Search has changed, and so should your audience personas.
Your audience searches across Google, ChatGPT, Reddit, YouTube, and many other channels.
Knowing who they are isn’t enough anymore. You need to know how they search.
Search-focused audience personas fill gaps that traditional personas miss.
Think insights like:
Where this person actually goes for answers
What triggers them to look for solutions right now
Which proof points win their trust
And you don’t need months of research or expensive tools to build them.
An audience persona is a profile of who you’re creating for — what they need, how they search, and what makes them trust (or tune out). Done well, it aligns your team around a shared understanding of who you’re serving.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through nine strategic questions that dig deep into your persona’s search behavior. I’ve also included AI prompts to speed up your analysis.
They’ll help you spot patterns and synthesize findings without the manual work.
By the end, you’ll have a complete audience persona to guide your content strategy.
Free template: Download our audience persona template to document your insights. It includes a persona example for a fictional SaaS brand to guide you through the process.
1. Where Is Your Audience Asking Questions?
Answer this question to find out:
Where you need to build authority and presence
Which platforms to target for every persona
Which formats work well for each persona
Knowing where your persona hangs out tells you which channels influence their decisions.
So, you can show up in places they already trust.
It also reveals how they think and what will resonate with them.
For example, someone posting on Reddit wants honest advice based on lived experiences. But someone searching on TikTok wants visual content like tutorials or unboxing videos.
How to Answer This Question
Start with an audience intelligence tool that lets you identify your persona’s preferred platforms and communities.
I’ll be using SparkToro.
Note: Throughout this guide, I’ll walk you through this persona-building process using the example of Podlinko, a fictional podcasting software. You’ll see every step of the research in action, so you can replicate it for your own business.
For this example, we’re building out one of Podlinko’s core personas: Marcus, a marketing professional on a one-person or small team team, so he’s scrappy and in-the-weeds.
Pro tip: Start with one primary persona and build it completely before adding others. Focus on your most valuable customer segment (the one driving the highest revenue for your business).
In SparkToro, enter a relevant keyword that describes your persona’s professional identity or core interests.
This could be their job title, industry, or a topic they care deeply about.
I went with “how to start a podcast.” Marcus would likely search for this early in his journey.
The report gives a pretty solid overview of Marcus’s online behavior.
For example, Google, ChatGPT, YouTube, and Facebook are his primary research channels.
But it could be worth testing a few other platforms too.
Compared to the average user, he’s 24.66% more likely to use X and 12.92% more likely to use TikTok.
The report also tells me the specific YouTube channels where he spends time.
He’s watching automation, editing, and business tutorials.
He’s also active in multiple industry-related Reddit communities.
Maybe he’s posting, commenting, or even just lurking to read advice.
Since Marcus uses ChatGPT, I also did a quick search on this platform to see which sources the platform frequently cites.
I searched for some prompts he might ask, like “Which podcast hosting platforms should I use for marketing?”
If you see large language models (LLMs) repeatedly mention the same sources, they likely carry authority for the topic.
And by extension, they influence your persona’s research as well.
Compare these sources to the ones you identified earlier. If they match, you have validation.
If they’re different, assess which ones to add to your persona document.
Here’s how I filled out the persona template with Marcus’s search behavior:
2. What Exact Questions Are They Asking?
Answer this question to find out:
What language to mirror in your content
How to structure content for AI visibility
What content gaps exist in your market
Your buyer persona’s language rarely matches marketing jargon.
Companies might talk about “podcast production tools” and “integrated workflows.”
But personas use more personal and specific language:
What’s the cheapest way to record remote podcasts?
How long does it take to edit a 30-minute podcast?
Knowing your audience’s actual questions reveals the gap between how you describe your solution and how they experience the problem.
And shows you exactly how to bridge it.
How to Answer This Question
Start by going to the platforms and communities you identified in Question 1.
Search 3-5 topics related to your persona.
Review the context around headlines, posts, and comments:
How they phrase questions (exact words matter)
What emotions do they express
What outcomes they’re trying to achieve
Pro tip: As you research, save persona comments, discussions, and reviews in full — not just snippets. You’ll analyze the same sources in Questions 3-5. But through different lenses (challenges, triggers, language patterns). Having everything saved means you won’t need to revisit platforms multiple times.
For example, I searched “how to start a podcast for a business” on Google.
Then, I checked People Also Ask for related questions Marcus might have:
On YouTube, I searched “how to edit a podcast” and reviewed video comments.
Users asked follow-up questions about mic issues and screen sharing.
This gave me insight into language and questions beyond the video’s main topic.
In Facebook Groups, I found users asking questions related to their goals, constraints, and challenges.
It also provided the unfiltered language Marcus uses when he’s stuck.
Now, use a keyword research tool to visualize how your persona’s questions connect throughout their journey.
I used AlsoAsked for this task. But AnswerThePublic and Semrush’s Topic Research tool would also work.
For Marcus, I searched “Best AI podcasting editing software,” which revealed this path:
Which AI tool is best for audio editing? → Can I use AI to edit audio? → Which software do professionals use for audio editing? → How much does AI audio editor cost?
It’s helpful to visualize how Marcus’s questions change as he progresses through his search.
Next, learn the questions your persona asks in AI search.
It tells you the exact prompts people use when searching topics related to your brand.
(And if your brand appears in the answers.)
If you don’t have a subscription, sign up for a free trial of Semrush One, which includes the AI Visibility Toolkit and Semrush Pro.
Since Podlinko is fictional, I used a real podcasting platform (Zencastr.com) for this example.
This brand appears often in AI answers for user questions like:
What equipment do I need to create a professional podcast setup?
Can you recommend popular tools for managing and promoting online radio or podcasts?
You’ll also see citation gaps — questions where your brand isn’t mentioned. These reveal content opportunities.
For this brand, one gap includes:
“Which AI tools are best for recording, editing, and distributing an AI-focused podcast?”
After reviewing all the questions I gathered, I narrowed them down to the top 5 for the template:
3. What Challenges Influence Their Search Behavior?
Answer this question to find out:
What constraints influence their decision-making process
How to anticipate objections before they arise
What kind of solutions does your persona need
Challenges are the ongoing issues driving your persona’s search behavior. These overarching problems shape their decisions to find a solution.
Understanding these challenges can help you:
Position your solution in the context of these pain points
Anticipate and address objections before they come up
Structure your campaigns to speak directly to their limitations
How to Answer This Question
Review the questions you collected in Question 2 to identify underlying pain points.
For example, this Facebook Group post contains some telling language for Marcus’s persona:
Specific phrases highlight ongoing challenges:
“Tech support is no help”
Can’t find an editing software that consistently works”
Now, visit industry-specific review platforms.
Check G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Amazon, Yelp, or another site, depending on your niche.
Look for reviews where people describe recurring frustrations.
Positive reviews may mention what drove a user to seek a new solution. For example, this one references poor audio and video quality:
Negative reviews reveal what users constantly struggle with.
Unresolved pain points often push people to find workarounds or alternatives.
This user noted issues with a podcasting tool, including loss of backups, unreliable tech, and more.
Pay close attention to the language people use. Word choice can signal underlying feelings and constraints.
When someone asks for the “easiest” and “most cost-effective” solution, they’re signaling:
Limited resources
Low confidence
Risk aversion
After reviewing conversations and communities, you’ll likely have dozens of data points.
Copy the reviews, questions, and phrases into an AI tool to identify your persona’s top challenges.
Use this prompt:
Based on these reviews and discussions, identify the five biggest challenges for this persona.
For each challenge, show:
(1) exact phrases they use to describe it
(2) what constraints make it harder (budget, time, skills)
(3) how it influences where and when they search.
Format as a table.
This analysis helped me identify Marcus’s recurring challenges:
4. What Triggers Them to Search Right Now?
Answer this question to find out:
What emotional and situational context should you address in your content
How to structure content for different urgency levels
Which pain points to lead with
Search triggers explain why your audience is ready to take action.
But they’re not the same as challenges.
Challenges are ongoing constraints your persona faces. This could be a limited budget, small team, or skill gap.
Triggers are the specific events or goals that push them to act right now. Like a looming deadline or a competitor launching a podcast.
Understanding triggers helps you reach your persona when they’re most receptive.
How to Answer This Question
If you have access to internal data, start there.
Your sales and customer support teams can spot patterns that push prospects from browsing to buying.
For example, your sales conversations might reveal that one of Marcus’s triggers is urgency. His manager might ask him to improve the sound quality by the next episode, prompting his search.
These spaces are where people describe the exact moments they decide to take action. Aka plateaus, milestones, and failed attempts.
When I searched “podcast marketing” on Reddit, I found a post from someone experiencing clear triggers:
This user has been unable to get a consistent flow of organic listeners despite high-quality content.
Trigger: A growth plateau that pushed him to ask for help.
He’s also trying to hit his first 1,000 listeners.
Trigger: A goal that pushed him to look for solutions.
If you collected a lot of content, upload it to an AI tool to quickly identify triggers.
Use this prompt:
Analyze these community posts and discussions. Identify the specific trigger moments that pushed people to actively search for solutions.
For each trigger, show:
The exact moment or event described (quote the language they use)
The type of trigger (situational, temporal, emotional, or goal-driven)
What action did they take as a result
Format as a table.
After analyzing the content I gathered, I identified the key triggers pushing Marcus to search:
5. What Language Resonates (and What Turns Them Off)?
Answer this question to find out:
Which messaging angles resonate
What tones build trust with your audience
Which phrases trigger objections or skepticism
The words you use can affect whether your persona trusts you or tunes out.
The right language makes people feel understood. The wrong language creates friction and drives them away.
When you know what resonates, you can create messaging that builds trust and motivates your personas to act.
How to Answer This Question
Refer back to your research from Questions 3 and 4.
This time, focus specifically on language patterns in reviews and community discussions.
Look at:
Exact phrases people use to describe success, relief, or satisfaction
Words highlighting frustration, disappointment, and concerns
For example, on Capterra, users praised podcasting platforms that “do a lot” and let them “distribute with ease.”
This language signals Marcus’s preference for all-in-one platforms.
He would likely connect with messaging that emphasizes functionality without complexity.
Next, review the content you previously gathered from community spaces.
In r/podcasting, users like Marcus write with direct, benefit-focused language:
Notice what he values: simplicity and concrete outcomes (“automatic transcripts”).
He’s not mentioning jargon like “AI-powered transcription engine” or “enterprise-grade recording infrastructure.”
Plain language that emphasizes quick results over technical capabilities works best with this persona.
Once you have enough data, use this LLM prompt to identify language patterns:
Analyze these customer reviews and community discussions I’ve shared. Identify:
Most common words and phrases people use to describe positive experiences
Most common words and phrases that signal frustration or concerns
Emotional undertones in how they describe problems and solutions
Create a table organizing these insights.
This analysis revealed the specific language that Marcus reacts to positively (and negatively).
