t being real,” she said.

Pro Tip: Consider keeping a journal to reflect on your day and vent your feelings.

4. Set boundaries.

Client Engagement Associate Carter Warren says boundaries is critical to avoiding burnout.

“One example could be not responding to emails after a certain time,” Warren said. “This could be a powerful boundary for preventing burnout.

Warrens said it’s also critical to be transparent with colleagues or customers so they have proper expectations for what communication will be like.

Pro Tip: Have designated “focus” or “no meeting” days on your calendar so your colleagues know not to disrupt your week with meetings or last-minute tasks.

5. Regularly assess your goals.

It’s easy to lose sight of your goals as you dive deeper into work or take on new responsibilities. When that happens, data systems strategist Calan Smidt suggests regularly reviewing what’s important to you.

“I do periodic review assessments on my personal and professional goals to ensure that what I am doing aligns with what I want to be doing, what I see, and where I want to go,” Smidt said.

“If they do — I recommit,” she said. “If not — I realign. Each time I do this, I get a jolt of excitement, focus, and always enrichment. A goal today keeps the burnout away!”

Pro Tip: Establish SMART goals to keep yourself on track and refer to those goals whenever you start to feel like you’ve fallen off track.

6. Have a designated work area.

Working from home has perks, but it can often blur the line between work and home life. And that imbalance can result in burnout.

“I think it’s important in the era of hybrid work and work-from-home to segregate your work area so at the end of each day, you’re not tempted to plug back in and send one more email,” HubSpot Academy Instructor Trygve Olden said.

Olden suggests having a clear and distinct line to shut the work door and enjoy your personal time before going back to work.

Pro Tip: If your home is too noisy or not equipped to be productive for work, look into co-working spaces around your area, or consider going to your local library or quiet café to focus.

7. Ask for help.

You may feel alone when dealing with burnout, but that doesn’t have to be true. Diego Silva of SendPulse said getting help made the difference when he experienced burnout.

“I felt exhausted at work due to the overload of activities,” he recalled. “To deal with this situation, I sought medical help and made significant changes in my lifestyle and diet.”

Silva says he also sought professional coaching guidance to redefine his goals and create a growth plan within the company.

“Today, I feel happy and motivated in my career — inspiring my colleagues to do the same,” he said.

Pro Tip: You don’t have to wait until burnout is causing significant issues at work, such as missing a huge deadline or a drastic change in performance.

As soon as you feel overwhelmed or stressed — speak to your manager or employee to create a plan.

How Employers and Managers Can Prevent Burnout

The duty to stave off burnout doesn’t just fall on employees; it’s also the responsibility of employers and managers.

As head of a team, an employer or manager must create an environment or workplace culture that empowers employees to speak up when they feel overwhelmed. 

Leaders should recognize the signs of burnout and encourage employees to take time off to recharge. They should also create a company culture code that promotes trust and transparency.

Burnout happens to all of us, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Now you know the signs of burnout and what you can do to avoid or address it.

From here, you can devise a plan to help you stay focused and healthy as you work toward your goals.

GPT-3 is everywhere. The AI tool has sent the internet into a frenzy, as users marvel at its accelerated text generation capabilities and fixate on its potential business use cases.

But what exactly is GPT-3, and how does it work? And, most importantly, is it worth all of the hype? Below, we answer all of your questions about the modern AI tool in this complete guide to GPT-3.

Table of Contents

• What is GPT-3?
• How does GPT-3 work?
• Why is GPT-3 so powerful?
• GPT-3 Limitations

What is GPT-3?

GPT-3 is a language model that can process and generate human-like text. The tool was developed by OpenAI, an AI research lab, and is currently available as an API.

GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer. The “training” references the large compilation of text data the model used to learn about the human language.

During its creation process, GPT-3 digested billions of words to become well-versed in understanding human language, analyzing the meaning behind words, and generating language independently. GPT-3 is trained in many languages, not just English.

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How does GPT-3 work?

Let’s backtrack a bit. To fully understand how GPT-3 works, it’s essential to understand what a language model is.

A language model uses probability to determine a sequence of words — as in guessing the next word or phrase in a sentence.

GPT-3 uses natural language processing (NLP), a function of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is the idea that computers can be programmed to complete human tasks. NLPs fall under the general AI umbrella and focus on the communication aspect of that programming, specifically between computers and humans.

When it comes to construction, GPT-3 is powered by four main models under Open AI. Each model is powered differently, and each offers different capabilities suitable for various tasks. These are the models:

• Davinci
• Curie
• Babbage
• Ada

This video offers a thorough explanation of how GPT-3 works compared to other language models.

