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Episode 539 Copywriting With Todd Jones Humanizing Content

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Show Summary

The provided text is an excerpt from The SDM Show, a podcast hosted by Rob Cairns, featuring an interview with Neeraj Singh about his company, Neeto, and its suite of business productivity tools. Singh explains the origins and motivations behind creating Neeto Cal, a Calendly competitor, and Neeto Record, a Loom alternative, highlighting their focus on user needs and affordability. The discussion touches upon the features, pricing models (including a unique free tier for Neeto Cal), and the future roadmap for these and other upcoming Neeto products like a CRM and invoicing system. Singh emphasizes Neeto’s approach of offering a comprehensive ecosystem of tools while prioritizing user-friendliness and value over extensive marketing spending.

Show Notes

Key Discussion Points:

  1. The Problem with AI Content: AI often generates content reflecting the “median” quality of its training data, leading to a generic, business-like tone (as noted by Rob’s partner, Leslie).
  2. Why Humanizing Matters: It builds connection, trust, and makes content more engaging and memorable.
  3. How to Humanize (Insights from ChatGPT & Todd):
    1. Inject Personality: Use a conversational tone and language.
    1. Tell Stories: Weave in narratives (AI struggles with this naturally).
    1. Add Emotion & Empathy: Understand and address audience pain points (requires human input).
    1. Ask Questions: Create a dialogue with the reader.
    1. Vary Sentence Structure: Avoid monotonous sentence lengths.
    1. Avoid Over-Optimization: Don’t stuff keywords; it’s a dated tactic.
    1. Limit Perfection: Allow for occasional colloquialisms or minor quirks; overly flawless grammar can be an AI giveaway.
    1. Be Authentic & Transparent: Acknowledge AI use when appropriate.
    1. Use Specific Prompts: Instruct AI before generation: keep sentences brief (10-20 words), use everyday words, avoid jargon and complex terms (like “delve,” “dive into,” “game changer”), aim for an 8th-grade reading level.
  4. AI for Different Content Lengths:
    1. Todd finds AI effective for shorter pieces (like ad copy).
    1. He’s more hesitant about using AI to generate long-form content (1200+ words) from scratch.
    1. Alternative approaches: Record a “data dump” of ideas, transcribe, and have AI structure it; or write a rough first draft yourself and use AI for editing and refinement.
  5. AI Detectors: They are often unreliable and can mistakenly flag human-written content. Don’t depend heavily on them.
  6. The REO Framework (Todd’s approach):
    1. Relevant: Content must align with the audience’s interests and pain points.
    1. Engaging: Use storytelling, emotion, and connection techniques.
    1. Original: Offer original research or, crucially, an original point of view. AI struggles significantly with providing a unique human perspective and requires careful checking of sourced data (ensure sources are recent, ideally within 2-3 years).
  7. AI and Expertise: Using AI doesn’t automatically make someone an expert in a field. True experts leverage AI as a tool within their existing knowledge base. Understanding communication principles is key.
  8. Quality Over Quantity: Flooding the market with mediocre AI content is ineffective. Focus on creating valuable, memorable, and shareable content.

Mentioned Resources & People:

  • Hosts: Rob Cairns, Todd Jones (Copyfight)
  • People: Andy Crestodina, Leslie (Rob’s partner), Britney Mueller (ex-Moz, AI courses on Maven), Jason Parker (Copywriter), David Garfinkle (Copywriter Coach), Nathan & Lily (AI Trainers)
  • AI Tools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, u.com
  • Other Tools: Grammarly
  • Platforms/Groups: School of Content (contains Todd’s prompts and Bio Builder Workshop), Slack

Find Todd Jones:

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