6. What Content Types Do They Engage With Most?
Answer this question to find out:
Content types to prioritize in your content strategy
How to structure content for maximum engagement
What length and style work best for each format
Knowing the content types your audience prefers has multiple benefits.
It lets you create content that captures your persona’s attention and keeps them engaged.
Think about it: You could write the most comprehensive guide on podcast equipment.
But if your ideal customer prefers video reviews, they’ll scroll right past it.
How to Answer This Question
You identified your persona’s most-used platforms in Question 1. Now analyze which content formats perform best on each.
Conduct a few Google Searches to identify popular content types.
You’ll learn what users (and search engines) prefer for specific queries. Look at videos, written guides, infographics, carousels, podcasts, and more.
For example, when I search “how to set up podcast equipment,” the top results are a mix: long-form articles, video tutorials, and community discussions.
But you’ll ideally be able to validate them against real behavioral data.
If possible, survey recent customers to find concrete patterns about their search behavior.
Send a short survey to customers who converted in the last 90 days:
Where did you first hear about us?
Where do you go for advice about [primary pain points]?
What platforms do you use when researching [your product category]?
How do you prefer to learn about new solutions in your workflow?
Once responses come in, look for patterns in how each segment discovers, researches, and evaluates solutions.
Here’s a prompt you can use in an AI tool for faster analysis:
I surveyed recent customers about their search and discovery behavior.
Analyze this data and identify:
The top 3-5 platforms where customers discovered us or researched solutions
Common pain points or information needs they mentioned
Preferred content formats for learning about solutions
Any patterns in how different customer segments discover and evaluate us
Highlight the platforms and channels that appear most frequently, and flag any gaps between where customers search and where we currently have a presence.
Next, cross-reference your research against existing data in Google Analytics.
Open Google Analytics and navigate to Reports > Lifecycle > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
Sort by engagement rate or average session duration to see which channels drive genuinely engaged visitors.
Look for high time on site (2+ minutes) and multiple pages per session (3+).
Then, map each platform to the content format that performs best there.
Combine insights from Question 1 (preferred platforms) and Question 6 (preferred formats) to build your distribution strategy.
Here’s what this looks like for Marcus:
9. What Keeps This Persona Coming Back?
Answer this question to find out:
What product features or experiences to double down on
How to position your solution beyond initial use cases
What content to create for existing customers
Winning your audience’s attention once is easy. Earning it repeatedly is the real challenge.
Understanding what keeps your persona engaged is the key to getting them to return.
How to Answer This Question
Review all the audience persona insights you’ve gathered so far to identify recurring needs.
Look at triggers, pain points, content preferences, and community discussions.
Pinpoints problems that can’t be solved with a single article or resource.
This could include:
Tasks they do every week (editing, distribution, promotion)
Decisions they face with each piece of content (format, platform, messaging)
Skills they’re continuously learning (new tools, changing algorithms)
Friction points that slow them down every time
Then, outline the content types that repeatedly solve these problems.
Think tools, templates, checklists, and guides they’ll use repeatedly.
If you don’t want to do this manually, drop this prompt into an AI tool to synthesize your findings:
Based on my audience persona research, here’s what I’ve learned:
Questions they ask: [Paste top questions from Q2]
Challenges they face: [Paste challenges from Q3]
Triggers that push them to act: [Paste triggers from Q4]
Their preferred content types: [Paste formats from Q6]
Identify recurring problems they face repeatedly (not one-time issues).
Use it to guide your content creation, search strategy, and distribution efforts.
Your next move: Expand your visibility further with our guide to ranking in AI search. Our Seen & Trusted Framework will help you increase mentions, citations, and recommendations for your brand.
At just under 200 employees, Descript is not the biggest name in video editing software.
It’s not the most robust or the most popular, either.
But it’s punching way above its weight, competing with much bigger companies (like Adobe, and CapCut) in LLM search.
Using Semrush’s AI Visibility score, you can see that Descript is competing closely with giant brands like Adobe.
Descript found the way in.
And so can you.
In this SaaS LLM visibility case study, we’ll break down exactly how Descript is getting seen.
And more importantly, what you can copy to improve visibility for your own product.
Choosing Clear Niche Messaging
For years, Descript has been known as a podcast editing tool.
That matters.
Because when people talk about podcast editing, Descript comes up naturally.
In blog posts.
In forums.
And now, in AI answers.
This isn’t accidental. Descript is clear about who it’s for, and their content reflects that focus.
Their product pages and blog posts consistently speak to one core audience: people who want to edit podcasts easily.
Here’s why this matters:
When I asked Google’s AI Mode for the best software to edit podcasts — specifically as someone with no video editing skills — Descript was one of the first tools mentioned.
And what shows up second in the list of sources?
One of Descript’s own blog posts about podcast editing.
Across Descript’s own website and other third-party sources, this tool is regularly mentioned as ideal for podcasters.
This matters because of a key difference between AI search and traditional SEO.
LLMs don’t just surface pages. They based their answers on query fan-outs.
Here’s what that means: AI creates multiple searches after the original query, and tries to find an answer that is most directly matched to what was asked.
That’s why even articles and websites that aren’t ranking well in Google can still get cited by AI when they provide the most relevant, specific answer to what users are asking.
Because Descript’s content is tightly focused on one audience, one use case, one problem, it maps cleanly to those AI queries.
That doesn’t necessarily correlate to higher ranking in traditional search. In fact, Descript’s traffic from traditional SEO has been steadily decreasing since its peak in 2024:
But at the same time, branded traffic has increased.
So even while the brand isn’t succeeding in traditional search, more people are becoming aware of Descript and searching for the brand name specifically.
Why? In part, because the brand is known for exactly what it does: podcast editing.
AI knows that too. And I would bet that a higher amount of mentions in AI search is helping with brand recognition and influencing that increase in branded search traffic.
Here’s the point: Descript isn’t just checking off boxes of what to talk about.
The way they write — and the way they present their product — shows exactly who they’re speaking to. They match the way their audience talks.
Take the blog article on podcast editing that we mentioned above as an example.
The copy flows naturally, includes quotes from an internal expert in the way she describes the problem and solution, and speaks in an easy way that matches the tone of the audience.
As a byproduct of this natural way of writing and clear product position, their copy and content semantically matches what their audience is searching for.
And their AI mentions keep increasing.
Action Item: Identify and Focus on Your Niche Market
Effort vs. Impact: Medium effort. High impact.
If you’re trying to be all things to everyone, AI is less likely to recommend you for anything specific.
Instead, narrow your focus like Descript does:
Of course, you also want to find balance.
For example, “Podcast editing software for true crime hosts who only record on Thursdays,” may be a bit too niche.
To get the narrowest viable version of your core audience, look at your most successful customers.
Ask:
Who gets the most ROI from our product?
Who uses it weekly — or daily?
Which customers have become vocal advocates?
What do those users have in common? (Role, company size, industry, workflow)
That overlap is your niche.
Once that’s clear, your messaging gets easier.
You stop being an “All-in-one AI-powered platform for creators and teams.”
And start anchoring your product to a specific job: “Edit podcasts and spoken audio, without technical complexity.”
Then, your product becomes easier for AI systems to understand — and recommend — for specific use cases.
Once you’ve defined your niche, focus your content on what actually helps them.
Descript doesn’t target video editing professionals. So, they don’t show up in those searches.
They focus on content creators and podcasters. And their content reflects that.
To do the same:
Talk to people in your niche industry
Ask about their workflows, goals, and sticking points
Learn what slows them down
Pro tip: If you can’t speak directly to people in your audience or customer base, talk to your customer-facing teams. Customer success and sales teams have daily contact with your core audience. So, they’re in a better position to give you insights into what this audience cares about.
Online research also helps.
Find relevant subreddits to see what people are talking about. Check the comments section of relevant YouTube videos.
Look for recurring questions and complaints.
For example, the Descript team might peruse the r/podcasting subreddit to learn about their audience’s questions and opinions.
The goal: understanding.
When you deeply understand your audience’s day-to-day reality, creating helpful content becomes much easier.
And your content can become the source for AI answers.
Of course, getting citations back to your website isn’t the same as getting direct brand mentions. However, it’s still an opportunity to build awareness and authority.
Plus, building content around relevant core topics helps reinforce your niche messaging.
With image-processing models like contrastive language–image pre-training (CLIP,) AI systems can understand what’s happening inside screenshots and videos — not just the words around them.
And those visuals now show up directly in AI answers. Especially for SaaS product queries in tools like ChatGPT.
For example, when I search for “best CRM software for a small business,” the top AI result includes images of the actual product interface.
That’s a shift.
Highly polished mockups matter less. Real, in-product visuals matter more.
Which is why Descript shows up like this in ChatGPT:
Descript consistently shows real product images and videos across product pages, Help Center articles, and blog content.
These aren’t decorative.
They show:
What the product looks like
How features work
What users should expect when they log in
As a result, those same images and videos get pulled into AI answers — often with a link back to Descript’s site.
In this case, the link goes back to a very in-depth Help Center guide to getting started with podcast editing.
And most Interestingly, that’s a near-perfect semantic match to the original query.
Action Item: Include In-Product Images in Your Marketing Content
Effort vs. Impact: Low effort. Medium impact.
Start with the basics.
For every feature you highlight, ask one question: Can someone see this working?
Then act on it. Add real screenshots of your core product screens to key product pages. Replace abstract diagrams with in-product visuals where possible.
Next, expand beyond product pages.
Mention a feature in a blog post? Include a screenshot of it in use.
Explaining a workflow in a Help Center article? Show each step visually.
Teaching a process? Record a short screen capture instead of relying on text alone.
The goal is clarity.
Clear visuals help users understand your product faster. And they give AI systems concrete material to reuse in answers.
Which makes your product easier to recommend — and easier to recognize — inside AI search.
Creating Detailed MoFu/BoFu Content
Content mapped to different awareness levels performs especially well in AI search.
Descript understands this.
They don’t just publish top-of-funnel guides. They create content for product-aware and solution-aware searches, too.
When you search in ChatGPT for video creation or editing tools, Descript often appears in the results.
But more importantly, their own content is cited as a source.
In this example, the cited source is a Descript-owned “best of” article comparing video tools.
Instead of generic recommendations, the page:
Breaks tools down by specific use cases
Includes clear pros and cons
Explains who each option is best for
Descript follows this same pattern with multiple “best of” lists and comparison pages against their main competitors.
The payoff?
When I asked AI to compare podcast video editing tools, Descript appeared with clear labels explaining:
Who it’s best for
Key features
When it makes sense to choose it
That context helps AI recommend Descript to the right people (not everyone).
Action Item: Create Citable MoFu and BoFu Content
Effort vs. Impact: High effort. High impact.
Different awareness levels need different content.
To increase product-level AI visibility, focus on Product Aware and Solution Aware queries.
For Product Aware audiences, create:
Comparison pages
“Best alternative” posts
Owned “best of” lists
Want more ideas?