GPT-3 is more powerful than the NLPs that came before it. GPT-3 contains 175 billion parameters which make it 10 times greater in size than previous processors.

Another element that makes GPT-3 different from other language models is its human-like accuracy. The NLPs that came before were more focused on fine-tuning and struggled with reading comprehension, filling in the blanks, and question answering.

GPT-3 has tackled all of these challenges to become the most powerful language processor to date.

Why is GPT-3 so powerful?

GPT-3 is a major development for modern technology and communication. Not only does it help facilitate communication between computers and humans, but it can also be used to improve a wide range of processes.

Here are a few benefits and use cases of GPT-3 in today’s context.

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Text Generation

GPT-3 uses NLP not only to analyze and understand human text but also to create text that is human-like in response. This is the biggest takeaway and arguably the greatest use case for the AI tool, as it can be applied to various tasks.

Text generation can be useful for real-time communication, responding to prompts, and filling in the blanks, among other things.

Here are a few use cases for text generation using GPT-3:

• Customer service
• Virtual assistants
• Chatbots
• Content creation
• Language translation

For example, let’s say you want to improve your customer service support process. You can use GPT-3 to generate instant and human-like responses on behalf of your customer support team.

Because GPT-3 can quickly answer questions and fill in the blanks when needed, it can be used for real-time, back-and-forth messaging in customer service. It would also help reduce the response time, which customer support professionals know is critical.

Another valuable way to use GPT-3 is for content creation purposes. The AI can generate text for various content assets such as social media posts, blog posts, and even video scripts. The best part, again, is how quickly GPT-3 can produce content.

By taking advantage of GPT-3’s speed, brands and creators can cut significant time out of the content creation process, which is valuable when producing a substantial amount of content on a regular basis.

Adaptability

While it’s not perfect, GPT-3 has been highly trained in deep learning and can adapt to a wide range of tasks aside from text generation.

While it’s not perfect, GPT-3 has been highly trained in deep learning and can adapt to a wide range of tasks. For example, the tool can be used to generate simple code. This makes it powerful for creators and developers who want to integrate NLP into their applications but lack the right expertise.

Remember that generating more complex tasks like code is not GPT-3’s expertise. So while it can produce lines of code when prompted correctly, the code may need debugging to ensure it meets the intended functionality.

The key to getting the most out of this function is giving GPT-3 the right prompts to help program what it produces.

It’s also important to note that GPT-3 is not open source but can be accessed through an API. This makes it easy for developers to integrate it into existing applications. Developers can use GPT-3 to create NLP features in their applications without developing their own algorithms or models.

Time and Cost Savings

GPT-3 is fast. The speed at which it can generate text is incomparable.

For example, when used to fill in the blanks for prompts or to answer questions, GPT-3 can have a response ready in seconds.

While it may take longer for GPT-3 to handle more complex tasks, such as analyzing large datasets, the tool is still much faster than other processors — or humans, for that matter.

When used to supplement or support an organization’s current practices, GPT-3 can save time. And saving time helps save on costs, which is another important consideration for organizations of all sizes — from lean startups to enterprise-level companies.

With the time and cost savings from using a text generator like GPT-3, your organization can use those resources in more effective business areas that will drive impactful results.

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GPT-3 Limitations

GPT-3 may be a valuable language processing tool, but it’s also important to consider its limitations before diving in. Here are a few ways GPT-3 may be limited in its functions when put into practice.

Bias

One of the biggest limitations of GPT-3 is that the information it generates or presents can be biased. This is because it reflects the data it was trained on.

So, if all of the data that was used to train it suggested that dogs are better than cats, then that bias would most likely appear in any text GPT-3 generates about dogs or cats. This is obviously just an example, but it represents a larger flaw in the design.

Bias can be harmful when it’s taken at face value. As with anything found or created on the internet, it’s always best to consider multiple sources of information before making a statement or taking action.

Memory

As human-like as it is, GPT-3 doesn’t have a long-term memory and can’t retain information from each interaction it has. It’s not designed to have ongoing conversations, which means it can’t be used for a continuous or evolving task.

For example, if you’re using GPT-3 to help form responses for your customer support team, it won’t have any memories of each interaction once it’s over. Each session would be considered independent, even if the same customer comes back the next day for support.

Full Context

At the end of the day, GPT-3 is not a human. While it can produce human-like text, it still lacks full context and natural common sense. As a result, it can generate text that doesn’t quite make sense. This is a common result when GPT-3 doesn’t have full context around a scenario.

To navigate this limitation, provide as many details as possible when prompting GPT-3 with a task. Doing so can help limit inaccurate or irrelevant statements. It’s also important to review any text GPT-3 generates to correct any inaccuracies before publishing it somewhere for an audience.

