An interview with
Russ Henneberry
Welcome to the On Branding Podcast! Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Russ Henneberry, an AI-powered digital marketing consultant, speaker, and co-author of "Digital Marketing for Dummies." In our conversation, Russ shared his unique approach to utilizing AI in marketing, revealing valuable insights and tools that can enhance our marketing efforts. Here's what we discussed.
I began our chat by asking Russ to describe his approach to using AI for marketing. Russ highlighted that businesses typically use AI as a creation engine, but that's just one aspect of its capabilities. He identified four core competencies of AI: creation, organization, research, and evaluation. Each of these areas can greatly benefit marketers.
For creation, AI can generate text, images, and videos, but Russ believes that its true strength lies in other areas. When it comes to organizing, AI excels at managing information, such as summarizing long podcast transcripts. Research is another strong suit of AI, with tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini offering tremendous capabilities. Lastly, he emphasized the value of using AI for evaluation, suggesting that by giving AI a set of parameters, it can provide insightful critiques and improvements for our marketing materials.
We touched on various AI tools that Russ uses in his marketing workflow. He stressed the importance of getting a ChatGPT Pro or Claude account, because while these models have consumed vast amounts of data, they need context about your specific business. Russ recommends creating a custom GPT or cloud project by uploading PDF documents detailing your target market and product specifics. This customization allows the AI to provide more tailored recommendations and strategies.
He also mentioned the significance of integrating simple no-code automations with platforms like make.com or Zapier, augmented by AI to make them more powerful. The future of marketing automation is not just about streamlining processes, but adding intelligence to anticipate needs and execute tasks more efficiently.
We discussed the right and wrong ways to use AI in content creation. The wrong approach is allowing AI to produce generic, uninspired content. Instead, Russ suggests using AI to repurpose original content. By creating podcasts, webinars, or videos and feeding these into AI systems, we can generate high-quality, personalized content for broader distribution. For instance, using Descript to obtain transcripts could be a starting point for AI to create condensed social media posts or other marketing materials.
Our conversation took a forward-looking turn as we explored AI agents. Russ predicts that intelligent agents will begin taking over repetitive tasks for us, like scheduling meetings or gathering research data. Although these agents are still in their infancy, they hold the potential to transform how we work. We'll soon see agents performing tasks on our behalf, helping with marketing not just to humans but to other agents as well – a fascinating prospect for the industry.
For those wanting to delve deeper into AI marketing, Russ offers a platform called "Join the Click," where both free and paid training sessions are available. These include comprehensive tutorials on AI customization and marketing automation. Whether you're new to AI or looking to expand your skills, this community-centric approach offers practical guidance to navigate the evolving landscape of digital marketing.
I encourage everyone to connect with Russ on LinkedIn, where he's actively engaging and sharing wisdom. It's been a fantastic session filled with practical advice and future-gazing insights. Thank you, Russ, for joining me on the On Branding Podcast. I had a great time!
