Restoring trust in AI-generated marketing content workflows

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Restoring Trust in AI-generated Marketing Content Workflows"

Podcast: Voices of Search
Host: Jordan Cooney (I Hear Everything)
Guest: Holly Enneking, Vice President of Marketing, Markup AI
Date: May 18, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the challenges and opportunities of implementing AI in content marketing workflows, focusing on the crucial need to maintain trust and quality at scale. Guest Holly Enneking shares her seasoned perspective on content strategy, brand building, and how technology—specifically Markup AI—is reshaping the review and validation stages of content. The discussion balances real-world experience, tactical explorations, and strategic foresight, giving listeners practical frameworks for restoring and preserving trust in AI-generated marketing content.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Holly Enneking’s Background in Marketing & Content Strategy

Timestamp: [01:44] – [06:15]

• Holly’s career spans nearly two decades, centered on digital marketing and brand strategy.
• Emphasizes the role of content in building trust, particularly for B2B companies. (“Building trust is essential to being able to have any impact on pipeline and revenue.” – Holly, [01:57])
• Past roles demonstrated two main content strategies:
  • Lev (Salesforce consultancy): Focused on instructional, tactical content to showcase team expertise and build credibility.
  • Return Path: Built strategy around cornerstone content pieces, using them as annual or quarterly tent poles for extensive organic lead generation.
• Core Message: Content is foundational (“table stakes”) to any organic growth or user acquisition strategy.

2. The AI Content Explosion & Markup AI’s Place in the Workflow

Timestamp: [07:02] – [08:36]

• AI enables rapid content production, but quality and trust are lagging.
• Most teams still rely on manual review—an approach that’s unscalable with today’s content volume.
• Markup AI’s Solution: “Content Guardian agents” integrate into existing tools (e.g., Google Docs) to scan, score, and suggest rewrites based on brand standards, accuracy, compliance, etc.
  • “It’s a quality check embedded right into the processes that you have.” – Holly ([07:50])
• Main benefit: Retain AI speed without sacrificing brand consistency or risk management.

3. Defining "Good" Content in the AI Era

Timestamp: [09:36] – [11:32]

• The definition of "good" is subjective and organization-specific.
• Modern “good” content must deliver unique value and true brand perspective, not just synthesize existing knowledge.
  • “AI-generated content is going to write what already exists… The good content that really stands out is writing something that's unexpected.” – Holly ([10:30])
• The marketer’s evolving role: move from just writing to being a skilled, discerning editor.

4. Competitive Pressure vs. True Value

Timestamp: [11:32] – [13:37]

• Mirroring competitors’ content (e.g., listicles or comparison pages) does not necessarily equate to quality or value for the audience.
• Focus should remain on solving real user problems, not just “matching” the competition.
  • “If the content isn't doing that then like, then why?” – Holly ([12:59])

5. Measuring Content Quality Before Publishing

Timestamp: [13:37] – [16:07]

• Markup AI enables content scoring and “readiness to publish” assessments based on customizable, strategic benchmarks (e.g., updated citations, standalone snippet quality).
• Quantitative measurement is replacing “vibes-based” quality checks.
• Practical advice: Build a pre-publish checklist for confidence and consistency.

6. Brand Voice, Persona, and Human Oversight

Timestamp: [16:46] – [18:50]

• Brand voice evaluation through AI: Markup AI analyzes brand guidelines/sample content to flag where copy can better reflect brand personality.
• Persona agent: Assesses whether content resonates with the specified target audience, offers suggestions for clarity or depth.
• Human editorial oversight is necessary for subjective, nuanced judgment, even when technology handles objective checks.

7. The “Human in the Loop” Paradigm & Automation

Timestamp: [18:50] – [22:35]

• Human review is subjective and often flawed; AI can handle black-and-white requirements, freeing marketers for higher-value critical assessment.
• Two review types:
  1. Deterministic (factual, consistent criteria: e.g., brand terms, compliance).
  2. Subjective/creative (unique brand POV, “would I stand behind this?”).
• Automate what always needs checking; reserve human time for brand-unique contributions.

8. Adapting Content for Specific Personas & Regulatory Environments

Timestamp: [23:36] – [25:23]

• Audience and industry dramatically impact content requirements.
• Regulated industries face higher scrutiny; errors or unsupported claims can have financial/legal ramifications.
• Marketers must proactively manage accuracy and trust, particularly as LLMs may “hallucinate.”

9. Implementing Guardrails for Content Quality

Timestamp: [26:51] – [30:27]

• “Guardrails” = actionable, specific content standards governing what’s “publish ready.”
• Can be as simple as a checklist in a Google Doc, evolving over time with tools like Markup AI.
• Internal alignment on these standards is crucial—reduces subjectivity and bottlenecks.

10. Balancing Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

Timestamp: [31:49] – [33:37]

• Distinguish between objective “must-haves” (brand names, claims, compliance) and subjective decisions (brand taste, narrative choices).
• Assign final decision-making to the marketer to avoid “marketing by committee,” which dilutes quality.