Getting Started

GPT-3 is a powerful language processor — probably the best one yet. It can help save time and resources by generating human-like text, filling in the blanks, and answering questions in seconds.

However, it comes with its limitations, which should be considered before using GPT-3 as a replacement for any one tool or practice.

To get the most out of GPT-3, consider its uses and limitations and experiment with how it can best support your needs.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team.

Come on Barbie, let’s go party.

Last week the trailer and cast posters for this summer’s anticipated film Barbie the Movie got social media buzzing.

The trailer itself is fairly vague. Outside of introducing the main characters of the film, the clip reveals few details about the actual plot to build intrigue among audiences.

A few hours before the trailer dropped, official images of the cast were released on Twitter. Each image features stylized graphics of each Barbie character and their occupation.

Upon the release of the trailer and images, Warner Bros. launched the Barbie Selfie Generator, an AI-powered website that allows users to put their own photos along with a Barbie-style occupation in a graphic that resembles the cast images.  An accompanying TikTok filter was also created.

Almost immediately, social media feeds were flooded with AI-generated memes.

Social media users who are excited about the film quickly created and shared their own images, distributing valuable user-generated content that has the potential to get further reach than the initial trailer or official posters.

This UGC play touches on an important element of nostalgia for those who played with Barbie dolls as a child. Part of the fun of playing with Barbies was having the dolls act out real-life scenarios and gravitating towards Barbies who had occupations we were interested in.

In other words, many of us wanted to be Barbie and by making ourselves the subject of Barbie-inspired memes, we can be.

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Podcast company Acast just signed an advertising deal with the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground.

Spotify announced plans to sunset its live audio app Spotify Live.

April fools? Twitter backtracks on revoking legacy blue checkmarks (except for The New York Times).

For the ‘gram: why parents are reserving social media handles under their children’s names.

LinkedIn is rolling out new personalization features and enhanced search capabilities.

How to get more reach on Instagram: five key takeaways from an “Instagram University” attendee.

YouTube users can now create a dedicated tab for podcast episodes on their channel pages.

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance reported record profits, surpassing other top-earning tech companies in China.

Substack is facing a Twitter dilemma. Tweets that contain the word “Substack” or links to a Substack page are experiencing platform limitations.

How marketers can thrive in a recession: expert tips from HubSpot’s consumer, marketing, and leadership research.

While many think quiet quitting is nothing more than setting healthy boundaries, others see it as a sign of poor work ethic.

We could debate whether quiet quitting is good or bad forever. But, are workplaces actually taking the time to understand why it happens and how they can effectively and supportively address it?

In this post, we analyze data from 500 marketing leaders to learn how leaders are keeping up with quiet quitting, why they think it happens, and how they plan to navigate it.

Quiet Quitting Fast Facts

Before diving into the why and how, here are a few fast-facts to keep in mind about the state of quiet quitting:

• On average, leaders think 17% of their staff are quiet quitting — but 33% of full-time employees polled in our consumer trend survey admit to doing it.
• 64% of marketing leaders say quiet quitting is a reflection of poor work ethic, while one-third view it as setting healthy boundaries.
• 77% of marketing leaders admit that it’s their responsibility to prevent quiet quitting, and 63% say it’s a reflection of poor leadership.
• 73% of marketing leaders say the determining factor in whether employees quiet quit is the quality of their relationship with their supervisor.
• 77% of marketing leaders say quiet quitting is unacceptable, but over half of them say it’s happening in their organization.

Marketing Leaders Might Underestimate Quiet Quitting

More than half of the surveyed leaders say they’re concerned about quiet quitting.

And, although 77% of leaders also say quiet quitting is unacceptable, 57% admit it happens in their organization.

Although they rightly assume it happens. our research hints they’re still underestimating how often it happens. Marketing leaders say 17% of their staff are quiet quitting, and 80% think they’d know if someone was quiet quitting,

However, in our State of Consumer Trends Report, 33% of full-time employees admitted to quiet quitting in their current job. Since this data is self-reported, it’s likely even higher than that as some might worry about disclosing their quiet quitting status.

Regardless of how often it happens, 57% of marketing leaders are somewhat to very concerned, while many worry about how low productivity and effort could get out of hand.

With that said, 64% say quiet quitting is a reflection of an employee’s poor work ethic, while only 36% view it as setting healthy boundaries at work.

Why Marketing Leaders Think Employees Quiet Quit

When it comes to the cause of quiet quitting, marketing leaders point to a handful of issues that leaders can prevent or help resolve. Here are just a few:

Lack of Accountability

According to leadership, the top reason for quiet quitting is that employees think they can get away with doing the bare minimum. In other words, a lack of accountability.

