Welcome to the Friday edition of Leveling Up!

This week Neil Patel and Eric Siu cover:

• Lessons learned after sending 255 million emails

• Why AI might be overrated for marketers in 2023

• The real reason why content scaling is NOT hard

• Plus more!

We hope you enjoy it. If not, you can unsubscribe anytime.

🎓 Neil Patel Sent 255 Million Emails, and This Is What He Learned

For years, Neil has sent weekly emails to over 1 million subscribers.

Here is his biggest takeaway:

Segmentation is no longer a “nice to have”

Not long ago, Neil could send emails to everyone on his list, and it would do well.

But recently, that approach stopped working.

Neil concluded that in today’s environment if you’re not segmenting your list, the emails won’t perform nearly as well.

It doesn’t matter how good your copy or offer is — segmentation is king.

Think about it:

There are people on Neil’s list who are only subscribed to hear about e-commerce growth secrets.

Whereas other readers may only be interested in agency growth tips.

If he doesn’t segment those readers apart, he’ll send generic emails that don’t have the same impact.

Using AI to hyper-segment his list and copy

Neil’s team creates lists based on what pages people are clicking on and signing up from.

Then he takes those lists, categorizes what their needs and pain points are, and uses tools like Google Bard to help craft compelling email copy.

Since applying these experiments he’s enjoying more open rates and conversions.

In fact, there’s a 57-58% drop in revenue when Neil doesn’t segment!

For Neil’s full thoughts, watch the Marketing School episode here. 

🎓 Why AI Might Be Overrated for Marketers in 2023

Neil and Eric know this is a controversial take, but hear them out.

Everyone is writing threads on Twitter about how ChatGPT will change marketing, sales, and entrepreneurship.

They’re not saying that AI won’t be revolutionary.

But you must understand that marketers love to overhype things.

ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard are all getting most of the hype.

But most AI spending from companies is going towards something other than these types of tools.

As it currently stands, according to McKinsey Data (one of the best in the business), marketing wasn’t on the list of the top areas of AI investment.

Most use cases for AI right now are in service and process automation, that’s different than tools like ChatGPT, which most of us are used to.

Now let’s take this a step further.

If you caught the podcast episode, you know where this is headed.

Because Neil believes the output of tools like ChatGPT is bad for marketers right now and that it won’t take a drastic leap soon as most predict.

The result is only as good as the input.

That’s a problem that future iterations of these programs might not solve so easily, especially when it comes to inaccuracies.

Google and Bing have been fighting inaccuracies for years.

Until these AI tools find a better solution to that problem, they will continue to be “held hostage” in a sense by the quality of the input.

What do you think? Agree or disagree?

To hear their full thoughts, check out the podcast clip here.

🎓 How to Launch Products like Apple

Apple is the world’s most valuable company, with a market cap of $2.3 trillion.

What they’re doing is working, so it’s worth learning from.

One aspect of Apple’s marketing which is still essentially unique is its product launch formula.

Millions of people tune in globally to watch their keynote presentations every year.

It’s an infomercial, yet people still watch for hours.

How are they able to pull this off?

1. Create amazing products and services

People care about what Apple is announcing because of their positive experience with Apple products up to that point.

If you’re not putting time and effort into creating something spectacular, then people are simply not going to care.

2. Build up as much hype as possible

Months before the keynote date, many mainstream sites “leak” data on what Apple’s new products will be.

It feels like you’re getting in on a secret that attracts attention.

Plus, the leaked info usually stirs up some controversy. Like when they decided to remove the headphone jack.

3. Make your features easy to understand

Most people won’t understand the complex algorithms that make an iPhone take better photos in the dark.

So instead, Apple labels it “Night Mode.”

Now suddenly, it’s easy to grasp the complicated concept.

Using the 80/20 rule as a framework, these three strategies are probably the most powerful in Apple’s arsenal.

To hear their full thoughts, listen to the Marketing School episode here.

🧠 Mindset Shift: Content Scaling Is NOT Hard, but This Is…

Most people will disagree, but it has to be said:

Content scaling is NOT hard.

When it comes to SEO, creating content is easy, especially with tools like ChatGPT, Ubersuggest AI Writer, etc.

But you know what’s hard?

Promoting your content.

There are over 1.3 Billion results on Google for the term auto insurance.

Yet there are roughly 200K people that search for that term each month.

And there are only 10 results on page 1 that people click on…
… out of 1.3 BILLION total results!

So again, what’s the hard part?

It’s not scaling up your content creation. It’s promoting your content.

You’ve got to build links and get social shares to do well.

It’s not just about optimizing your on-page SEO or creating content.

If you can’t get links and you can’t get people to talk about your content and share it, you won’t do well.

That’s where you need to focus if you want to dominate with SEO.

Until next week,

The Leveling Up Team

P.S.

Here are more ways we can help your business grow:

• Listen to our Marketing School podcast for daily marketing tips

• Subscribe to the Leveling Up YouTube channel

• Read the Single Grain blog for actionable marketing playbooks