11. Strategy in an Evolving Discovery Landscape

Timestamp: [33:37] – [36:05]

• The rise of LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) and AI-driven search changes how users discover brands.
• North Star remains unchanged: prioritize content that builds trust, provides unique value, and reflects authentic brand perspective.
  • “AI alone is not going to do that…AI is going to say what's expected; you need to say what's unexpected…” – Holly ([34:54])

12. Avoiding the Hype Cycle Trap: Focus & Channel Prioritization

Timestamp: [36:05] – [41:21]

• Chasing every new platform or LLM is unsustainable and dilutes focus.
• Use core content themes and amplify across selected channels; don’t “start over” for every platform.
• Leave some experimental “room,” but focus 80-90% of effort on proven strategies/channels.
• “Just being in the new place is not all it's cut out to be.” – Holly ([41:05])

13. Leadership & the Evolving Marketer in the AI Era

Timestamp: [42:18] – [44:25]

• Key differentiators: experience and sound judgment.
• AI is a multiplier of marketing craft, not a replacement.
• “It’s taking your brain times 100…if you embrace it as a way to extrapolate and expand the experience and the judgment that you have, that really is where the fun can be.” – Holly ([43:28])
• The fundamentals of marketing (audience understanding, judgment, strategic focus) are more important than ever.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Building trust is essential to being able to have any impact on pipeline and revenue.” — Holly ([01:57])
• “AI has made it so easy to produce content at scale, but it hasn’t made that content high quality or trustworthy.” — Holly ([07:12])
• “AI-generated content is going to write what already exists…The good content that really stands out is writing something that's unexpected.” — Holly ([10:30])
• “Mirroring competitors…doesn't do. Who does that serve? No one.” — Holly ([12:20])
• “Black and white always has to be true…what are the things that we really need to either have conversations around…” — Holly ([31:52])
• “AI is going to say what's expected, you need to say what's unexpected and that's the piece that the marketer can bring to it.” — Holly ([34:54])
• “Guardrails…give you that rubric to make sure that you feel like something is published ready.” — Holly ([27:38])
• "Being everywhere is just an impossible task if you want to maintain content quality." — Jordan ([41:21])

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|----------------------------------------------| | [01:44] | Holly’s background & career approach | | [07:02] | Overview of Markup AI & content quality gap | | [09:36] | Defining good content post-AI | | [13:37] | Measuring/preempting content quality | | [16:46] | Brand voice/Persona evaluation via AI | | [18:50] | The human in the loop & automation | | [23:36] | Content review for different audiences | | [26:51] | The importance of guardrails | | [31:49] | Balancing subjective vs. objective review | | [33:37] | Content strategy in the AI discovery era | | [36:05] | Hype cycles & channel prioritization | | [42:18] | Marketers’ evolving role with AI | | [45:13–48:42]| Lightning round: Mistakes, risks, advantages, and guardrails |

---

Memorable Lightning Round (Selected Q&A)

• Biggest mistake with AI content?
  “Treating AI adoption as the finish line. It is really the starting line.” — Holly ([45:20])
• Most overlooked risk?
  “Unsanctioned LLMs being used for content creation. It's a huge security risk for businesses…” — Holly ([45:38])
• What does AI do better than humans?
  “Scale…create any sort of output so much faster than a human could…” — Holly ([47:04])
• What do humans do better than AI?
  “Taste…the best marketers…bring a really good taste and judgment…” — Holly ([47:44])
• #1 Guardrail to implement?
  “That checklist of what is publish ready…clear documentation of like this is what has to be true every single time.” — Holly ([48:23])

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Guardrails/Checklists: Establish clear, specific content standards before starting content review.
• Review Automation: Use technology for objective checks, freeing human marketers for creative direction and unique brand differentiation.
• Don’t Chase Every Trend: Prioritize channels/LLMs based on where your audience is and what brings value; avoid spreading resources too thin.
• Continuous Measurement: Shift from “gut feel” to quantifiable readiness and scoring using embedded tools.
• Human + AI Collaboration: Leverage AI for speed and consistency, but retain human editors for taste, judgment, and brand voice.

---

Learn More:

• Connect with Holly on LinkedIn or visit Markup AI
• Find the Startup CMO Field Guide and Startup CxO on Amazon.

---

Bottom Line:
AI is transforming content production, but real trust and value emerge when marketers combine technological guardrails with irreplaceable human judgment, focus, and strategic clarity.

Transcript

[A]

The Voices of Search Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice then visit iheareverything.com welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast. A member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network, ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts. Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search podcast, Jordan Cooney.

[B]

I'm Jordan Cooney and joining me today is Holly Inneking, Vice President of Marketing at Markup AI. Welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast.

[C]

Hi. Thank you. It's so good to be here.

[B]

Pumped to have you on the show. It's great to have marketers who are really close to the SEO industry sharing their story and sharing kind of how they're they're looking at the future of content. As we see this just explosion of content creation happening all over the place, I think it's like every week we hear another report of someone using AI to create content and the derivative result is just garbage, right? It's hallucinations or poor brand sentiment or, you know, just a complete misuse of what the technology can do. But before we get into that, tell us about your background, tell us how you got to markup AI, and then we'll close out with some questions about what is markup and how does it work? Because I think it's important for our listeners to know about that.

[C]

Yeah, happy to. So I've been in and around marketing my entire career. I was pretty used to saying, you know, the last 15 years, and I'm getting closer to having to say 20, which I haven't fully embraced yet. But, you know, my sweet spot has really always been in the brand and digital side of things. And content has always been really central to, you know, the way that I have thought about go to market strategy and really, as you said, building trust, like that's the thing at the end of the day, especially for B2B companies, like building trust is essential to being able to have any impact on pipeline and revenue. And so I love that piece of the equation. And especially for me, for marketing, what has always been so fun is this intersection of science and creativity. You get to do a lot of things every single day. And I've been really lucky to be in a whole bunch of different types of teams over the course of my career from really big businesses doing $100 million a year to really small startups. What's exciting is that actually at Markup, I'm rejoining a CEO that I've worked with two times before, which is incredible. It's one of the things that I've been really lucky in my career is to meet great people along the way and hang on to them and hang on to each other. And so I'm excited to have found my way to Mark, which is a really fascinating business that when I first learned about what Matt Blumberg and the team were doing here, I was like, not only do I want to be on board, like, I want to be using this tool, sign me up. So I'm so excited to talk a little more about it and what we're seeing.