Poor Incentives

Leaders also think employees quiet quit because workers see no benefit in going above and beyond, feel burnt out, and are unhappy with the company culture.

If you’re looking at the data above and thinking that these all reflect issues with company management rather than employees trying to skirt by, you would be right. And marketing leaders know this too.

Employee-to-Supervisor Relationship

Most marketing leaders agree that it’s their responsibility to prevent quiet quitting and that the trend is a reflection of poor leadership/management.

In fact, 73% of marketing leaders say the determining factor in whether employees quiet quit is the quality of their relationship with their supervisor.

How Marketing Leaders Navigate Quiet Quitting

A whopping 66% of marketing leaders say their leadership team has explicitly discussed how to address it.

But, what solutions are they discussing or trying?

While it might not always be possible, here are few potentially simple and thoughtful ways to make employees feel happier and fulfilled at their workplace, thus — feeling more connected to their job.

Marketing leaders say motivating employees with rewards, recognizing hard-work, and offering career development or leadership opportunities are some of the most effective strategies.

After COVID-19, we all took a look at how our workplaces care about our health, mental wellness, psychological safety, physical safety, and overall well-being. And, many employees chose to leave workplaces that couldn’t keep up.

So, it’s not shocking that marketing leaders encouraged supporting employee health and well-being, emphasizing work-life balance in company culture, and offering employees flexibility in their work schedules.

If you’re worried your workplace is primed for quiet quitting due to management, lack of accountability, or other reasons, read up on these resources with expert insights from great leaders, managers, and even psychologists:

• 18 Strategies to Increase Employee Retention
• How to Cultivate Psychological Safety for Your Team, According to Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson
• Establishing Employee Wellness at Work
• Remote Work Loneliness: How to Protect Mental Health When Working Remotely
• 6 Secrets to Achieving Work-Life Balance, According to HubSpot Marketing Managers

What Marketers Should Think About Before Quiet Quitting

While you should make setting boundaries and workplace standards key parts of the conversations you have with your manager, be cautious when entering “quiet quitting” territory.

When setting healthy boundaries, you should continue meeting the expectations of your job description and keep your colleagues in mind so they don’t have to take on extra work themselves.

If you decide to disclose that you’re quiet quitting in the workplace, keep in mind that some managers will not be pleased, while others will want to support you in setting those boundaries. Regardless, know that many marketing jobs require you to exceed the expectations of the current role to earn raises, bonuses, or promotions. Because of this, long-term quiet quitting could make upward motion difficult at any company.

Ultimately, try to keep an open dialogue about how you’re feeling in your role, what goals you’d like to reach for, what your most effective working style is, what could be holding you back, and how your team can create a positive and psychologically safe environment.

The Marketing Executive’s Playbook

Whether you agree or disagree with marketing leaders on quiet quitting, it helps to get their perspective on major industry trends.

Check out our Marketing Executive’s Playbook as well as our Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader series, for insights from leaders on their goals for 2023, the top challenges they expect, how they’re preparing for a recession, how marketers can make the greatest impact in their roles to get promoted, and much more.

AI-generated content is a fascinating development, and we’re seeing more and more articles, stories, and images created by AI tools. (Thanks, AI, for the intro sentence.)

But, the rise of advanced AI generation tools has exposed potential issues, from people being unable to detect the difference between AI and human generations to AI predictions and analysis being flat-out wrong.

This is where AI detection comes in, as it’s a way for people to uncover when text, images, and even videos are machine-generated, so they can make informed decisions on the content they consume. In this post, we’ll cover:

• What is AI detection?
• How to Detect AI-Generated Text
• How to Detect AI-Generated Images and Videos
• AI Detection Tools
• What’s the best AI detection tool?

AI detection tools don’t know the meaning of words and use context to analyze text. To get more technical, tools use the context of what’s to the left of the following word to predict the likelihood of the word to the right.

The more predictable the word to the right is, the more likely the text is AI-generated. On the other hand, human-written sentences vary from predictable patterns and are more creative.

If you’re anything like me, a basic example might be helpful to understand this. Let’s break it down.

Say someone inputs the sentence, “Bunnies are so fluffy.”

The tool uses learned data and context of words to the left of “fluffy” to predict that “fluffy” is more likely to come next, more so than words like “cute” or “soft.”

Since the sentence follows a highly predictable pattern, the tool will likely classify the text as AI-generated.

AI detection tools work at a much larger scale with more complex sentences and paragraphs than “Bunnies are so fluffy” to make predictions and classifications, but this is a basic example and shows how the process works.

Some detection tools analyze images and videos and use pixel anomalies to determine if something is AI-generated.