Talk to your sales team.
Ask them: What features are convincing people to buy? Which competitors are commonly brought up in sales conversations?
Those answers map directly to comparison content AI likes to cite.
For Solution Aware audiences, focus on how-to content that naturally features your product.
For example, when I asked Google’s AI Mode how to reduce background noise from a microphone, it referenced a Descript how-to article.
This same pattern repeats itself across many of Descript’s blog posts: Find a clear problem, give a clear solution, add product mentions naturally.
It’s all about finding the right questions to answer.
To find these opportunities faster, use Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit. This data is powered by Semrush’s AI prompt database and clickstream data, organized into meaningful topics.
Head to “Competitor Research” and review:
Shared topics where competitors appear
Prompts where they earn more AI visibility than you
Then, dig into the specific questions behind those prompts.
The goal isn’t simply “more content”.
It’s answering the right questions — at the right stage — with content AI can confidently cite.
Building Positive Sentiment With Digital PR and Affiliate Marketing
AI visibility isn’t earned on your website alone.
LLMs look for signals across the web.
This is what we call consensus. And it means that positive sentiment has to exist outside your owned channels.
Descript is doing this in two ways:
Digital PR on sites AI already trusts
A creator-friendly affiliate program that drives third-party mentions
Here’s how it works: Google’s AI Mode tends to favor certain websites to source when answering queries about software.
Semrush’s visibility research for AI in SaaS from December 2025 shows these sites dominate citations:
Zapier
PCMag
Gartner
LinkedIn
G2
Here’s what’s interesting.
Descript is mentioned in articles across nearly all of these top sources.
For example, in software listicles like this one on Zapier:
Or in real-world experience articles like this one on Medium:
Or in their clear listings on reviews sites like Gartner and G2:
When AI systems cite those favored sources, Descript comes along for the ride.
Not because it’s the biggest brand.
But because it’s present where AI is already looking.
The second lever is Descript’s affiliate program.
It’s simple:
$25 per new subscriber
30-day attribution window
Monthly payouts
No minimums
Those are solid incentives.
And they lead to more creator-driven content across the web.
For example, a YouTube walkthrough from VP Land explains how to use Descript and includes an affiliate link in the description.
When I later asked Google’s AI Mode how to use Descript, that exact video was cited as a source.
That’s the pattern.
Affiliate content creates citable, trusted references that AI systems reuse.
Action Item: Build a Strategy to Get More Mentions Online
Effort vs. Impact: High effort. High impact.
Getting third party mentions is all about building relationships.
First, build relationships with publishers, starting with the ones AI already trusts.
Even if you’re not an enterprise SaaS company with a full-sized PR team, this is still possible.
Granted, it’s not the easy route — but when you find the right websites and perform regular outreach to those teams, you can get your brand on these sites.
Before you start outreach, get your bearings.
Start by going back to Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit. Head to the “Competitor Research” tab and select “Sources.”
This shows you:
Which sites LLMs cite for your category
Where competitors are already getting mentioned
Gaps where your brand doesn’t show up (yet)
Those sites become your shortlist.
Outreach works better when you’re aiming at sources AI already relies on.
Second, build relationships with creators.
Affiliate programs work when creators want to talk about you.
So, build an affiliate program people actually want to be part of.
This means the program has to be easy to join, with clear terms that make it worth their time.
At a minimum, make sure you have:
A simple signup
Transparent tracking
Reliable payouts
Pro tip: Use a tool like PartnerStack to handle all of the details automatically. Better signups, better tracking, and automated payouts build trust with your affiliates.
If you need inspiration, research top affiliate programs to learn more about the conditions creators expect.
But most importantly: Treat affiliates as distribution partners, not just a side channel.
This means enabling them with clear positioning on your product, example use cases, demo workflows, screenshots they can reuse, and other resources.
The better you equip them, the stronger their recommendations will be.
Once you have this set up, track the results.
Use AI visibility data to see:
Which publisher relationships are turning into citations in AI search
Which creators show up in AI answers
Which formats perform best
Then, double down.
Now that we’ve discussed what Descript is doing well, let’s look at where there’s room for improvement.
Where Descript Could Improve: Reddit Marketing
Descript is doing a great job in many areas that are important for AI search visibility.
That said, there’s one area they’re missing out on: Reddit.
And yes, Reddit matters. A lot.
It’s still one of the most-cited sources in Google’s AI Mode.
And in almost all of the searches I tested above, Reddit was cited as a source (especially conversations in the r/podcasting subreddit).
Here’s the problem: right now, Reddit is not doing Descript any favors.
Here are a few thread titles I found just by searching for Descript in a podcasting subreddit:
When LLMs scan Reddit for sentiment, that unbalance matters.
AI wants to see consensus. So when Reddit skews negative, recommendations may weaken, and alternatives get surfaced instead.
Even when the product is strong.
That’s why, while Descript’s AI visibility is good, it’s still not as good as it could be. And that vulnerability could hurt them in the long run, even if they’re still doing everything else right.
Here are some ways that Descript (and you) could turn the tides on Reddit:
Avoid promoting and start participating: Reddit punishes marketing language. Helpful, honest comments perform better than posts.
Respond to criticism directly (when appropriate): Not defensively, but with clear explanations and fixes
Be present before there’s a problem: Accounts that only show up during damage control don’t build trust
Focus on comments, not posts: High-value comments in active threads outperform standalone branded posts
Monitor brand mention weekly: Focus especially on high-intent subreddits. In Descript’s case, that could be r/podcasting.
To be fair, it seems like Descript is taking steps in the right direction.
As of December 2025, the Descript team has taken control of a dedicated brand subreddit, with PMM Gabe at the helm.
And the team’s responses feel very Reddit-friendly, not using marketing jargon or being pushy.
But popular threads here still have very little interaction with the Descript team. And there seems to be very few (if any) comments from the Descript team outside of this branded subreddit.
It’s a step in the right direction, but there’s still a lot to work on.
Done right, Reddit becomes a sentiment stabilizer and a stronger input source for AI answers.
Ignore it, and Reddit can become a liability.
Remember: for AI visibility, silence isn’t neutral.
Further reading: If Reddit feels like a whole other world, we’ve got you covered. Read our full guide to Reddit Marketing.
What You Can Take Away from This SaaS LLM Visibility Case Study
Descript isn’t winning AI visibility because it’s the biggest brand.
It’s winning because it’s clear, focused, and consistently helpful.
None of that is accidental.
And none of it requires massive scale.
You can get started on this today by choosing one key action to work on.
Use the effort vs. impact lens from this article to choose where to start.
Add in-product screenshots and videos: Low effort, medium impact
Tighten your niche messaging: Medium effort, high impact
Build citable MoFu/BoFu content: High effort, medium impact
Invest in digital PR, affiliates, and community participation: High effort, high impact
Create seriously helpful content: High effort, high impact
Pick one, start there. AI search visibility tools for SaaS companies — like Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit — can help you see exactly where you stand today, and where you can improve.
Remember: LLM visibility isn’t about chasing algorithms.
It’s about making your product easier to understand, easier to trust, and easier to recommend.
Do that consistently — and AI search will follow.
Want to learn how it all works on a deeper level? Read our LLM visibility guide to discover even more ways to increase your brand mentions and citations in AI search.
Everybody wants smoother workflows and fewer manual tasks. And thanks to AI models, automation is at the center of conversations in marketing departments across all industries.
But most rarely get the results they’re looking for.
According to Ascend2’s State of Marketing Automation Report, only 28% of marketers say their automation “very successfully” supports their objectives.
While 69% felt it was only somewhat successful.
While this specific stat is from 2024, I imagine the broad idea is still true. Especially since there are so many more automation options and tools. It can get overwhelming to decide a go-forward plan and implement effectively.
So if you feel stuck in the camp of “not bad, but not great” marketing automation, you’re not alone.
The good news?
Once you understand the core building blocks, you can turn messy, half-automated systems into workflows that actually move the needle.
A good marketing automation usually involves four basic steps:
A trigger: A catalyst event that starts the automation
An action: One or more steps that happen in sequence after the trigger
An output: The end result
A loop or exit point: A new trigger, or an event that stops the automation
In this article, we’re going to discuss how to use these steps to automate:
The mechanics of content creation (and no, we won’t just be telling you to “write it with AI”)
Beyond the basics of email nurtures
Your PR strategy
Social media engagement
Automate the Mechanics of Content Creation
Content marketers are creative people. We don’t want to automate away the creative work that drives results.
That said, we can automate marketing workflows that come before and after creating. (So we can spend more time on high-impact work.)
Here are some simple ways to get started.
1. Basic Brief Builder
Tools required:
Make (free for 1,000 credits per month, paid plans start at $9/month)
Your favorite keyword research tool (plans vary)
Project management platform (tools like Asana offer a free plan)
Google Sheets, Google Docs (free plan available)
Every week, content marketers around the world spend hours researching keywords, pulling search data, creating new briefs, and adding tasks to their project management systems.
What if you could do most of that with one automation?
Here are the basics of how this works:
Trigger: A new row is added to a Google Sheet (your new keyword)
Action: That keyword is run through your SEO tool, which pulls keyword difficulty, search volume, related terms, and top organic results
Output: A new Google Doc with the data inside, and a new task in your project management tool
In the end, the automation will look like this:
And if this seems scary, don’t worry: I’m going to walk you through each step to create this with Make. (Or, you can go ahead and copy this Scenario into your own Make account here.)
First, you’ll need a Google Sheet for your source.
Start with columns for your new keyword, status, brief URL, and task URL. To get started faster, copy this template here.
Next, add Google Sheets as the trigger step, and select “Watch New Rows.”
After that, select the Google Sheet you want to watch.
This runs the automation every time you add a new keyword to that sheet.
Now, it’s time to gather information from your SEO tool. For this example, we’re going to use Semrush. (You could also use an API like DataForSEO.)
Our first Semrush module will be “Get Keyword Overview.” (You might see different options depending on the specific tool you use.)
You can choose whether to see the keyword data in all regional databases, or just one region.
In this task, you’ll map the “Phrase” to the “Keyword” column from your Google Sheet. Then, choose what you want to get as an output. (In this case, I only want to see the search volume.)
Now, let’s create another Semrush model to “Get Related Keywords” to gather relevant keywords from Semrush.
Again, you’ll map the “Phrase” to the keyword column from our Google Sheet, and choose what data you want to export. (I chose the keyword and search volume.)
You can also decide:
How the results are sorted
Whether to add filters
How many results to retrieve
Now, you’ll need to add a text aggregator into your workflow. This tool compiles the results from Semrush so we can use them in a Google Doc later on.
Here, simply map the source (our Semrush module).
Then, in the “Text” field, map the data as you want it to appear.
Next, we’ll create a Semrush module that runs “Get Keyword Difficulty.”