[B]

So let's. Before we get right into, like, what markup does and how it functions in the market, I want to get a little bit more on your background regarding marketing. I mean, because, you know, most of our listeners are content marketers or SEOs. So tell us your experience in leveraging those two channels for organic growth, leveraging them for new user acquisition. What has it been like in your experience and what's. Because I want to frame, like, what your experience and knowledge level is for the rest of our audience, who are a lot of craft experts, obviously.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. I would say, like, for me, content and SEO are table stakes. Like, you have to have those two things dialed in and you have to really make them core to your strategy going forward. I worked at a business called lev, which was a salesforce consultancy that works specifically in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. And content was the crux of how we went to market because we were a services business. We were selling the time and talent of a group of people, and we really wanted to use content as a way to demonstrate the expertise of our team. So rather than doing a lot of, like, big brain, thought leadership sort of content, we did a lot of really tactical, like, how to sort of information, like, if you're doing some nitty gritty work in Salesforce marketing cloud, like, how are you, you know, structuring your emails to be dynamic or using these new tools and features and putting the names of our team members, like, the people who are actually the practitioners doing the work. And that really did a lot for us when it came to building credibility with the marketing teams who were signing on to use this big expansive platform and needed help. We wanted them to really trust that our team, like, knew how to the walk and not just talk the talk. And so Content was a great way for us to do that. On the flip side, working at Return Path, which was a big B2B company in the email deliverability space, Content was really sort of the foundation of our go to market calendar. Sort of side by side with our product launch timing. We had a really dialed in content strategy around. We had some big cornerstone pieces that we launched every year, one a quarter that really sort of everything was built around. And so for us, what that meant was that we had these moments that we had developed where we could go to market with deep research or big thought leadership or some sort of brand campaign and everything sort of flowed around that. But it really drove our SEO strategy and was really a huge lead driver for us because we were creating so much content off of these big content pieces that we were able to be answering questions in a valuable way that were driving people into us organically and really filling our funnel. Like our request to demo was really driven by people seeing our content and learning about email deliverability and coming in to want to learn more and connect with our team. And so in both of those cases, everything was really just driven by content and that was the cornerstone that fed everything else that we were doing.

[B]

What I love about those experiences is they're all about education. Right. They're about informing the user, the market, the customer in some insightful way. And I think for, for a lot of, a lot of us in the last year or so, with AI becoming just the, the center point of how content is created, we've lost that, that, that focus of like, what is the purpose of this content and why it should be there, which is a great segue to what markup does. Right. And like how markup helps brands stay on, on the path of value for content. Can you tell us what markup does? What, where, where is markup today in terms of their offerings? I know it's been going through a lot of change recently and I'm excited to hear about how that's, how that's helping content marketers and just leaders in organizations as a whole.

[C]

Absolutely. So markup AI sits at this really interesting intersection of two realities that marketing teams are feeling and living all of the time, which is that AI has made it so easy to produce content at scale, but it hasn't made that content high quality or trustworthy. What we keep coming back to. So there's this gap between the generation of the content and the public of the content that a lot of teams are still trying to fill with this manual review. And that approach just doesn't really scale. And so that's where we're leaning in at markup to help close that gap. So what we have is these Content Guardian agents, we call them, that sit inside the workflows that content teams are already using in think your Google Docs. I live in Google Docs all day long. And our agents are scanning, scoring, and helping you rewrite your content against things like your brand voice, the preferred terms that you want to be using your standards around accuracy or even compliance if you're in a regulated industry before anything goes live. So what's great is that it's not another tool that you have to. You write it in an LLM and then you paste it into your Google Doc and then you maybe have to go back into something else. No, we're built right into those workflows and it's a quality check embedded right into the processes that you have. And what that means for marketing teams is that you can get back some of that speed that AI has promised us without taking on some of the risk around not sounding like your brand, saying you shouldn't be saying. And then you don't have to choose between this, like, moving fast and getting it right. You really have the ability to do both.

[B]

That's the, that's the amazing thing, like, we can use technology to help us achieve both of these outcomes. And that's what's fun about markup as a whole. Let's, let's kick off like the main theme or the first theme of our conversation, which is really around what we've been kind of talking about here, which is content at scale. Right. It's the reality that we're in this shifting market and that really, like, content is now exploding in terms of volume, in terms of use. Every brand, every company that has some identity online has historically maybe used content as an afterthought, but now it's becoming more of a primary thought as they use AI to help even filter and clean up support content, help content marketing content. And what I'm curious to know from, from your perspective is what is good? Like, what's, what's the definition of good? And has that changed now that we have AI?

[C]

Yeah, I think what's really, I think smart about your question is like, what is the definition of good? That's one of the things that I think so many teams are struggling with because one person's good as another person's great as another person's terrible. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of teams are struggling with. Internally is, you know, setting some of those guidelines around, like what makes something publish ready, like where is the threshold of where I'm going to feel confident about it? And you know, what I think we're seeing more and more is especially as this landscape is changing right now in this SEO to AEO Geo shift, quality really matters in terms of citation. It's not enough to just answer a question in the course of your content and get served up in the Google search. You really have to provide value. And the other thing that I think teams are challenged with is that, you know, AI generated content is going to write sort of what already exists. And the good content that really stands out is writing something that's unexpected. And so being able to then go back in and infuse whatever you're generating with either your personal unique point of view, your brand's unique point of view, like that step is really critical. And that's the place where marketers are having to spend a lot of time. We can create content like nobody's business right now. Like you can pump out, you know, 20 blog posts post in no time at all. But that doesn't mean that they're good or worthwhile to put out there. That's where you really have to start bringing some critical thinking to what do we want this to do? What is it that we're trying to say? Is this just something that I could put any other brand name on and you wouldn't know the difference? What makes it about us? And so I think that is really creating some challenges, but also really forcing marketers to level up their skills when it comes to, I can't just be a great writer, I have to be a great editor now. And what does that look like and how am I thinking about the skills that I'm developing there?