How to Detect AI-Generated Text

There are no set rules or guidelines for identifying AI-generated text, but here are some things to look out for:

• Repetition of words and phrases: AI knows what it’s talking about, but not to the extent human experts do. Its outputs might repeat the same keywords and phrases with little variation when discussing a topic.

• Lack of depth: Generation tools lack depth and can’t go beyond basic facts to truly analyze a topic and develop unique insight. AI-generated text might read more robotic and prescriptive than creative and have a generic tone.

• Inaccurate and outdated information: The facts that content generation tools have are typically correct, but since the tools make predictions, outputs can be incorrect or unrelated to true facts. In addition, information can be outdated, like how ChatGPT is limited to information pre-September of 2021.

• Format and structure: Generation tools follow the same sentence structure as humans, but sentences can be shorter and lack the complexity, creativity, and varied sentence structure humans produce. Content can be streamlined and uniform with little variation.

Human-written text is also more likely to have typos and use informal and casual language and slag.

Roft.io is a fun game to test your detection skills and see how good you are at predicting when text is AI-generated.

How to Detect AI-Generated Images and Videos

Identifying AI generated images and videos can be a bit more challenging than detecting text. Some commonly discussed tells are:

• Textured backgrounds, images that look airbrushed, random brush strokes throughout images
• Overall image sharpness, or parts of images that are blurry while others are more clear
• Noticeable text in the background of images
• Asymmetry in human faces, teeth, and hands
• Signs of artist watermarks or signatures (AI tools are trained from existing artwork)

Tools like DALL-E 2 place a watermark on image outputs, but they might not be easy to spot. OpenAI also allows people to remove a watermark. You can also reverse image search to see if there are any traces of an image on the web.

The challenge of detecting AI images and videos is why deepfakes are so dangerous, as videos and images that seem lifelike enough can rapidly spread misinformation.

AI Detection Tools

At the moment, it might be easier to tell if something is AI generated because it sounds robotic, or someone’s hand is missing two fingers in an image. If generation tools become more sophisticated, it might be harder for humans to find the key discrepancies.

Regardless of future progressions, detection tools can be more helpful than our own deduction abilities in classifying AI-generated content, and there are various options available.

Below we’ll go over some of them and rate their effectiveness using an AI-generated paragraph from HubSpot’s Content Assistant (which uses GPT). Here’s what it gave me when I asked it to write a paragraph about dogs:

“Dogs are simply amazing creatures. They are loyal, loving, and endlessly entertaining. Whether you need a furry friend to cuddle with on the couch or a loyal companion to explore the great outdoors with, dogs are always up for the task. They come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny teacup Chihuahuas to majestic Great Danes, but all dogs share one thing in common: a boundless capacity for love and affection. Whether you’re a lifelong dog lover or a newcomer to the world of canine companionship, there’s never been a better time to discover the joys of life with a furry friend by your side.”

Note that human writing can still trigger a tool if it follows a predictable pattern.

1. ZeroGPT

• Price: Free or contact for custom API
• Tests for: ChatGPT and Google Bard

ZeroGPT’s algorithm is trained on 10M+ articles and text to have a detection accuracy rate of 98%. It supports multilingual text and detects popular language generators like Chat GPT, GPT-4, and Google Bard. Outputs highlight sentences most likely to be written by AI.

I entered the AI-generated paragraph about dogs, and it predicted the text is 88.57% AI/GPT generated.

Best for: ZeroGPT was built for educators to test for AI-generated content, but it works for anyone looking to detect AI content.

2. Giant Language model Test Room

• Price: Free
• Tests for: Developed in 2019 for GPT-2 text, might be unreliable on other generators

MIT-IBM Watson AI lab and the Harvard NLP group created the Giant Language model Test Room to detect AI-generated text. It analyzes inputs based on how likely each word is to appear based on the word immediately to the left. The more predictable the word is, the more likely the text is written by AI.

This tool doesn’t give a percentage but color codes words based on their predictability, with green meaning the word is part of the top 10 most predictable words.

Most of my paragraph is highlighted green, so the words are part of the top 10 most predictable (based on context) and more likely to be AI-generated.

Best for: Testing GPT-2 and learning more about predictable writing through an in-depth probability analysis.

3. Originality.AI

• Price: Free 50 credit trial, then $0.01/100 words (1 credit scans 100 words)
• Tests for: ChatGPT, GPT-3, GPT-3.5, GPT-NEO, GPT-J

Originality.AI Chrome Extension, built by content marketing experts, detects multiple versions of GPT with 94% accuracy. It scores text on a scale of 0-100, with a higher score being a higher likelihood of being produced by AI. You can also use the tool to scan for plagiarism (beneficial for educators). It’s the most accurate with more than 50 words.

