Podcast Summary

Podcast: AI-Driven Marketer: Master Practical AI Marketing Skills
Host: Dan Sanchez
Episode: The Top AI Tool Marketers Rarely Use (That I Use Weekly)
Date: April 3, 2026

Overview

In this episode, Dan Sanchez dives deep into "Deep Research"—an underutilized AI tool available in ChatGPT—that he considers essential for marketers. Dan shares how he leverages Deep Research in his weekly workflow to supercharge audience understanding, discover insights, and speed up high-quality research that historically would take days of manual effort. He maps out its unique value, practical use cases, and actionable tips to help listeners harness it for their own marketing, content, and strategy work.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

What is Deep Research? (00:04–05:44)

• Underused Power Tool: Dan opens by calling Deep Research one of the best, yet most overlooked, AI tools available to marketers today.
• Location & Accessibility:
  • Available in ChatGPT (left sidebar and plus bar of tools), also accessible in Gemini and inside project folders for extra context.
  • "Despite what a lot of people say about it, [ChatGPT's] still one of the most robust AI tools out there." (01:43)
• Deep Research vs. Web Search:
  • Typical web search just skims surface; Deep Research performs iterative, multi-layered web investigation, simulating how a researcher would tackle complex problems over hours.

How Deep Research Actually Works (05:45–12:10)

• Assignment-Grade Prompts Essential:
  • The output is only as good as the prompt. Treat Deep Research like tasking a smart assistant: give context, goals, sources to target, and desired format.
  • "Clarity is kindness. We want to be clear in our communication. That certainly is true when it comes to being clear with ChatGPT." (11:04)
• Example Prompt:
  Dan reads out a detailed prompt to analyze pain points of conservative Christian mothers, specifying platforms (Reddit, Quora, customer reviews), summaries, tables, and direct quotes with sources.
  • "If you were to give an employee a prompt to go and do a full-on research project, you’d probably want to communicate...more details rather than ‘hey, can you go do some research on this one thing?’" (09:17)
• Output Quality:
  • Dan compares AI-powered reports with previous manual research he did, stating, "the report [Deep Research] gave back was even better than what I had already done manually." (12:47)
  • Deep Research not only summarizes main findings but categorizes, organizes, and illustrates them with direct quotes and sources for context validation.

Real-World Use Case: Audience Deep Research Reports (12:11–22:30)

• First Steps at New Company:
  • Dan shares how he applies Deep Research when joining new teams, like at Trim Healthy Mama, to understand brand and audience well.
  • Developed a library of “audience deep research prompts” for:
    • Customer pain points
    • Competitor weaknesses
    • Product innovation opportunities
    • Industry trends
    • Content gaps
    • Objection handling
    • Audience lingo and more
  • "Once we can lock in on the pain, we can...speak and sell more effectively to that pain." (18:56)
• Sample Findings:
  • Main pain points for mothers: exhaustion, postpartum body image, feeding family on a budget, mealtime struggles.
  • Actual forum quotes included, such as:
    • "I’m just exhausted, mentally, physically, I barely have time for myself, I’m only 32, but I feel like I aged 10 plus years due to stress." (Reddit) (18:15)
    • "Winter sucks. Being cooped up doing the same thing day in and day out, it’s mentally exhausting and most days I just count down the minutes until bedtime..." (Reddit) (18:40)
    • "Looking after three little humans every day is very hard. I think you are very tired and super exhausted." (Reddit) (19:04)
• Why Audience Research Matters for Marketers:
  • "If you don’t have time to talk to customers, at least do this because it’s pulling from their actual posts across the forums..." (20:31)
  • Deep Research’s efficiency means “what would normally take 20–30 hours of an employee...it’s going to do in 20–40 minutes.” (12:16)

How Dan Integrates Deep Research Into Daily Workflow (22:31–28:00)

• Continuous Reference & Strategy:
  • Dan stores Deep Research reports in Google Drive and references them as context for writing pages, social posts, PR, announcements, and making strategic decisions across different AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude).
  • "My prompts are freaking supercharged because I’m often attaching it to deep research reports..." (25:01)
• Keeping Research Fresh:
  • Dan revisits, contrasts, and occasionally reruns reports to stay relevant as audience needs change over time.

Beyond Audience: Other Deep Research Applications (28:01–34:12)

• Narrowing Focus or Broadening Search:
  • Deep Research can limit scope to specific URLs (your own sites, competitors) or allow broad web searches.
  • Example: Compare pricing across multiple competitors by limiting search to their e-commerce sites—“Ooh, that’s good.” (31:18)
• Using Voice Input for Faster Commands:
  • “You could just push the little dictate button and let it actually take your voice down to do it so that it goes faster.” (32:14)
• Summarization & Time Saving:
  • AI can be asked to generate summaries (TLDRs) of complex reports or continue follow-up research.
  • “Deep Research is so useful for a number of different initiatives, but if you’re going to start with one, I promise the audience research prompts that I created will not let you down.” (33:50)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why Deep Research stands out:
  • "Some of the things that came out last year are still freaking hitting hard and this is one of them." (09:19)
• Prompt-writing wisdom:
  • "Clarity is kindness...We want to be clear in our communication. That certainly is true when it comes to being clear with ChatGPT." (11:03)
• On the marketer’s job:
  • "If you don’t have time to talk to customers, at least do this because it’s pulling from their actual posts across the forums where they’re talking about their problems." (20:31)
• On speeding up work:
  • "What would normally take 20–30 hours of an employee to go do, it’s going to do in 20–40 minutes." (12:16)
• On using research for better copy:
  • "It has all the context it needs in order to actually make it sound like your customers are writing it themselves." (25:29)
• On the future of Deep Research:
  • "Once you start using it for audience research, I think you’ll start to find it useful across a number of different initiatives..." (33:45)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:04–03:28 — Introduction and big claim: Deep Research is the tool marketers must use
• 03:29–05:44 — Locating and activating Deep Research in ChatGPT and Gemini
• 05:45–09:16 — How Deep Research works; why standard web search isn’t enough
• 09:17–12:10 — The importance of thoughtful, detail-rich prompts
• 12:11–18:12 — Audience Deep Research example for Trim Healthy Mama; list of use cases
• 18:13–22:30 — Sample findings, real quotes, and actionable insights
• 22:31–28:00 — Integrating Deep Research into daily/weekly workflow; storing and referencing reports
• 28:01–34:12 — Advanced applications: custom URLs, competitor research, summarization, and time-saving tips

Resources Mentioned

• Dan’s audience Deep Research prompts & guide:
  danches.com/audience (Get the 12 ready-made prompts Dan uses for audience research. Opt-in required.)

Takeaways

• Deep Research is a versatile, underused AI tool that can dramatically improve the speed and quality of marketing research, especially for marketers with limited resources.
• Using comprehensive, well-structured prompts is crucial—AI output mirrors the quality and clarity of your instructions.
• Real audience voices (via direct quotes) and tailored summaries lead to more authentic, effective marketing communications.
• Storing research reports for ongoing use amplifies your output across all your marketing and strategy work.

Dan’s episode energizes marketers to move beyond surface-level research, offering a playbook for making Deep Research a routine, high-impact part of their workflow.