Again, we’ll map the “Phrase” to our keyword from the Google Sheet, and choose to export the “Keyword Difficulty Index.”
Next, run the “Get Organic Results” module from Semrush to export the sites that are ranking for your new target keyword.
Select the “Export Columns,” or the data that you want to see, and limit the number of results you get (we chose 10).
Since we’re getting multiple results, this module will also need a text aggregator to transform those results into plain text for our Google Doc.
We’ll set it up exactly the same way, but this time map the “Get Organic Results” module.
In the “Text” field, I’ve added “Bundle order position” (where that result is ranking in the SERP), and the URL of the ranking page.
Now, for the fun part.
It’s time to build your basic content brief in a Google doc.
Before you add this into Make, you’ll need to create a Google Doc as a template. This template should have variables that can be mapped to the results you get in your automation.
To show up as variables, you’ll need to wrap them in curly brackets. So, your template will look something like this:
Now, you’ll create a new module in your Make scenario to “Create a Document from a Template.”
Once you connect the Google Doc template you created, you’ll see all of the variables you added in curly brackets as fields in the configuration page.
Now, all you have to do is map those variables to the results you’ve gotten from Semrush and your text aggregators.
Now it’s time to add this new brief into your project management tool. Make lets you connect several tools, including Asana, Trello, Monday, and Notion.
In this scenario, I already have an Asana project for content production.
So I choose the “Create a Task or a Subtask” module for Asana, and map that existing project.
I can also add project custom fields (like a link to the brief in Google Docs), choose the task name (like the keyword), and automatically assign it to someone on my team.
Lastly, I want to go back and update my original Google Sheet so that I can see which keywords have already been run, and where their briefs and tasks live.
So, I add Google Sheets again as the final step in the automation and connect the same spreadsheet that we had at the beginning. Under “Values,” I can map the brief URL from Google Docs and the new task URL from Asana to columns in my spreadsheet.
I also set this so the “Status” column is updated to “Done.”
Now, let’s run this scenario and see what happens.
First, I add a new keyword to my Google Sheet.
This triggers the automation to run.
The first thing that’s produced is a brand new Google Doc with all of the SEO data from Semrush. You’ll see this new doc appear in your Drive, and you’ll find the link in Asana.
Next, I’ll see a new task appear in my Asana project (with the brief link included).
And finally, the Google sheet will be updated to show us that the task has been completed.
Plus, it adds in the links to the new brief in Google Docs and the new task in Asana.
And there you go: you now have a basic content brief builder automation.
Are these complete briefs? No. But the information provides a great start, gives the writer SERP context, and frees up more time to fill out other important content brief elements.
Resources for this automation: To get started faster, use these templates:
Tools required: Your favorite project management tool (paid or free options available)
Project management tools are great for organizing your content workflow.
But the more tasks you create over time, the harder it is to keep track of and manage those systems.
Many project management platforms give you built-in automation tools to help things run more smoothly. Let’s talk about automations that can help your content workflow specifically.
Triggers might include:
A new task is added to a project
A custom field changes
A new assignee is added
A subtask is completed
Due date is changed (or coming up soon)
A task is overdue
And actions could be:
Add to a new project
Auto-assign to a team member
Update a status
Move task to a new section
Create a subtask
Add a comment
For this example, we’re going to use the Rules system in Asana, but the same basic principles apply to almost any major project management tool.
To start, click the “Customize” button in the upper-right corner of your content management project, and create some custom fields.
Especially important here is the “Status” field. The options here should follow the steps in your content process, and will probably mirror the sections in your Project.
Once your “Sections” and “Fields” are set up, you can create some rules.
These can help dictate what happens when a new brief enters your content workflow and assign it to whoever is in charge of moving it forward in the process.
Use a Rule to auto-assign someone on your team (for example, your content manager or editor) to the task.
Now, let’s say a new article is now in progress with a writer.
Create a rule that moves the task to the corresponding section of your project when the status is set to “Writing.”
If your content tasks have subtasks (like “create outline,” “write article,” “edit,” or “design”), you can track completion and use that to move pieces forward.
In this case, you can set a rule that once all subtasks are complete, the task moves to the “Ready to Publish” section.
Once the task moves to that section, set a rule to auto-assign it to the team member who publishes posts.
Then, when the status is set to “Published,” the task could be moved into a separate project where completed tasks of published content are stored.
This allows you to clear the tasks from your main production workflow, but still keep them on hand in case the piece needs to be updated in the future.
What if a piece of content isn’t completed by its deadline?
Set up an automation that checks in with the team to see what the status is.
There are plenty of other automations you can run in Asana or other tools.
But these basic workflow automations will help your content production process have better handoffs and less friction.
We do this at Backlinko using Monday.com as our project management tool.
Email nurtures are relatively easy to put together in any basic email tool: for example, sending a welcome email to a new newsletter subscriber, or a transactional email to a new customer.
But let’s talk about some ways to take those automations even further.
A trigger: Such as someone signing up for an email list
An action: The new contact is added to a list or segment
An output: They new receive a series of pre-made emails
An exit condition: The sequence finishes once all the emails are sent, or once the contact takes a specific action, like buying a product
Exit conditions are especially important, because you don’t want people to receive another email from you after they’ve already completed an action. (Hello, promo email that arrives after I already made a purchase.)
Let’s walk through how to use marketing automation tools for email.
3. Behavior-Based Nurtures and Follow-Ups
Tools required: ActiveCampaign (paid plans start at $15/month, although other email platforms offer automation capabilities too)
When you trigger an email sequence based on real behavior, you’re catching people in the moment when they’re more likely to engage.
For example, if you want to help a new user get to know your platform, you can trigger onboarding emails based on the actions they’ve taken so far.
Or, if you want to reduce cart abandonment, you can send a special promotion for customers who have items in their cart.
This improved targeting can lead to better engagement from your email list.
All you have to do is match the right trigger to the right action. For example:
Trigger
Action
Someone downloads a resource
They receive a series of emails on that topic
A customer purchased a product a few months ago
They get a reminder to replenish their stock
A contact browses a product category, but doesn’t make a purchase
They get an email reminding them of what they looked at
A new user subscribes to your platform
They get a series of emails walking them through specific actions
Your exit condition could be when the person:
Completes their purchase
Books a call
Starts a free trial
Replies to your email
For example, let’s say you want to send a series of emails reminding someone that their subscription is reaching its end date. It could look something like this:
Trigger: End date is within 20 days from now
Action: Send series of three emails up to the last day of their subscription (we don’t want to send too many)
Exit condition: Customer responds to the email, or renews their subscription
Here’s a great example for home insurance renewal:
Or, let’s say a new lead just signed up for a free trial or freemium account.
You could create a workflow that pulls information from the onboarding survey in your tool, and builds a personalized, 1:1 email sequence.
Check out this example from HubSpot:
When I signed up for the account, I identified myself as a self-employed marketer. HubSpot pulled that information into this new trial campaign to make the email even more personalized.
So the question is: how do you get started?
Here’s a quick overview of how you could build a behavior-based email nurture automation in ActiveCampaign.
Let’s say you want to send an email sequence to a known contact who visited a certain page on your website. For example, imagine someone who subscribes to your email newsletter, but isn’t a customer, just visited your pricing page. (In other words, they may be close to signing up — they just aren’t quite convinced yet.)
Before you start this automation, you’ll need to enable Site Tracking on your account in ActiveCampaign. To do this, install the tracking code on your website so ActiveCampaign can see page views.
To start the automation, you’ll add new contacts who enter through any pipeline.
Now, when a known contact (someone who’s already in your database) visits a tracked page, ActiveCampaign associates that page view with the contact’s record, and can start an automation.
The real trigger is the next step: “Wait until conditions are met.”
In this case, the condition is that the contact has visited an exact URL on your website.
Pro tip: You can also adjust this so the email series only runs when the person visits a page multiple times, showing a higher level of interest.
Next, set a waiting period from the time the person sees the page to when the email is sent.
And finally, write your email and add it to the workflow.
After that, you could:
Wait a certain amount of time, then send another email
Set an exit condition if the contact replies or makes a purchase
All of this effort turns into an email like this one that I received from Brooks after visiting one of their product pages:
This makes me way more likely to revisit the shoes I was looking at than a generic reminder email (or no email at all).
4. Webinar Lifecycle Automation
Tools required:
Demio (plans start at $45/month)
HubSpot (limited free plan available)
Webinars are an entire customer journey, including promotion, confirmation, reminders, and post-event follow-ups.
The trigger is normally one event: Someone signed up for your webinar.
The actions include:
Confirmation email
Day before and day-of reminders
“Happening now” email
Post-event replay email
For example, here’s a great reminder email from Kiwi Wealth:
Immediately after the webinar is finished, you might send an email like this one from Beefree:
And you’ll also want to follow up later with a replay and some action items for people who attended, like this:
Note: We got these examples from Really Good Emails, which is a great resource for getting inspiration for your own campaigns.
So, how do you create this automation?
Most great webinar tools allow you to do this. Demio, for example, allows you to automate marketing emails when you create a new event:
If you want to get really fancy, you can segment your post-webinar follow-up emails by whether or not the contact attended the webinar:
Demio’s built-in email is somewhat limited beyond an actual event.
So, you can connect it to HubSpot to add a new layer of segmentation to your lists.
Once this connection is live, Demio will import webinar attendance data into HubSpot.
For example, you can import data like:
Contacts who registered for the webinar
People who registered, but missed the event
People who attended the event
How long a contact stayed in the webinar
People who watched the replay
You can even add new contacts to lists directly in Hubspot if they don’t exist there already.
This automation will help your pre- and post-webinar flows run more smoothly. And hopefully get you more valuable engagement with those webinars.
Grow Your PR Strategy
For small marketing teams, PR outreach can use up a lot of valuable time.
Here are some easy automations to keep doing inbound and outbound PR requests, without spending your entire week on it.
Resource: Get your free PR Plan Template to help you pick the right goals, discover journalists, and make pitches that get press coverage.
5. PR Radar
Tools required:
BrandMentions (paid plans start at $79/month)
Zapier (free for 100 tasks/month, paid plans start at $19.99/month)
Google Sheets (free option available)
Want to keep an eye on new articles that are related to your brand that you could potentially get featured in or a backlink from? Let’s build an automatic PR radar.
Note: Most monitoring tools send alerts, but those notifications disappear into your inbox. This workflow creates a shared, searchable log your whole team can access without extra logins—plus you’ll have a historical record for spotting PR trends over time.
This workflow looks like:
Trigger: A new article mentions your brand or related topics
Action: Pull all new mentions into one place to scan through them easily
Output: A simple, regularly-updated list of PR mentions
There are several tools that do this, but for this example, we’re going to use BrandMentions.
Once you set up your account and your project, head into settings to adjust which sources you’ll collect data from.
Remove social media, and just leave the web option. That way, you’ll get a clean list of articles and webpages that mention your brand or the keywords you added.