With my test, it said that the paragraph was 99% likely to have been written by AI.

Best for: The Chrome extension makes it perfect for anyone looking for a seamless and immediate detection process when writing and reading online. Writers, content marketers, and web publishers alike can leverage this tool; not for academics.

4. Content at Scale

• Price: Free version, or contact for API pricing
• Tests for: GPT

Content at Scale’s AI Detector uses 3 AI engines and natural language processing to detect ChatGPT, all versions of GPT, and other generators. You can use it to test SEO, educational, and marketing content. The tool needs at least 25 words for reliable results, and you can enter up to 25,000 characters.

My test results were inconclusive because the tool couldn’t say with certainty if the paragraph was AI-generated. It gave a human content score of 51% with 17% predictability. 

It did say with certainty that the last sentence is AI-generated.

Best for: SEO and marketing-focused content creators to get line-by-line text breakdowns and analyze longer pieces of content (up to 25,000 characters).

5. Writer AI

• Price: Free version or contact for API pricing
• Tests for: ChatGPT and other generators

Writer AI’s content detector estimates how much text is AI-generated. The free and paid versions have a 300-word limit (1,500 characters), and results give a prediction percentage for how much of the text is human-generated content.

It scored my paragraph as 87% human-generated, with a recommendation to edit the text until there’s less detectable AI content. 

Best for: B2B and enterprise and agencies looking to analyze and edit content before publishing.

6. Hive’s AI Detection Tools

• Price: Free demo, contact sales for API pricing
• Tests for: ChatGPT, GPT-3, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion

Hive offers a suite of AI detection tools for images, text, and deepfakes.

The text detection tool gives a confidence score for how likely something is AI-generated, and estimates which sections are most predictable. It also estimates which sections of text are more likely to be AI-generated. It works starting at 750 characters with a recommended length of 1500 characters.

I had to input extra words to reach the character limit, and it predicted the paragraph was 99.99% likely to contain AI-generated content.

The media recognition tool identifies AI-generated media, gives a classification (AI-generated or not), confidence score (≤ 1), and image generation source (like DALL-E). (Documentation, tool page)

The deepfake detection tool tests if images or videos are deepfakes through facial classification. (Documentation)

Best for: Screening work to detect AI content or for websites to detect and moderate AI-generated images and text.

7. Bonus: OpenAI’s Text Classifier

• Price: Free (requires account)
• Tests for: All versions of GPT

OpenAI’s Text Classifier can distinguish between AI-generated text and human-written text. It works best with more than 1,000 characters and English text.

OpenAI does note that it is not entirely reliable and only correctly identifies 26% of AI text and incorrectly labels human-written text as AI 9% of the time, but reliability increases for longer text. It recommends using the classifier as a complement to other testing methods.

Best for: Detecting GPT

What’s the best AI detection tool?

I outlined each tool’s individual test score above, but here’s a table comparing scores.

Based on these rankings, 

• First place is a tie between Originality.AI, GLTR, and Hive AI
• Second place is ZeroGPT
• Third place is Writer AI
• Fourth place is Content at Scale

Over to You

AI detection makes it a lot easier to distinguish between machine and human-generated text. As AI tools become more and more accurate, AI detection will remain important in helping people determine the legitimacy of the content they consume. 

If you’re keeping up with conversations about generative AI, you’ve likely heard of Jasper.ai.

In this post, I’ll cover its top features, show how it works, and explain the pros and cons of using this software.

• What is Jasper.ai?
• Jasper.ai Features
• How Jasper.ai Works
• What are the pros and cons of Jasper.ai?
• How much does Jasper.ai cost?

The tool offers hundreds of templates to choose from, responding to many scenarios – like if you want to write a long-form blog post or need the perfect response to a review. It takes the stress of a blank page right out of writing.

Currently, Jasper.ai is best for marketers, offering advantages to companies of any size.

Jasper.ai Features

• Text and image AI generation
• Integration with Grammarly and other Chrome extensions
• Revision history
• Auto-save
• Document sharing
• Multi-user login
• Plagiarism checker
• Brand voice customization

One additional feature worth checking out on Jasper.ai is the “Explain it To Me Like a 5th Grader” option. As the name suggests, this feature allows you to select the text that may be jargon-heavy and reword it to simplify it – enough for a fifth grader to understand it.

This is particularly helpful when writing about a complicated topic to an audience with limited knowledge. It helps you keep the essence of your sentence while increasing its accessibility.

How Jasper.ai Works

1. Choose a template.

2. Add your inputs.

3. View output.

How reliable is the output?

It depends on the content. I’ve found that Jasper.ai works well with tactical, step-based content that’s been well documented. It also does well with marketing copy, like social media captions and ads.