[B]

One of the, one of the things that I constantly see in our industry, right. At least from the SEO perspective, is the competitive nature of content. Oh, a competitor created this. Oh, I see that so and so in our industry built a listicle or I see that so and so in our industry created a versus page about us or about another competitor. And you know, the format and then the competitive nature can create these like maybe unintended consequences. Does, does that constitute good because a competitor has done something?

[C]

No, I don't think so. I really have had the like personal approach and have been lucky that I've worked in businesses where this has really been sort of the ethos of the leadership team as well is that, you know, if something is being said about Us in the market, that's wrong. Certainly we want to correct the record there. But at the end of the day our objective has to be how are we adding value to the people that we're trying to serve? And me giving a comparison list of us versus them doesn't do. Who does that serve? No one. Everything that we should be putting out there should really be about what are the problems that the people who are working with us are feeling and how are we making their lives better, easier, making them look great in front of the teams that they're leading or working on or the leadership reporting to. Like if the content isn't doing that then like, then why? And especially I think as people's search sort of habits are really changing, like you know, we are all a very self centered people. I want to know what, what I can be doing better, what can be helping me be more successful in my job. And that's really driving the way that I'm searching and the type of content I'm looking for and what I find value in. Sure, you know, like a compare contrast is going to be helpful for me maybe like really down the point of consideration but like at the top of the funnel and as we're thinking about like, you know, how you capture that attention and bring someone in and get them interested in wanting to learn more about you. Like it has to be about them and what they think and need and want to be able to get access to.

[B]

So one of the I think critical questions that, that we're very unclear about then is measurement. So is this something in terms of content quality that you can measure before the content ever sees the light of day? And here's what I mean by this. Like I think oftentimes marketers, CMOs, they, they, they think about content quality on, as an after fact, as, as, as an afterthought. Excuse me, in the sense that like we published it and it worked or we published it and it didn't work and that's the benchmark of, of quality. But is there a way for us to actually think about this before it ever sees the light of day?

[C]

Yeah, that's one of the things that I think is really fascinating that we've built into our markup. AI agents is being able to actually score the content against all of the things that need to be true for you. So when you're scanning your content, you actually see how ready is this document to go live. That's really how we think about it, is readiness to publish. And it's thinking about it through the lens of and you can pick and choose what it is you want to scan against. But say you're thinking about AEO Geo and you're really wanting to optimize a blog piece for that, you're going to get some flags of. Here are things that either you've got a citation that's really out of date and you need to go find something a little fresher, or you have this great answer, but the snippet on its own isn't going to make sense and be a good standalone piece for AI to cite. You need to add more context into this paragraph. Things like that, where you can quantifiably say, like, yes, I've done these things in order to help my content be ready to go and be able to then have that feeling of confidence when you go live. I think that's one that's the continual challenge of content marketing. Is this like really difficult, like state that we're constantly in? Of like, good is very much vibes based, like, did it feel good? Versus, like measurement? And I think it's really interesting as we think about how we're measuring the whole AEO GEO space, how we're measuring what prompts you're showing up for versus where you rank in Google. All of that is just changing so quickly. And so I think finding some ways of how do I have a checklist of these things need to be true. And once I've done them, I know that this content is good to go. That can be a great benchmark to set for yourself of. We have achieved what we set out for in order for this to go live.

[B]

So within markup though, like as, as a technology, there are ways for us to use technology to help us measure good. Right. Like at the minimum, to your point, like earlier, like being able to understand your brand, being able to understand your core audience, your icp, these are things that we can measure that creativity level, that's still tricky. And like how you apply that to content is. Is still one of the areas that I think is the value of having human operators using AI to help. But I'm curious, does markup help with these things and how important are those factors in the overall picture of content quality?

[C]

Yes. So there are some pieces that are like very deterministic. Yes. No Black, white. Is this right? Is this wrong? Have I written our brand name correctly? Have I named the product appropriately? Table stakes. The things that I think are really interesting in what our team is developing is a couple of agents around brand voice and Persona. So for brand voice, what we can do is either use your brand guideline or use a couple of pieces of content that you select to really build out what your brand voice is intended to be and then evaluate your content to find out is this meeting a threshold of being quote unquote on brand? And that does not mean that it needs to be 100% on brand. The average piece of content is usually around like 30 to 50% on brand. Anything that's going to be out in the market needs to be informational and part of that content is just going to be neutral. Not everything needs to be. If you've got like a fun, snappy brand, fun and snappy, like some of it just needs to be straightforward information. And so what's really interesting is that being able to give suggestions in line where it can flag, you know, this is a place where you could infuse more of your brand. And here's some suggestions of how you could do that. Rather than if you go to like a ChatGPT, for example, and say put this in my brand, it's going to rewrite the entire piece of content. And that's not necessarily what you need. What you need is those like really specific suggestions. The other agent that's really interesting is this idea of a Persona agent where you can say like my desired audience for this piece is CEOs. And so they have some particular things that I know that they're thinking about. And when they read this piece of content, is it meeting what their expectations are? And then flagging within the content, like here are areas where as this Persona, either I'm confused or I want more information or you've over explained this, make it simpler. That's the places where it's definitely a gray area. And what's great is that the human in the loop has still the ability to say, you know what? Nope, I feel great about what I've written here and I don't need that suggestion. Or oh yeah, you know what, that would be a great easy change to make except insert the new content, move along. Like that's where I think it gets really fun and exciting.