Once this is set up, you can connect your BrandMentions project to Zapier.
This will trigger the automation to start when any new mentions are added.
You can choose whatever output works best for you: whether that’s a Slack message, a new row in Airtable, or an addition to an ongoing Google Sheet.
For this example, I chose Google Sheets as my output. All I had to do was tie the data pulled from BrandMentions to the right columns in my spreadsheet.
Once that’s done, the automation adds new articles like this automatically into my spreadsheet:
Pro tip: Want to add a reminder? You can add another step that sends a daily Slack message summarizing all the newly added rows.
6. Media Request Matchmaker
Tools required:
RSS.app (free plan available)
Zapier (free for 100 tasks/month, paid plans start at $19.99/month)
Airtable (free plan available)
PR would be nothing without the relationships we build with journalists and writers.
But it’s hard to know who’s writing about a topic that’s related to your brand. Or where your company’s internal subject matter experts can add their thoughts to promote your brand.
So, let’s build an automation to match new requests to your internal experts.
This involves:
Trigger: A new media request that matches relevant topics
Action: Classify new requests and match them to the internal expert with the most relevant expertise
Output: New requests are automatically routed to the right person
One of the most frequently updated places to find PR requests is on X/Twitter.
Search the hashtag #journorequest, and you’ll see hundreds of writers asking for expert contributions.
To prepare this for your automation, start by setting up an RSS feed with the hashtag #journorequest or #prrequest along with a relevant keyword.
For the simplest version of this, you can connect RSS.app directly to Slack and send a new message every time a new request is added to the feed.
But let’s be real: that could get overwhelming pretty quickly.
So, we’ll use Zapier for a more in-depth automation.
Start by adding “RSS by Zapier” as the trigger, and paste your RSS feed link into the configuration.
Pro tip: If you want to track journo requests for multiple topics, change the trigger event to “New Items in Multiple Feeds.” Then, simply paste in all of the RSS feed links. That way, they’ll all run through the same automation.
Next use “Formatter by Zapier” to extract the necessary information from the tweets.
First, in Formatter, choose the Action event “Text.”
Then, in the Configure menu, select “Extract Email Address,” and map the input to the description from your RSS feed.
Next, with another Formatter step, select “Text,” and “Extract Pattern.”
The input is still the same description (the original tweet).
In the Pattern box, in parentheses, add the keywords you want to track separated by a vertical bar, like this:
(cybersecurity|fintech|pets|saas)
Make sure that IGNORECASE is set to “Yes” so that the search isn’t case sensitive.
Now, it’s time to add that to a system you can use to keep track of new requests and route them to SMEs.
For this example, I’ve chosen to use Airtable. If you want to use this exact database, you can copy it here and we’ll use it as we move forward.
This database has tabs to keep track of your SMEs, the topics they can respond to, and the new requests that come in.
So, let’s connect that Airtable base to Zapier.
Our first step will be to find the right SME for the topic of our journo request.
To start, set the Action as “Find Record,” and link your Airtable base. We’ll pull from the SMEs table, and for “Search by Field” we’ll choose “Topics,” where we’ve previously added our SME’s favorite topics into the Airtable base.
Lastly for this step, map the “Search Value” to the previous step’s result (the topic from the PR query on X/Twitter).
Now, we’re going to create a new row in our “Requests” table in Airtable.
Add Airtable as the next step in this Zap, and select “Create Record” as the action. Link the same Airtable base, but this time select “Requests” as the Table.
Then, map the columns in that base to the information you’ve gathered. In this case, that would include:
Source = X/Twitter
Raw Text = The “Description” from RSS feed
Contact name = The “Raw Creator” from RSS feed
Contact Email = The output from our first Formatter step, which pulled the email from the original post
URL = Link from RSS feed
Topics = The output from our second Formatter step, which pulled the topic from the original post
SMEs = The “Fields Name” from our Airtable search step
Status = New
In the end, it should look like this:
And a new record is added into Airtable, like this:
If you want to get fancy with this, you can dig down into:
Which publications are requesting expertise, and rank them by their credibility
Automate messages to your SMEs to let them know there’s a new request for them
Get the Most Out of Social Media
For busy marketers, social media can be an incredible time-suck.
Keeping track of trends. Trying to post consistently.
All without getting stuck in an infinite doomscroll.
But a few simple automations can help you get back some of the time you spend on manually managing your socials.
7. Video Clip Automator
Tools required:
Zoom (free plan available)
Dropbox (free plan available)
OpusClip (plans start at $15/month)
Zapier (free for 100 tasks/month, paid plans start at $19.99/month)
Short-form video has been gradually gaining a bigger voice in marketing.
If you’re already creating long-form video (or even just doing recorded interviews with in-house experts), we have a handy automation to help you create video clips faster.
Here’s how it works:
Trigger: New Zoom cloud recording is ready
Action: Auto-create clips, burn captions, and create a new task in Asana
Output: You get social-ready video clips, and a new task to publish them
First, adjust your Zoom settings so your recordings upload automatically into a folder in Dropbox.
Next, head over to Zapier.
Your trigger step will be a new video uploaded to that folder in Dropbox.
Your next step will use OpusClip, an AI video editing tool. Select “Clip Your Video,” and map that new video file to the one uploaded in Dropbox.
OpusClip will then take your long-form video from Dropbox and use AI to clip key pieces. It also crops the video for vertical sharing and embeds captions.
You can also add your own brand template so that videos are edited with your brand’s colors and font.
Now that you have new video clips to share, it’s time to add a task to review and publish them.
So the final step in your Zap is “Create Task” in Asana (or your preferred project management tool).
You’ll tie this to a project you’ve already created in Asana, and link the project ID from OpusClip.
In the end, you’ll have a few video clips prepared and ready — all you have to do is download, review, and publish them to your social channels.
8. Comment & Community Nudge
Tools required:
Social media monitoring tool (like BrandMentions, paid plans start at $79/month)
Automation tool (like Zapier, free for 100 tasks/month, paid plans start at $19.99/month)
Are people talking about your brand online?
To keep positive sentiment high, you need to engage in those conversations. But finding the right conversations, and knowing how to reply, can take a lot of time.
Using a tool like BrandMentions, you can create a similar automation to what we built for the PR Radar earlier:
Trigger: A new mention of your brand appears on Reddit, Facebook, or LinkedIn
Action: Those new mentions are added to a Google Sheet, and you get a daily Slack message summarizing new mentions
To build this, all you’d need to do is swap out the Sources in your BrandMentions settings. Instead of Web, you’d include all of the social media channels you want to track.
If you want to get notifications for every new mention, you could connect the workflow to Slack. Then, a new message will be sent in the channel every time your brand is mentioned.
This basic automation could work for smaller brands.
But when you start getting hundreds of mentions per day, this will quickly become chaotic.
Here’s an example of how one company faced with this issue was able to automate this process in a deeper way:
Webflow was getting over 500 mentions per day. Their two-person team couldn’t keep up with monitoring and responding (alongside their regular workload).
So, they built an automation.
With Gumloop, they monitor, analyze, and flag only the posts that require a response.
They started with a Reddit scraper to pull relevant threads.
Then, they added an AI analyzer to gauge sentiment, rank priority, and assign a category.
After that, they added a step that would send all high-priority mentions to Slack for a team member to handle directly.
The result?
After testing and scaling this process, they were able to build an automation that processes 500+ mentions per day and escalates only the 10-15 that need immediate attention.
If you’ve ever thought, “How can I use AI to automate my marketing tasks?”
This is a great example of an AI automation that works for you without taking over your job.
Is Automation the Right Move? Ask Yourself These Questions First
Automation is the hottest trend.
But it’s hard to know what’s going to save you time and money, and what’s just another fad.
If you’ve ever spent more time trying to automate a task than it would’ve taken you to do the task manually, you’ll know what I mean.
To weigh up whether an automation is worth building, ask yourself these questions:
How much time does it take me to do this task manually every week?
Is the automation available with a tool I currently use, or would I have to pay for a new tool?
Is there a documented automation/integration I can follow?
Would this task still require human intervention (even with automation)?
Does this fit easily into our current workflow or process?
If the task:
Doesn’t take much time to do manually
Would still require human intervention even when automated
Isn’t easy to build an automation for
…it may not be worth your time.
On the other hand, if the task:
Is repetitive
Uses up hours of your workweek
Can be automated in tools you already have in your stack
…it’s probably time to give automation a try.
Build Your Automation Foundations, Then Keep Growing
The hype cycle of automation and AI can be overwhelming.
But don’t feel like you’re behind just because you haven’t automated away your entire marketing team yet.
Instead, focus on the automations that save you time and are sustainable.
We’ve just discussed eight different automations. Why not choose one or two that are most relevant to your business and team?
Start with the foundational automations that help smooth out your existing processes.
Then, you’ll have a better basis for building more complex automations.
To automate even more areas of your marketing workflows, check out our curated list of our favorite AI marketing tools right now.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity offers an AI-powered search engine.
AI tools offer a new way to search for factual information, where Perplexity stands out as an AI-native search engine that combines large language models with real-time web search.
With a valuation of $20 billion and a growing user base of 30 million monthly active users, Perplexity is one of the fastest-growing tech startups challenging Google’s dominance with its AI-native search engine.
From the number of Perplexity active users to company revenue, we’ll cover the latest stats about the popular AI search engine on this page.
Key Perplexity Stats
Perplexity has 30 million monthly active users.
Perplexity processes around 600 million search queries a month.
Lifetime downloads of Perplexity mobile apps reached 80.5 million to date.
According to Perplexity AI CEO, the search engine processes around 600 million queries per month as of April 2025. That’s an increase from 400 million reported in October 2024.
Here’s an overview of Perplexity AI monthly search volume over time since X:
According to the latest estimates, the Perplexity AI website received 239.7 million visits worldwide in November 2025, showing a 13.21% decrease compared to October 2025.
Here’s a website traffic breakdown of the Perplexity AI website since September 2025:
According to recent estimates, Perplexity AI app downloads across Google Play and App Store reached an estimated lifetime downloads of 80.5 million to date, including 5.1 million in November 2025 alone.
Perplexity AI had the highest number of app downloads in October 2025, with 15.5 million monthly installs worldwide.
Here’s a table with Perplexity AI app downloads over time since January 2024:
You’ve likely invested in AI tools for your marketing team, or at least encouraged people to experiment.
Some use the tools daily. Others avoid them. A few test them quietly on the side.
This inconsistency creates a problem.
An MIT study found that 95% of AI pilots fail to show measurable ROI.
Scattered marketing AI adoption doesn’t translate to proven time savings, higher output, or revenue growth.
AI usage ≠ AI adoption ≠ effective AI adoption.
To get real results, your whole team needs to use AI systematically with clear guidelines and documented outcomes.
But getting there requires removing common roadblocks.
In this guide, I’ll explain seven marketing AI adoption challenges and how to overcome them. By the end, you’ll know how to successfully roll out AI across your team.