But if the topic is too niche – i.e. there’s not much documentation already out there – the information will likely be incomplete or could be wrong altogether.

What are the pros and cons of Jasper.ai?

Pros

• Generates in seconds – Seeing content appear out of thin air truly never gets old with generative AI. After a few simple inputs, you can have a full page of content to work with.
• Sounds natural, well-written, and accurate– What good is gen AI if the output isn’t good, right? Jasper.ai does a fantastic job of sounding natural and matching the tone you’ve requested while keeping it error-free.
• Fleshes out ideas – If you’re struggling to put pen to paper, Jasper.ai can help spark new ideas, new angles for your content.
• Affordable – Jasper.ai is a great option for a small business looking to scale up its content production with a limited budget. The first tier starts at $24/month for 20,000 words – enough to get most marketers started.

Cons

• Lacks personality and voice – AI can’t provide the experience and personalization that a human can add to a piece. While it can mimic tone, the output is often generic.
• Can require heavy editing – This con is only a con depending on what you’re creating and how you want to leverage AI. Some only want to use software like Jasper.ai for a rough first draft, so heavy edits aren’t a bad thing. For others who are looking for a more polished end product, you’ll get this more easily with shorter-form content.
• Struggles with niche topics – Jasper.ai seems to perform best with straightforward content requests. For example, it will likely do better writing a post on deleting your Instagram account than upcoming short-form video trends.
• No fact-checking – Jasper feeds you a compilation of what it finds online. So, if the information’s incorrect, guess what? Your output will be the same.

How much does Jasper.ai cost?

Jasper.ai offers 3 pricing tiers:

• Free trial – Jasper offers a five-day free trial with 10,000 word credits.
• Starter – Starts at $24/month for 10,000 words, over 50 templates, and is ideal for individuals and entrepreneurs.
• Boss – Starts at $49/month for 50,000 words, over 50 templates, and is ideal for marketers and small businesses.
• Business – This will require custom pricing and is ideal for teams and businesses looking to scale their content production.

Alternatives to Jasper.ai include HubSpot’s Content Assistant, Copy.ai, Writer, and Frase.

To understand human-centered design, let’s start with what it isn’t.

Imagine you work at a gaming design company, and one day your boss comes to you and says, “Teenagers these days — they need to get off their phones. Let’s design a crossword-puzzle board game for teenagers — they’d welcome the opportunity to get offline.”

Your boss has good intentions, but his intentions don’t match your consumer’s reality. His idea isn’t empathetic towards a teenager’s passions, and it isn’t a solution that fits their wants and needs.

Now, let’s look at a real example of human-centered design: meal subscription boxes.

Take HelloFresh, founded in 2011 by Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel, and Jessica Nilsson. The company delivers a box of fresh food to your door, with easy recipes included. The founders recognized that people have trouble finding time to shop for groceries and struggle to create healthy, affordable meals — they came up with a solution to both problems.

Unlike your boss in the first example, the HelloFresh founders didn’t develop an idea unrelated to real consumer needs. Instead, they recognized a struggle someone was facing and then worked to invent a solution. In this way, it’s arguable that human-centered design is a safer and more trustworthy approach to problem-solving.

Whether your role requires you to pitch ideas in marketing meetings or design the products your company sells, it’s critical you know the process of human-centered design. By putting your consumer at the forefront of your creative process, you ensure each product you create and distribute is a true, long-term solution to your consumer’s needs. If done correctly, you’ll gain a much more reliable and loyal customer base.

Now that we’ve covered the importance of human-centered design, let’s dive into the various stages of a human-centered design process and look at some examples so you feel confident implementing the strategy for yourself.

Human-centered Design Process

IDEO — the global design firm behind Apple’s first computer mouse, the Palm Pilot, in 1998, and more — came up with three phases for the human-centered design process, which has helped them create such successful and long-lasting products.

The three phases of the human-centered design process are inspiration, ideation, and implementation.

Phase One: Inspiration.

The inspiration stage requires true on-the-ground research. You’ll need to engage directly with your target audience to understand their biggest problems and pain points. It’s important to research your target audience. You want to find out: what makes your consumer happy? What makes them frustrated? What do they do first in the morning? How do they devour content? What takes up most of their time?

Essentially, you want to see from their point of view.

There are a few different methods you could use to research your audience. For instance, you might send out surveys to customers via email or create a survey submission form on one of your web pages. If you find it difficult to get people to fill out the survey, you might offer incentives — 10% off their next purchase or a ticket for a raffle contest with a giveaway prize.

You could facilitate a focus group if you don’t feel comfortable with surveys.

If you often interact with consumers on the phone or email, you might hear about issues they’re having organically.