[B]

You brought up our next topic and this is one of the, I think really vital ones. And today so much of the use of AI is focused on the human in the loop. And we're really centered on this idea of like we're going to use AI to create content, but at some point there's going to be this manual review process that takes place and that's going to really ensure that everything's just spot on.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And this is something that I'm nervous about.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Because as humans we are probably ridiculously flawed in that review process. To your point earlier about content quality, like it's a bit subjective. So everyone has their own point of view. So that review process is inherently, you know, inherently going to be opinionated or have that individual person's own desires or perspective. So I'm curious, like tell us like where things are going to break down in this human in the loop process. Is human in the loop or human being processing of content still necessary or are there ways for us to automate some of the ways that we use validation or evaluation of content in the creation process?

[C]

Yeah, I think one of the things that we all have to grapple with is that we are all prone to mistake and AI is just as prone. If you're in ChatGPT or Claude even says at the bottom, make sure to double check our work because we're going to get things wrong. So basic starting point for everyone is that the likelihood of something going wrong, whether AI generated or human owned and fully executed, there is still room for error there. And so we're all sort of programmed to be continually looking for what needs to be changed, fixed, get it as close to error free as possible before it goes live. And as AI content has increased that scale, it's creating even more volume for marketers to try and check. And what I think is the place where a lot of teams are falling down is there's really two types of things that you need to be looking for when you're looking at your content. One of them is the very black and white. These things have to be true every single time in order for them to be accurate versus the more esoteric. Is this saying something unique in the market that no one else is saying? If I put another brand name on it, would it sound like them just as much as it sounds like me? Like how am I putting our unique stamp on it? And the challenge is that marketers are spending a lot of that manual time on the first set. Are we using the right brand words? Are we, you know, making any claims we shouldn't be making? Is this source something that has authority? You know, things that are very black and white and then they're burned out by the time they get to the like tough questions of do I want to actually put my name on this or put my brand's name on this? And so if you can think about how you build in automations in order to support that first group, then you get to spend all Your time on the second. And so that's really what we're trying to do is like how do we really streamline that review process so that what would take an hour to sit down and go through your blog and really read it closely and make sure all the things are right. You can do that. And here's a couple of flags, here's a couple of clicks like content's good to go. Now I can really put my brand editor hat on and make sure that all of the things that only I can know as a practitioner of my brand are really true. And so that's where I think especially as we're thinking about agents in the marketplace or other places just to build in automations, that's really where the unlock is the things that are always true every time. What does publish ready mean? How do we get on the same page? Let's make that piece as easy to do as possible.

[B]

Yeah, I mean that, that I think is, is something that we just haven't spent a lot of time unpacking in, in, in the content creation process, which is AI does have this superpower in being able to evaluate many of these criteria based requirements. And what one of the things that I think is important is like when we think about that, like is there a, a difference in the evaluation depending on the icp? Like if, if the icp, the, the person that you are trying to reach, the consumer, the user that you're trying to connect with, are there like varying degrees of like scrutiny or evaluation that's necessary when it comes to say how we use our brand, how we mention our describe our products, the accuracy or the, the, the, the, the validation behind the ways of utilizing or consuming the use of our service. How important is that depending on who you're trying to reach?

[C]

Yeah, I think that's an incredible point because yes, different, you know, Personas or people that you're trying to reach just take in information in different ways and care about different things. Like when I was at lev, a lot of who we were marketing to was sellers in Salesforce, marketing cloud. They have a very different threshold of like what is going to capture their attention, what they care about, what they're interested in versus you know, in another business marketing to CEOs and CFOs who are trying to sell executive search for example. They're really like talk to me about cost, talk to me about bottom line, why are you the best? They just have very different needs that you need to fill. And so being able to understand and unpack the differences between Those and how you write for them and the type of content you create for each of those audiences is very different. I think sort of building on that too. The type of industry you're in really has an influence on the level of scrutiny. So if you're in a regulated business, then you've entered a whole new ballg of like you can really open your brand up to challenges if you make a claim that's unsupported, if you put information out there that you know is not just inaccurate but like not allowed to be public. Like there are a lot of things that you can really get in trouble from either a financial or a legal perspective that you really have to be careful about. And you get that wrong. And you've created not just like pipeline revenue problems, but like much bigger business problems. And so like that is really critical for marketers to be considering as well. And I think a lot of marketers feel that risk, especially as we think about like the propensity for hallucinations or just things being wrong, AI does a really good job of making their content sound like, oh yeah, this is perfect, this is great if you don't give that extra scrutiny. And that really opens up some like real risk challenges for marketers that they have to be aware of.

[A]

Time for a one minute break to hear from our sponsor, Pre Visible. So you're looking for SEO help and you got a couple of options. You could start replying to spam from agencies that claim they can get you to rank number one on Google. You can pay an hourly rate for a consultant who will inevitably nickel and dime you with hourly charges. Or you can work with a cookie cutter agency to quickly launch a strategy less project with low success rate. None of those sound very good now do they? Well, that's where Pre Visible's integrated consulting model comes in. Pre Visible draws From a collective 40 years of SEO and digital marketing experience to unlock your organic growth opportunities. They build custom solutions that combine strategy, technical expertise, content and reporting to effectively operationalize SEO for your business. Pre Visible's four stage approach ensures that your SEO programs thrive by starting off with a strategy first approach. Then they support you in your efforts to create quality content, help you identify technical issues, and most importantly, they'll work with your cross functional teams to integrate your SEO strategies to make sure that your SEO budget actually drives results, not just your agency's bottom line. So join brands like Yelp, eBay, Canva, Atlassian Square, all who rely on the SEO consultants at Pre Visible. For more information, go to Previsible IO that's pre visible P R E V I S I B L E I O.