Free roadmap: I created a companion AI adoption roadmap with step-by-step tasks and timeframes to help you execute your pilot. Download it now.
First up: One of the biggest barriers to AI adoption — lack of clarity on when and how to use it.
1. No Clear AI Use Cases to Guide Your Team
Companies often mandate AI usage but provide limited guidance on which tasks it should handle.
In my experience, this is one of the most common AI adoption challenges teams face. Regardless of industry or company size.
Vague directives like “use AI more” leave people guessing.
The solution is to connect tasks to tools so everyone knows exactly how AI fits into their workflow.
The Fix: Map Team Member Tasks to Your Tech Stack
Start by gathering your marketing team for a working session.
Ask everyone to write down the tasks they perform daily or weekly. (Not job descriptions, but actual tasks they repeat regularly.)
Then look for patterns.
Which tasks are repetitive and time-consuming?
Maybe your content team realizes they spend four hours each week manually tracking competitor content to identify gaps and opportunities. That’s a clear AI use case.
Or your analytics lead notices they are wasting half a day consolidating campaign performance data from multiple regions into a single report.
AI tools can automatically pull and format that data.
Once your team has identified use cases, match each task to the appropriate tool.
After your workshop, create assignments for each person based on what they identified in the session.
For example: “Automate competitor tracking with [specific tool].”
When your team knows exactly what to do, adoption becomes easier.
2. No Structured Plan to Roll Out AI Across the Organization
If you give AI tools to everyone at once, don’t be surprised if you get low adoption in return.
The issue isn’t your team or the technology. It’s launching without testing first.
The Fix: Start with a Pilot Program
A pilot program is a small-scale test where one team uses AI tools. You learn what works, fix problems, and prove value — before rolling it out to everyone else.
A company-wide launch doesn’t give you this learning period.
Everyone struggles with the same issues at once. And nobody knows if the problem is the tool, their approach, or both.
Which means you end up wasting months (and money) before realizing what went wrong.
Plan to run your pilot for 8-12 weeks.
Note: Your pilot timeline will vary by team.
Small teams can move fast and test in 4-8 weeks. Larger teams might need 3-4 months to gather enough feedback.
Start with three months as your baseline. Then adjust based on how quickly your team adapts.
Content, email, or social teams work best because they produce repetitive outputs that show AI’s immediate value.
Select 3-30 participants from this department, depending on your team size.
(Smaller teams might pilot with 3-5 people. Larger organizations can test with 20-30.)
Then, set measurable goals with clear targets you can track. Like:
Schedule weekly meetings to gather feedback throughout the pilot.
The pilot will produce department-specific workflows. But you’ll also discover what transfers: which training methods work, where people struggle, and what governance rules you need.
When you expand to other departments, they’ll adapt these frameworks to their own AI tasks.
After three months, you’ll have proven results and trained users who can teach the next group.
At that point, expand the pilot to your second department (or next batch of the same team).
They’ll learn from the first group’s mistakes and scale faster because you’ve already solved common problems.
Pro tip: Keep refining throughout the pilot.
Update prompts when they produce poor results
Add new tools when you find workflow gaps
Remove friction points the moment they appear
Your third batch will move even quicker.
Within a year, you’ll have organization-wide marketing AI adoption with measurable results.
Employees may resist AI marketing adoption because they fear losing their jobs to automation.
Headlines about AI replacing workers don’t help.
Your goal is to address these fears directly rather than dismissing them.
The Fix: Have Honest Conversations About Job Security
Meet with each team member and walk through how AI affects their workflow.
Point out which repetitive tasks AI will automate. Then explain what they’ll work on with that freed-up time.
Be careful about the language you use. Be empathetic and reassuring.
For example, don’t say “AI makes you more strategic.”
Say: “AI will pull performance reports automatically. You’ll analyze the insights, identify opportunities, and make strategic decisions on budget allocation.”
One is vague. The other shows them exactly how their role evolves.
Don’t just spring changes on your team. Give them a clear timeline.
Explain when AI tools will roll out, when training starts, and when you expect them to start using the new workflows.
For example: “We’re implementing AI for competitor tracking in Q2. Training happens in March. By April, this becomes part of your weekly process.”
When people know what’s coming and when, they have time to prepare instead of panicking.
Pro tip: Let people choose which AI features align with their interests and work style.
Some team members might gravitate toward AI for content creation. Others prefer using it for data analysis or reporting.
When people have autonomy over which features they adopt first, resistance decreases. They’re exploring tools that genuinely interest them rather than following mandates.
5. Your Team Resists AI-Driven Workflow Changes
People resist AI when it disrupts their established workflows.
Your team has spent years perfecting their processes. AI represents change, even when the benefits are obvious.
Resistance gets stronger when organizations mandate AI usage without considering how people actually work.
New platforms can be especially intimidating.
It means new logins, new interfaces, and completely new workflows to learn.
Rather than forcing everyone to change their workflows at once, let a few team members test the new approach first using familiar tools.
The Fix: Start with AI Features in Existing Tools
Your team likely already uses HubSpot, Google Ads, Adobe, or similar platforms daily.
When you use AI within existing tools, your team learns new capabilities without learning an entirely new system.
If you’re running a pilot program, designate 2-3 participants as AI champions.
Their role goes beyond testing — they actively share what they’re learning with the broader team.
The AI champions should be naturally curious about new tools and respected by their colleagues (not just the most senior people).
Have them share what they discover in a team Slack channel or during standups:
Specific tasks that are now faster or easier
What surprised them (good or bad)
Tips or advice on how others can use the tool effectively
When others see real examples, such as “I used Social Content AI to create 10 LinkedIn posts in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours,” it carries more weight than reassurance from leadership.
For example, if your team already uses a tool like Semrush, your champions can demonstrate how its AI features improve their workflows.
Keyword Magic Tool’s AI-powered Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%) score shows which keywords your site can realistically rank for — without requiring any manual research or analysis.
Your content writers can input a topic, set their brand voice, and get a structured first draft in minutes. This reduces the time spent staring at a blank page.
Social Content AI handles the repetitive parts of social media planning. It generates post ideas, copy variations, and images.
Your social team can quickly build out a week’s content calendar instead of creating each post from scratch.
Don’t have a Semrush subscription? Sign up now and get a 14-day free trial + get a special 17% discount on annual plan.
6. No Governance or Guardrails to Keep AI Usage Safe
Without clear guidelines, your team may either avoid AI entirely or use it in ways that create risk.
They paste customer data into ChatGPT without realizing it violates data policies.
Or publish AI-generated content without approval because the review process was never explained.
Your team needs clear guidelines on what’s allowed, what’s not, and who approves what.
Free AI policy template: Need help creating your company’s AI policy? Download our free AI Marketing Usage Policy template. Customize it with your team’s tools and workflows, and you’re ready to go.
The Fix: Create a One-Page AI Usage Policy
When creating your policy, keep it simple and accessible. Don’t create a 20-page document nobody will read.
Aim for 1-2 pages that are straightforward and easy to follow.
Include four key areas to keep AI usage both safe and productive.
Policy Area
What to Include
Example
Approved Tools
List which AI tools your team can use — both standalone tools and AI features in platforms you already use
“Approved: ChatGPT, Claude, Semrush’s AI Article Generator, Adobe Firefly”
Data Sharing Rules
Define specifically what data can and can’t be shared with AI tools
“Safe to share: Product descriptions, blog topics, competitor URLs
Concerns about whether AI-generated content is accurate or appropriate
Questions about data sharing
The goal is to give them a clear path to get help, rather than guessing or avoiding AI altogether.
Then, post the policy where your team will see it.
This might be your Slack workspace, project management tool, or a pinned document in your shared drive.
And treat it as a living document.
When the same question comes up multiple times, add the answer to your policy.
For example, if three people ask, “Can I use AI to write email subject lines?” update your policy to explicitly say yes (and clarify who reviews them before sending).
7. No Reliable Way to Measure AI’s Impact or ROI
Without clear proof that AI improves their results, team members may assume it’s just extra work and return to old methods.
And if leadership can’t see a measurable impact, they might question the investment.
This puts your entire AI program at risk.
Avoid this by establishing the right metrics before implementing AI.
The Fix: Track Business Metrics (Not Just Efficiency)
Here’s how to measure AI’s business impact properly.
Pick 2-3 metrics your leadership already reviews in reports or meetings.
These are typically:
Leads generated
Conversion rate
Revenue growth
Customer acquisition
Customer retention
These numbers demonstrate to your team and leadership that AI is helping your business.
Then, establish your baseline by recording your current numbers. (Do this before implementing AI tools.)
For example, if you’re tracking leads and conversion rate, write down:
Current monthly leads: 200
Current conversion rate: 3%
This baseline lets you show your team (and leadership) exactly what changed after implementing AI.
Pro tip: Avoid making multiple changes simultaneously during your pilot or initial rollout.
If you implement AI while also switching platforms or restructuring your team, you won’t know which change drove results.
Keep other variables stable so you can clearly attribute improvements to AI.
Once AI is in use, check your metrics monthly to see if they’re improving. Use the same tools you used to record your baseline.
Write down your current numbers next to your baseline numbers.
For example:
Baseline leads (before AI): 200 per month
Current leads (3 months into AI): 280 per month
But don’t just check if numbers went up or down.
Look for patterns:
Did one specific campaign or content type perform better after using AI?
Are certain team members getting better results than others?
Track individual output alongside team metrics.
For example, compare how many blog posts each writer completes per week, or email open rates by the person who drafted them.
If someone’s consistently performing better, ask them to share their AI workflow with the team.
This shows you what’s working, and helps the rest of your team improve.
Share results with both your team and leadership regularly.
When reporting, connect AI’s impact to the metrics you’ve been tracking.
For example:
Say: “AI cut email creation time from 4 hours to 2.5 hours. We used that time to run 30% more campaigns, which increased quarterly revenue from email by $5,000.”
Not: “We saved 90 hours with AI email tools.”
The first shows business impact — what you accomplished with the time saved. The second only shows time saved.
Other examples of how to frame your reporting include:
Build Your Marketing AI Adoption Strategy
When AI usage is optional, undefined, or unsupported, it stays fragmented.
Effective marketing AI adoption looks different.
It’s built on:
Role-specific training people actually use
Guardrails that reduce uncertainty and risk
Metrics that drive business outcomes
When those pieces are in place, AI becomes part of how work gets done.
With AI tools at everyone’s fingertips, what does “great” content writing mean in 2026?
Content writing is about using words and psychology to deliver value, earn trust, and move readers toward action.
It includes blog posts, social media content, newsletters, and white papers. Or it can be scripts for video, podcasts, and presentations.