If you’re still unsure which direction to take, check out 19 Tools & Resources for Conducting Market Research for more ideas.

Once you’ve done your market research, list with your team all the trivial and major problems with which your consumer struggles (within your skill set or products, of course). Consider the biggest hassles your consumer faces and how your products could get better to solve those issues.

Phase Two: Ideation.

Like the HelloFresh founders, your team must envision a future that doesn’t exist yet. Now that you know what problems your consumer faces, what solutions could help them become better, happier, and more productive?

The ideation stage is your “no such thing as a bad idea” brainstorming session. It requires you and your colleagues to create and tweak a long list. Take good ideas, and make them better. Refine and tweak them. Imagine all the different ways you could solve a customer’s problem, big and small.

When you’re confident you have a realistic, human-centered idea to solve for a customer’s needs, you’ll need to envision how a product could solve that solution.

Let’s use our HelloFresh example to see this stage more clearly. In Phase Two, Ideation, you’ve already recognized that people don’t have time to grocery shop and want healthy meals (that was Phase One). In this step, you’ve made a long list of potential solutions, i.e., “YouTube tutorials to create healthy meals? Write a cookbook? Pay for someone to come into your home and cook for you? Pay for a truck to deliver healthy food to your door?”

Ultimately, your team has decided — aha! We’ll create a meal subscription service.

Now, you want to prototype and test this product on your ideal persona.

Remember, the whole premise behind human-centered design is digging into your consumer’s actual needs and providing a solution to those needs. If you receive feedback on limitations of your product, don’t get dejected — get inspired. That feedback is exactly what you need to ensure your product will gain long-term traction with your target consumer base.

Phase Three: Implementation.

So you’ve created and tested a prototype of your product, collected feedback, and seem ready for release to a wider audience.

Now, it’s time to market your product. Ultimately, you’ll want to imagine yourself in your consumer’s shoes and then market to them from that point of view: How would I like to learn about this product if I were them?

Since your product revolves around your consumer’s struggles, you’ll want to develop an effective marketing strategy to spread the word about your product as a long-term solution to a real struggle.

You also might want to consider partnering with other businesses who offer similar solutions or share an audience with similar problems. By partnering with a business, you’re able to offer the user more of an all-in-one solution.

Human-centered Design Examples

1. Colgate Toothbrush 

Colgate-Palmolive’s toothbrush, Acti-Brush, was innovative in the 1990s, but since then, competitor toothbrushes have surpassed Colgate’s on the market. Colgate-Palmolive hired Altitude, a design consulting firm focused on human-centered designs, to create a new toothbrush model.

The Altitude team extensively researched the audience and then developed the Motion, a new, slimmer, high-powered toothbrush with oscillating heads and an arcing neck. The entire product, from superficial features to performance, centered around one critical question: will this serve our user’s needs? Ultimately, the Motion successfully solved a user’s problem — needing a slender toothbrush that could still deliver on performance — the industry hadn’t previously addressed.

 

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2. Spotify

Remember the days of paying $1.99 for one song, or hanging around the aisles of Walmart, searching for your favorite album?

I’d argue that one of the most impressive displays of human-centered design is Spotify — a product that showed me my prior method for purchasing music was a problem before I even recognized it as one.

Spotify succeeded by empathizing with their users’ struggle to pay for music from disparate sources and created a solution we could all embrace. Thanks to Spotify, users can get all their music in one place for one monthly fee. I’m willing to pay more for that kind of tailored, customized, helpful service.

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3. Fitbit

Before handy fitness trackers, we’d have to estimate how many calories we burned in a day and find the inherent motivation to be more active (which, as we all know, is an untrustworthy source).

The invention of products like Fitbit is undeniably human-centered. The inventors of fitness trackers recognized people’s challenges with tracking and maintaining fitness goals and provided a useful long-term solution. The product works with the user in mind by telling the user how many calories she burned and urging her to exercise more.

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4. Venmo

Venmo is another example of a product that solved a problem before most people realized it was one. I personally didn’t see how cumbersome exchanging money was until Venmo provided a solution.

The founders of Venmo, Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, stumbled across the idea of Venmo only when they encountered the problem. They went to New York City, and Iqram forgot his wallet. Andrew paid for everything, and at the end of the trip, Iqram wrote him a check.

During that exchange of money, they thought, “Why is this still the best way of exchanging money? Why can’t we do this on our phones?”

The Venmo founders needed to solve a problem they encountered and build a solution from which other people could also benefit.

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Feeling Inspired?

Hopefully, these examples confirm the usefulness of human-centered design for creating long-lasting and innovative products. You’re now ready to tackle your creative process from a new angle — the human angle.