[B]

Love it. I want to move to solutions because I think. Yeah, well, this is obviously the fun part of the conversation, which is, you know, solutions are coming in a variety of different shapes and forms. You brought up agents before. Obviously, markup has a way of managing this entire journey and process of content quality. But one of the things I think is really critical to the unlock of managing content quality is this concept of guardrails. And so I want you to share with our team or listeners, excuse me, what are guardrails and why are those critical to the management of content quality?

[C]

I think guardrails are really essential for how anyone is approaching evaluating the quality of their content because it really gives you that rubric to make sure that you feel like something is published ready. At the end of the day, that is what we're trying to get to. No matter the volume, you could be trying to put out 10 pieces of content a day or one piece of content a week. Regardless, there has to be a threshold of I feel great about this content going live in a way again, that I feel good about having my name on it, my brand's name on it. If my CEO sees it and reads it, that I'm not going to get the late night email asking about that. Every marketer's worst nightmare. And so setting a foundation of like, what does publish ready mean? And pushing yourself to really be specific. It's one thing to say on brand, it's another thing to really get, you know, specific and really deterministic around, like, what does on brand mean for me? And it can't just be vibes, it has to be something you can look for and read against. And in some cases that's, you know, we've got our messaging written correctly. We're talking about the products in the way we agreed to talk about the products. It can also be like, are we using certain types of phrases or sentence structures in order to that lend towards the type of, you know, tone of voice that we want to have, you know, setting out what those rules are and being aligned with anyone who's involved in that content creation process? That could be a small team of one, that could be a team of multiple people. That could be a team that also includes legal team reviewing things, any sort of, you know, subject matter experts that you're using internally to help drive your content. Like, everyone needs to be aligned against. These are the things that we're checking against. And then we're also going to have, like me as the marketer, I get the final say and what the content quality is. And that final sort of like we said, are we saying something unique in the market? But there is great work that a team can do and it doesn't have to be on any sort of like advanced AI sort of space. Like just setting, having a checklist in a Google Doc that you're like, part of our process is we're going to review the content against this and that's going to make me feel confident is a great place to start. And then you can always mature that over time into whatever else you want. But setting the baseline, getting people's involvement in that, like having alignment around it and then sticking to it like that's the biggest piece is just making that a part of your workflow that will really help as you're taking this huge volume of content and getting it into something you can use. We were talking to a marketer recently who was like, I generated all these content pieces and they're just sitting in a folder on the drive because I just don't have time or like the mental capacity to like move them forward. And a lot of that is just like the gate of oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start, what to think about. Like, if you can do the work separately of what I want to think about, it's going to make looking at that content and getting it across the finish line so much easier.

[B]

I think that one of the components of what you shared there that is really remarkable is the simplicity of it. So like, for me, I think it's remarkable for, for any team that this can start. The concept of guardrails can sound intimidating, but it can start very easily. And you can just simply take a checklist, simply take an internal process and make this workflow happen in terms of maintaining the integrity and quality of your content. Additionally, I mean, you can use technology to help you with this, whether it's agents, markup, other ways of protecting and ensuring that, that the baseline expectations are being met for your content. However, one of the things I think becomes really challenging and I see this all the time, even in our business here at Pre Visible, like, we have tons of friction when it comes to the subjectivity versus objectivity of content. And so sometimes even the way a brand is discussed or mentioned within a specific theme or topic, Quick can extract a level of, of anxiety amongst different decision makers in the business. How, how do you guys think about content in a subjective and objective way? Are there ways that markers should be thinking about this in terms of unblocking their business from getting content published.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to being able to think about it in those sort of two frameworks. What is the black and white always has to be true, yes or no, every single time. What are the things that we really need to either have conversations around, someone needs to own the decision making, we need to, like, have a bigger, broader conversation, or I as the marketer need to be able to bring my expertise into that piece, not wasting our time on the basic stuff. And I think that's where marketers can get and even, you know, higher up teams, it can be really easy to see something and be like, this one thing is wrong and so therefore I'm throwing it all away. How do you make sure that you make that piece really, really easy? Really low stakes. Like, we just have to check these boxes and then we can spend the time evaluating the rest of it. And then you're getting into some of that subjective objective. I do think there has to be agreement for the marketer and anyone else who's involved, like who gets the final say. I would argue it should be the marketer. They're the person who knows the brand, who's representing the brand, who lives and breathes the brand every single day. Your CEO should hopefully be in lockstep with you on that, but really you should be able to be the one who is making the final call and be empowered to do that. But there has to be clarity about who gets to have the final say and who's involved in that. Because again, if you have marketing creation by committee, it's never going to be high quality. Every layer of review is going to bring the quality down. And so that's where having your clear list of these are the things that we're checking for every time. These are the things that we're going to actually spend our human brainpower on making sure we feel great about this content. And then we've got the right people in the room to say yes, no, or ship it out the door. Then you've really empowered yourself and your team to take that content and really leverage it to the best of your abilities.

[B]

Yeah, love that. I think this is a great segue to where we're closing this particular episode on, which is strategy. Usually on our show, we start with a bunch of strategy talk, work our way down into the minutiae and the tactics, but in this case, we're starting in the reverse. And I think it's really relevant because one of the components about the current shift in the landscape is that we're seeing so much change happen. Just the entire introduction of AI as a discovery engine. I mean, right now we're in the midst of ChatGPT introducing ads and we're really kind of just seeing so much shift, shift as it pertains to how consumers find information and in particular content about brands through online tools and platforms like a Claude chatgpt. Even in Google we've got AI mode and all of these different AI driven experiences. Considering all of this change and considering like where the market is shifting and going, how should we brands be thinking about their content strategy?