Content Type
Purpose
Key Characteristics
Blog posts
Educate; build brand awareness and authority
In-depth, structured, research-backed
Social media posts
Engage, entertain, build community
Conversational, visual, platform-specific
Email newsletters
Nurture relationships; drive action
Personal tone, value-driven, scannable
Video/podcast scripts
Entertain; educate through audio/visual
Conversational, paced for speech, engaging hooks
Presentations/webinars
Educate and engage viewers for awareness
Educational, crisp content presented visually
Unlike copywriting, which persuades the audience to take an action, content writing builds trust through teaching.
Thanks to AI tools, filling pages is easier and faster than ever.
And as content becomes easier to produce, attention becomes harder to earn — whether readers are scrolling social feeds, skimming search results, or asking AI tools for quick answers.
The best content writers bring a full toolkit: deep research, sharp critical thinking, strategic judgment, and the ability to apply those strengths in ways AI can’t replicate.
In this guide, you’ll learn eight content writing skills that set top performers apart, shaped by my work with leading brands and insights from my colleagues at Backlinko.
Important: Research and editing are learnable skills. But the instinct for what makes content memorable — what makes someone stop scrolling, what creates emotional resonance — that’s the human layer AI can’t recreate.
1. Build and Hone Your Research Skills
Strong research is what separates fluff from content people trust.
Here’s how to build a hands-on research process.
Start with Your Audience
Audience research is the easiest way to understand your readers: their pain points, goals, and hesitations.
Start your research in a few simple but effective ways:
Mine social media platforms to find emotional drivers behind buying decisions
Skim product reviews to learn what excites or frustrates your audience
Talk directly to your audience through polls, surveys, or 1:1 interviews
Browse community forums to see real conversations around your subject
For example, if you’re writing about the “best SaaS tools,” don’t rely on generic feature lists to inspire your content.
Rosanna Campbell, a senior writer for Backlinko, shares what she looks for when researching an audience:
At a minimum, I like to spend time learning the jargon, current issues, etc., affecting my target reader — usually by lurking on platforms like Reddit, Quora, industry forums, LinkedIn threads, etc. I’ll also find one or two leading voices and read some of their recent content.
But you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself.
AI can speed up much of this process.
Note: AI won’t write great content for you, but it can streamline your research and editing process. Throughout this guide, I’ve included prompts to help you work smarter and faster — not let AI do the thinking for you.
For instance, Michael Ofei, our managing editor, uses a strategic prompt to aggregate audience insights from multiple channels.
Copy/paste this prompt into any AI tool to jumpstart your research (just update your topic description first).
You are a content strategist researching audience pain points for: [TOPIC DESCRIPTION]
RESEARCH SOURCES: Analyze discussions from Reddit, Quora, YouTube comments, LinkedIn posts, and People Also Ask sections from the last 12 months.
PAIN POINT CRITERIA:
Written as first-person “I” statements
Specific and actionable (not vague)
Include emotional context where relevant
Reflect different sophistication levels (beginner to advanced)
OUTPUT FORMAT: First, suggest 3-5 pain point categories for this topic’s user journey.
Then create a table with:
Category (from your suggested categories)
Pain Point Statement (first person)
User Level (Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced – use one for each pain point)
Emotional Intensity (Low/Medium/High)
Semantic Queries (related searches)
Aim for 8-12 total pain points that help content rank for both traditional search and LLM responses. Provide only the essential table output, minimize explanatory text.
After using this prompt for the topic “journalist outreach,” Michael received a helpful list of pain points mapped to user level and emotional intensity.
Perform a Search Analysis
Next, it’s time to review organic search results to assess what content already exists and where you can add value.
Chris Shirlow, our senior editor, stresses the importance of looking closely at who’s ranking and how when studying search results:
Analyzing search results gives me a quick pulse on the topic: how people are talking about it, what questions they’re asking, and even what pain points are showing up. From there, I can identify gaps, spot patterns in language and structure, and figure out how to create something that adds value, rather than just echoing what’s already out there.
Pay attention to:
Content depth: Is the content shallow (short posts) or comprehensive (long guides)?
Authority: Who’s ranking — big brands, niche experts, or smaller sites?
Visuals: What kind of visuals can make your content stand out?
Gaps and missing angles: What’s missing that you could add?
Then, repeat the same process with large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
AI has changed how people discover and consume information.
This means it’s no longer enough to rank on Google; your content also needs to surface in AI-generated answers.
Notice the type of insights coming up in AI-generated responses, and find gaps in the results.
Pay attention to the frequently cited brands and content formats to understand what AI considers “trusted.”
Study those articles closely to see how they’re earning citations and mentions.
Map Out Key Topics with Content Tools
Tools like Semrush’s Topic Research also help you learn more about the topics your audience is interested in.
Enter a topic like “lifecycle email marketing” and you’ll get a visual map of related themes like “loyalty program” and “segmenting your audience.”
This gives you insight into the subtopics to cover, questions to answer, and angles that resonate with your audience.
2. Find Fresh Angles to Create Standout Content
Don’t fall into the trap of rehashing what’s already ranking.
Find new angles and content ideas to break through the crowd.
Angles come from tension. This can be a surprising insight, a common mistake, a high-stakes story, or a view that challenges the norm.
Without tension, you’re just adding to the noise. Here’s how to find them.
Find Gaps in Existing Content
Study the top-ranking and frequently cited articles for your topic, and see what’s missing.
It could be:
Shallow sections that need a deeper analysis
Topics explained without visuals, examples, or case studies
Predictable “safe takes” that ignore alternative perspectives and bold advice
Use this framework to document these gaps.
Content Gap
What to Assess
Depth
Is the content surface-level? Are key topics rushed, repetitive, or missing nuance?
Evidence
Are claims backed by credible proof like examples, case studies, data, or visuals?
Perspective
Does it repeat what everyone else is saying, or bring a fresh angle?
Format
Is the information structured logically and easy to scan?
Consider Opportunities for Information Gain
Information gain adds unique value to your content compared to the existing content on the same topic.
Think original data, free templates, and new strategies.
Basically, it helps your content stand out from the crowd. And creates an “aha” moment for your readers.
Use these tips to add information gain to your articles:
Find concrete proof: Support your claims with original research, case studies, quotes, or real examples from your own experience or industry experts
Expand on throwaway insights: Take loosely discussed ideas and cover them in detail with additional context, data, and actionable takeaways
Counter predictable advice: Stand out with contrarian perspectives, exceptions, or overlooked approaches
Address unanswered questions: Find what confuses readers and fill those gaps with your content
At Backlinko, our writers and editors consider information gain early in outlining to uncover gaps and add value from the start.
Here’s how our senior editor, Shannon Willoby, approaches it:
I try not to default to common industry sources when gathering research. Everyone pulls from these, which is why you’ll often see industry blogs all quoting the same people, statistics, and insights. Instead, I look for lesser-known sources for information gain, like podcasts with industry experts, webinar transcripts, niche newsletters, and conference presentations. AI tools can also help with this task, but you’ll have to thoroughly vet the recommendations.
In my own article on ecommerce SEO audits, I proposed a simplified, goal-based structure for the outline, with an actionable checklist — something missing from existing content.
This approach gave readers a clearer roadmap instead of just another generic audit guide.
Use AI as a Creativity Multiplier
AI content tools make great sparring partners that enhance your thinking.
For instance, Shannon shares her process for using AI to refine her research.
Once I’ve drafted my main points, I’ll ask ChatGPT or Claude a question like, ‘What’s the next question a reader might have after this?’ This helps me spot gaps and add supporting details that make the article more valuable to the audience.
The following prompts can help you find deeper angles and improve your audience alignment:
How to use AI to improve content
Prompts
Find blind spots
Here’s my research for an article on [topic]. What questions or objections would readers still have after going through this? List gaps I should address to make it feel more complete.
Challenge assumptions
I’m arguing that [insert your point]. Play devil’s advocate: what would be the strongest counterarguments against this view, and what evidence could support them?
Explore alternative perspectives
Rewrite this idea as if you were speaking to: (a) a total beginner, (b) a mid-level practitioner, and (c) a skeptic. Show me how each group would interpret or question it differently.
3. Back Up Your Points with Evidence
Evidence-backed content gives weight to your arguments and makes abstract ideas easier to digest.
It also helps your content stick in readers’ minds long after they’ve clicked away.
This includes firsthand examples, data, case studies, and expert insights.
The key is using reputable, industry-leading sources in your content writing. And backing up claims with verifiable proof.
Pro tip: LLMs favor evidence-backed content when generating responses — boosting both your authority as a writer and your clients’ visibility.
Here’s how different types of evidence can strengthen your content:
Recent research data: Backs up trends and industry shifts with hard numbers
Case studies: Proves outcomes are achievable with real-world results
Expert quotes: Adds credibility when challenging assumptions or introducing new ideas
Examples: Makes abstract concepts concrete and relatable
4. Structure Your Ideas in a Detailed Outline
An outline organizes your ideas and insights into a clear structure before you start writing.
It maps out the key sections you’ll cover, supporting evidence, and the order in which you’ll present your points.
I included a working headline, H2s, and main points. I also added my plans for information gain.
This shows clients or employers how you’ll deliver unique value — and keeps you focused on differentiating your content from the start.
To get started with your outline, think of your core argument: what’s the most important takeaway you want readers to leave with?
From there, use the inverted pyramid to create an intuitive structure.
Include the most important details at the start of every section, then layer additional context as you go.
Pro tip: Save time with Semrush’s SEO Brief Generator. Add your topic and keywords, and it generates a solid outline instantly. From there, you can refine it with your own research and insights.
5. Develop Your Unique Writing Voice
Two people can write about the same topic.
But the one with a distinct voice is the one people quote, bookmark, and remember.
Assess Your Writing Personality
To define your writing personality, start by analyzing how you naturally communicate.
Look at your emails, Slack messages, and social posts.
Notice patterns in tone, humor, pacing, analogies, pop-culture references, or how often you use data and stats.
Then, distill these insights into a few adjectives that describe how you want to sound.
Like professional, insightful, and authoritative.
Use these to guide your writing voice.
For example, let’s say your adjectives are conversational, humorous, and authentic.
Here’s how that might look in practice:
Conversational: Short sentences with casual, relatable language. “Let’s be real — writing your first draft is 90% staring at a blinking cursor.”
Humorous: Use wit or funny references to engage readers. Instead of “Most introductions are too long,” you might say, “Most intros drag on longer than a Marvel end-credit scene.”
Authentic: Add stories from your lived experiences to make people feel seen. “When I first launched my blog, my mom was my only reader for six months.”
Get Inspired by Your Favorite Writers
To keep sharpening your voice, study writers you admire.
Pay attention to their rhythm, tone, and structure.
What terms do they use? How do they hold your attention — whether in a long-form blog post or a quick LinkedIn update?
Borrow what works, then put your own spin on it so it still sounds like you.
Adapt to Your Clients’ Voices
As a content writer, clients and employers will often expect you to adapt your writing to their brand voice.
This might mean adjusting your tone, pacing, or word choice to match their brand’s personality.