[C]

I think it goes back to where we started this conversation which is around building trust and that really at the end of the day, like content that is saying something true to your brand, unique in the market that you really can stand behind and that continues to add value for your audience. And whatever pain or challenge it is that you're trying to solve, as long as that is continuing to be the north star of the content that you're creating, you're going to build trust with your audience and content that's focused around adding value being, you know, bringing something unique and useful to the people you're trying to serve. That's the content that's going to get cited so much. What we're seeing right now is that it's, you know, having the right schema in place and you know, formatting your documents in the right sort of way so that they're getting indexed is absolutely important and part of the equation. But in order for your content to stand out, be sighted, be something that someone actually wants to, wants to take the next step to engage with, you have to be saying something worthwhile. And AI alone is not going to do that. Like we said earlier, AI is going to say what's expected, you need to say what's unexpected and that's the piece that the marketer can bring to it. And so really bringing that lens to everything you're doing is going to make your content so much stronger, is going to help you when it comes to how you're being shown in results. And it's going to give you so much more to work with. Like you're just going to make such a bigger impact if that's really the lens that you're looking at your, your content through.

[B]

And one of the components on, on this concept of, of trust that I think, you know, strategically is, is really misaligned in the market is that a lot of marketers are chasing these Hype cycles. So on one week it's, oh, we need content for Reddit. Then the next week it's, oh, I need to update my Wikipedia page. And then the next week it's like, oh, we better be publishing in LinkedIn. And so this creates a tremendous amount of friction for content marketing teams because it's a lot of work to shift your strategy between the sources or the placements that you want to seed your content. But then it also creates a lack of trust. So I'm curious to get your perspective on, like, how does the hype cycles impact this trust conversation within your own internal teams?

[C]

Absolutely. This is where I think teams have to get, quite honestly, ruthless about how they're spending their time. Every marketing team is being asked to do more with less, to jump at the latest sort of cool new thing that someone on the leadership team saw and what's our strategy for this or that? Really, what marketing teams need to be focused on is how am I solving the problems of my audience? And then how can I take those answers and amplify them across different channels? Being really focused on the things that you want to do, you can then turn that into all sorts of different types of, of content. It doesn't mean that you need to start over with your Reddit strategy or your LinkedIn strategy or your G2 strategy. Like, all of those should be built from the same foundation. And then you're changing the delivery of that message based on the channel that you're putting it into and having that internal alignment around. These are the things that we said we're going to focus on and continuing to pull back to those. It means sometimes that especially us as marketing leaders have to put our foot down and say, I hear you. Great suggestion, worth consideration. Right now we are focused on XYZ and these are the channels that we're operating in. And here's what that could look like. Or that's going to have to wait until the next quarter. We can't, like, if we're going to really make an impact, focus is critical. And teams that are getting their sort of time divided by all of these spur of the moment things are really going to struggle. And I think one thing that's great is that teams can find a way to leave some capacity for those experimental type of opportunities. But 80 or 90% of your time needs to be focused, at least on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis, however you like to structure your planning on the things you know you want to activate. Because if you can't spend enough quality time in those spaces to know if they're working or not, then you're never going to have any data to actually inform what you do next. Like, it requires some real investment and sometimes going toe to toe with some of the other people in the business who are like, well, why aren't you doing that thing? Why aren't you doing that thing? That can be really hard, but it's important.

[B]

Yeah, I'm so reminded of, like, just 10, 15 years ago, when all these social media platforms were taking prominence in terms of advertising and marketing, right? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I mean, you had all, like, you had another half a dozen, some that don't even exist anymore. And it just became this, like, vicious cycle of, like, be in all channels. But that strategy was completely flawed. And in many cases, ICPs and users and audiences didn't even exist in those channels. And I'm talking to a lot of brands right now about that because I feel like with the LLM revolution, we've got, you know, we've got Claude, we've got ChatGPT, we've got a variety of other models, Llama, Deepseek. I mean, there's, there's probably now anywhere between 20 to 30 pretty prominent models that exist. Does that mean that you have to be in all of them? Does it mean that you have to have a strategy for all of these? Like, how are you thinking about the prioritization of ensuring that your content meets those quality expectations? But doing that by trying to be present in every channel is really hard.

[C]

Yes, well, and I think it goes back to some of the same conversation, you know, our product and engineering colleagues are having. Like, they have to be super focused on, like, is what we're building, delivering what it is that we set out to do. And I think for marketers, it has to be the same conversation. Like, we cannot be all things to all people all the time. We will fall down and we will never meet those expectations. And in the same way that I think I see at least our product and engineering team at markup and the teams that I've worked with in the past, like, they're always super dialed in on, like, here's what we're doing and why and what we're driving towards and what it means. And I think marketers could really benefit from that same sort of perspective because the second you start trying to be in all of these places and try and have all of these message, it just becomes unwieldy. Like you're just creating noise and chaos and no clarity at all. And so like you said, being able to think about like, where is my audience actually? Like, they're probably not in this new space yet and there's probably some time for me to step back and see what's working and learn some things and like that is okay. And instead I can really lean into the places where I know my audience is and that's where I can get creative about what else I'm doing. Because there's still plenty of room for creativity in existing channels. Just being in the new place is not all it's cut out to me.