Study a few of their blog posts or emails to understand their style.
Note patterns in rhythm and vocabulary, and mirror those in your draft — without losing what makes your writing yours.
AI tools can help you check how well your draft matches your client’s voice.
Upload both the brand’s voice guidelines and your draft to an LLM and use this prompt:
I’ve added the brand voice guidelines and my draft for this brand.
Compare my draft against the guidelines and tell me:
Where my tone, word choice, or style drifts away from the brand voice
Specific sentences I should rewrite to better match the guidelines
Suggestions for how to make the overall flow feel more consistent with the brand voice
6. Add Rich Media to Improve Scannability
Even the best ideas lose impact when hidden behind walls of text.
Plus, research shows that most people skim web pages. Their eyes dart to headlines, opening lines, and anything that stands out visually.
That’s why adding visual breaks, such as images, screenshots, and tables, is so important.
Visual content works well when you want to illustrate a point.
It also simplifies or amplifies ideas that are hard to convey with text alone.
As Chris Hanna, our senior editor, puts it:
Often, words alone just won’t make full sense in the reader’s mind, or they won’t have the desired impact on their own. Anytime you’d personally prefer to see a visual explanation, it’s worth thinking about how you can convey it through visuals. If you can imagine watching a video on the topic you’re writing about, use that as your guide for how you could illustrate it with graphics.
Here are a few places where infographics can supplement your writing:
Comparisons:
Tables or side-by-side visuals
Frameworks and models:
Diagrams or matrices
Workflows and processes:
Flowcharts or timelines
Abstract concepts:
Layered visuals (like Venn diagrams)
At Backlinko, we track visual break density (VBD) — the ratio of visuals to text.
Our goal is a visual break density of 12% or higher for every article.
That’s about 12 visuals (images, GIFs, callout boxes, or tables) per 1,000 words to keep content easy to scan and engaging.
Here’s how this looks in practice:
We do this to improve the readability, retention, and engagement of our articles, from start to finish.
7. Understand How to Sell Through Your Content
Every piece of content sells something — a product, a signup, a return visit.
But good content doesn’t read like a pitch.
It gently nudges people to take action by building trust and solving real problems.
Lead with Value
This is what Klaviyo, an email marketing platform, does through its blog content.
They include helpful examples, original data, and actionable tips in their content writing.
But they also weave in product mentions that feel helpful, not salesy.
There are case studies, screenshots, and examples that show how real clients used their platform to increase revenue.
This is smart for a few reasons.
It proves their expertise, reinforces how their product solves real problems, and delivers value — even if the reader never becomes a customer.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Features
People don’t care what a company offers — they care what it helps them achieve.
Features talk about what you offer. Outcomes show people how they can benefit.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
Feature-driven writing
Outcome-driven writing
“Redesigned homepage using Figma and custom CSS”
“After my redesign, load time dropped to 2 seconds and conversions jumped 40%. Here’s how I planned it.”
“Our tool automates monthly reporting.”
“One agency cut reporting time from 5 hours to 1 and reinvested those 4 hours into client growth. Let’s break down this workflow to help you achieve similar results.”
Show people you understand their frustrations by baking their pain points into your content writing.
When readers sense you’ve been in their shoes, they’re more open to your advice.
Take this HubSpot CRM product page, for example.
It highlights real frustrations — setup hassles, messy migrations, lost data — the exact headaches their audience feels.
Then, it shifts to outcomes with copy like “unified data” and higher productivity from “day one.”
That’s outcome-driven content writing. It connects with the audience immediately and makes the benefits crystal clear.
Share Your Firsthand Struggles
Authority matters, but so does humility.
Be honest about your wins and failures. It makes your content feel real.
Here’s an example from one of my Backlinko articles where I shared my struggles with creating a social media calendar:
I relate to the audience with language like “too many tabs” and “overwhelming categorization.”
And provide a free calendar template so readers can apply what they learn.
Pro tip: Free resources, such as tools, frameworks, and templates, make your content more actionable. Even a simple checklist or worksheet can help readers take the next step, and make your work far more memorable.
8. Finalize Your Work
Here’s the truth: your first draft is never your best draft.
Editing is where your content truly comes alive.
Step Away from Your Draft
One of the simplest editing tricks in the book? Give your draft some breathing room.
Chris Shirlow, our senior content editor, explains why:
Spend too much time in an article and you lose all perspective. Take a walk, sleep on it, or do something totally unrelated. When you come back, you’ll see what’s working — and what’s not — much more clearly.
It may take a few rounds of editing and refining before you get everything just right:
Round 1 (quick wins): Go through the article. Does it flow logically? Is it easy to understand? Do your examples clearly illustrate the core ideas?
Round 2 (structure): Ask AI for editing feedback. What are you missing? Does the structure/writing flow naturally? Is there any room to add more value?
Round 3 (polish): Tighten sentences, transitions, audience alignment, and examples
Here’s a prompt you can use for Round 2:
You are an expert editor specializing in long-form content writing. Please analyze my draft on the topic [ADD TOPIC] for its structure, flow, and reader experience.
Specifically, give feedback and suggestions on:
Structure: Are the sections ordered logically? Does each section build on the previous one?
Depth and focus: Which parts feel under-explained or too detailed? How can I tighten or expand them to improve the flow?
Reader journey: Where might readers drop off or lose context?
Summarize your feedback into 3–5 actionable editing priorities.
Pro tip: AI suggestions feel generic? Train the tool on your style first. Both Claude and ChatGPT let you upload writing samples and guidelines so their suggestions align with your voice.
Prioritize Clarity Over Cleverness
If your audience has to re-read a sentence to understand it, you’ve lost them.
As Yongi Barnard, our senior content writer, says:
A clever turn of phrase is nice, but the goal is for readers to understand your point immediately. Edit out any language that makes them pause to figure out what you mean.
Take a quick litmus test: Is this sentence/phrase/word here because it helps my audience, or because I like how it sounds?
You’ll know a sentence/phrase needs to be cut if it…
Slows down the flow
Makes the point harder to understand
Is redundant
Common issues in content writing (and how to fix them) include:
Problem Areas
Weak Example
Strong Example
Wordiness
“At this point in time, in order to improve your rankings, you need to be focusing on the basics of SEO.”
“To improve rankings, focus on SEO basics.”
Jargon
“We need to leverage synergies across verticals.”
“We need different teams to work together.”
Abstract Claims
“Content quality is important for SEO success.”
“Sites that publish in-depth content (2,000+ words) rank higher than thin pages.”
Build Your Personal Editing Checklist
Every writer has blind spots: repeated grammar errors, overused words, or formatting mistakes.
That’s why Yongi suggests creating a personal editing checklist that includes common errors and recurring feedback from editors.
Chris Hanna suggests going through the checklist before submitting your draft:
Run a cmd+F (Mac) or CTRL+F (Windows) search in the doc each time. It’ll help you catch the most important but easy-to-fix errors.
Over time, you’ll naturally make fewer mistakes.
Here’s an editing checklist to get you started:
The Self-Editing Checklist
Big picture
Does the piece serve the reader (not me)?
Is the main takeaway crystal clear from the start?
Does the flow make sense, with each section leading naturally to the next?
Clarity and value
Is every section genuinely useful, not filler?
Did I back up claims with examples, data, or stories?
Did I explain the ideas simply enough that my target readers would get it?
Language and style
Am I prioritizing clarity over cleverness?
Are any sentences too long or clunky — could I cut or split them?
Did I cut filler words (actually, very, really, in order to, due to the fact that)?
Engagement
Did I vary sentence lengths?
Does the tone feel human — not robotic, not overly formal?
Is there at least a touch of personality (humor, storytelling, relatability)?
Polish
Are transitions smooth between sections?
Did I run a spell-check and grammar-check?
Did I read it out loud (or edit bottom-up) to catch awkward phrasing?
Did I run through my personal “repeat offender” list (words/phrases I overuse)?
Final Pass
Did I add relevant internal links?
Does the article end with a clear, valuable takeaway?
Did I include a natural next step (CTA, resource, or link) without sounding pushy?
Pro tip: Use a free tool like Hemingway Editor to tighten your writing. It gives you a readability grade and highlights long sentences, passive voice, and other clarity issues.
How to Become a Content Writer: A Quick Roadmap
If you’re starting from scratch, don’t worry — every great content writer began exactly where you are.
Here’s how to build momentum and get noticed.
Find a Niche You’re Passionate About
The fastest way to level up as a writer? Specialize.
Niching down builds authority — and makes clients trust you faster.
Passion: You care enough to keep learning and writing when it gets tough
Potential: There’s growing demand for this information
Profitability: Businesses invest in content on this topic
Pro tip: Validate before you commit. Check job boards, freelance platforms, and brand blogs to see who’s hiring and publishing in that niche. If both interest and demand line up, you’ve found a winner.
Build Expertise and Authority in Your Niche
Once you pick a niche, become a trusted voice.
This gives you multiple advantages:
Traditional and AI search engines see your content as authoritative
Readers are more likely to trust what you say
Your content is more likely to be shared and quoted
Start with what you know. Draw from your own experiences to add depth and credibility.
For example, the travel writer India Amos built her authority by writing firsthand reviews.
Her Business Insider piece about a ferry ride is grounded in real experience, making the content trustworthy and relatable.
But don’t limit yourself to content writing for clients. Get your name out there.
Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini: AI search insight and prompt-based content discovery
Pro tip: Consider pursuing niche-specific certifications to stand out. This is especially helpful in “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) fields like finance, health, or law, where expertise and trust matter most.
Show Proof of Work with a Portfolio
A portfolio showcases what you bring to the table and provides proof of your accomplishments as a writer.
But you don’t have to spend weeks (or months) building one.
What matters most is what’s inside your portfolio, such as:
A short intro about who you are and what you offer
Writing samples that showcase your expertise
Testimonials or references
Contact information
Tools like Notion, Contra, Authory, and Bento let you design a portfolio in minutes.
For instance, here’s my Authory portfolio:
I like this platform because it automatically adds all articles credited to my name.
You can also invest in a website for more control and search visibility.
I did both — having a portfolio and website helps me improve my online visibility:
LinkedIn can also double as your portfolio.
Add details about each client and link to your articles in the “Experience” section of your profile.
Share your on-the-job insights, feature testimonials, and engage in relevant conversations.
And don’t forget to post your favorite work, from blog posts to copywriting.
Unlike a static site, LinkedIn keeps you visible in real time.
Future-Proof Your Content Writing Skills
Use what you’ve learned here to create content that builds your reputation and lands clients.
Because great content writing doesn’t just fill pages. It opens doors.
And as AI continues to reshape the content world, the best writers don’t resist it — they evolve with it.
So, don’t fear artificial intelligence as a writer. Use it to your advantage.
Read our guide:How to Use AI to Create Exceptional Content. It’s packed with practical workflows, expert insights, and handy prompts that will help you work smarter and stay ahead.