[B]

That's right, that's right, exactly. And I mean, I don't think we. Listen, sorry, I want to take that one back from top. There's a yeah, it's okay car going by. I, I totally agree with you and I think being everywhere is just an impossible task if you want to maintain content quality. So to the main themes that we talked about today, like, there's no way for you to create that integrity of quality if as a leader, as a marketer, you're trying to be present in every single channel that exists. I want to transition to one of our my last questions, which is you're the co author of Startup CMO Field Guide and this talks about not just marketing fundamentals, but like helps marketers better understand how, how to drive and be a leader inside of startups. How does this matter now in an AI world? How does your field guide empower marketers to do their work in this new AI driven world?

[C]

Yeah, I think the most important thing is that really where marketers can stand out today and what has always been a differentiator between marketers at any level is your experience that you're bringing to your role and your ability to make judgment calls. Those are two things that are really cultivated over time, over being in a lot of different scenarios, working with lots of different types of teams, being in stages of feast and being in stages of famine and figuring out what works for you, where you have opportunity to make pivots and changes and where you have strategies that you need to leave behind. The world is changing faster than it ever has been before and being comfortable keeping up with that. And what I think is interesting in this AI space right now is that AI is really a multiplier. You know, one of the things that I think probably people have heard a lot is like good prompts in are going to get good content out, bad prompts in are going to get bad outputs out. And the good inputs are really driven by having a point of view on Your audience, what your expectations are for quality, what you know to be true of, like what what you have learned over your years of experience and how you can inject that into it. All of the craft that goes into marketing is really only expanded by AI. It's taking your brain times 100, which is incredible, and doing the things that are fun and being able to lean into how AI can help you unlock and do more of that is really where there's potential. I think it's when we get scared of AI taking our jobs and our roles, like that's where marketers like take a step back. But really if you embrace it as like a way to extrapolate and expand the experience and the judgment that you have, that really is where the fun can be. And, you know, it just sets you up to bring even more value into your teams. And so what I think about, as you know from the CMO Field guide, is like the fundamentals are the basis of everything. And if you can be focused on the fundamentals, be strong in your fundamentals, then AI is only going to help you be more successful. Successful.

[B]

Love that. Where can our listeners find the the Startup CMO Field Guide?

[C]

So you can find it on Amazon. There's the CMO Field guide and then there's also a broader book, Startup CxO, which covers a bunch of other fields as well, so HR, finance, product, etc. So if you want to learn more about all of the, you know, roles in the C suite, you can definitely dig into the bigger book. But the CMO specifically is also on Amazon.

[B]

Awesome. Great. We're going to include a link in that in our show notes. Holly, let's dive into my favorite part of our episode, which is our lightning round. I'm going to ask you five questions from our episode today and you're going to give me a quick 30 minute, 30 second, hopefully not minute, 30 second response on each. Are you ready, Holly?

[C]

I'm ready.

[B]

All right, Holly, what is one mistake companies are making with AI content today?

[C]

I think the biggest mistake that companies are making is treating AI adoption as the finish line. It is really the starting line and there is so much more that you can be using AI to help your content beyond just generating it.

[B]

Next question. Holly, what's the most overlooked risk in AI generated content?

[C]

I think the biggest risk that I see is actually unsanctioned LLMs being used for content creation. It's a huge security risk for businesses and if they're not getting their arms around what tools, platforms, models their teams are using, and having insight into that, they are certainly creating some challenges for their business down the road that marketers need to be sensitive to.

[B]

Tell me a little bit more about how companies can be best about protecting themselves around that.

[C]

I think the biggest thing to know is, or the biggest thing that they can do is, is be able to set up their teams with the tools they want them to be using. Businesses need to have a point of view around what they're comfortable with as their level of risk and really bring those tools to their team. Especially in companies where there's an AI mandate. Like, if you have a business where you're like, we want our team to be using AI, you need to provide clarity about the types of tools they can be using and what the rules are around what they can be importing into them. What they. Customer data is very sensitive. Prospect data is very sensitive. Like, you need to provide clarity and direction for your teams. And if you're a person at a company who doesn't have that clarity, you should be asking those questions because the last thing you want to do is be the one that causes some sort of data problem down the road.

[B]

Exactly. All right, I got two fun ones here. Okay, what's one thing AI does better than human marketers can do today?

[C]

It's absolutely scale. It can create content, create any sort of output so much faster than a human could do on their own. The way that I'm using AI, I can get so much more done during the day just by having it as a companion. That's helping me execute on things more quickly. Thinking about tasks, lists and internal briefs that I need to share. Things like that, where I'm putting in everything that I know it's doing all of the lift for me, the scale that it can provide to just accelerate the work that's being doing. Absolutely incredible. Love it so much.

[B]

Totally agree. What's one thing AI still struggles to replicate that humans do better?

[C]

I think it's really comes down to taste. I think that, you know, the best marketers are the ones who bring a really good taste and judgment and have a clear perspective on what they think is good and bad and high quality and low quality, and AI just, just isn't there. And I think that's especially where the human in the loop is more valuable than ever.

[B]

Yeah. That tastemaker concept is just one that we just haven't really fixated on. Everyone's so addicted to the scale, which is crazy. Love it. All right, last lightning round question here. What's one guardrail that you absolutely want to implement in any of the marketing you do.

[C]

I think it has to be that checklist of what is publish ready. Like that is the single best thing that you can do right now, today, to set your team, yourself, your team up for success, is to have that clear documentation of like this is what has to be true every single time. And then we can focus on the rest to get it across the finish line.

[B]

Amazing. Okay, that wraps up this episode of the Voices Search podcast. A huge thank you to Holly Enneking, Vice President of Marketing at Markup AI, for joining us. If you'd like to contact Holly, you can find a link to LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on voicesofsearch.com you can also visit our company website, Markup AI. If you haven't subscribed yet and want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube and we'll be in your feed every week. Okay, that's all for today, but until next time, remember, the answers are always in the data.

[C]

Sam.