I automated my marketing for 30 days - here is what to automate and what you must write yourself

The 80-20 rule of automation - when bots beat humans

Imagine your marketing workload as a messy kitchen where half the pots are boiling water forever. The 80-20 rule says 20% of tasks deliver 80% of the results — and many of those repeatable pots can be put on autopilot. Automate the checklist-y stuff: scheduling, basic segmentation, reporting exports, routine ad bid adjustments. Bots don't get tired; they just do.

That leaves the other 80% of attention for humans: the recipes that require intuition. Use people for storytelling, brand voice, creative direction and nuanced customer conversations where context and empathy matter. Draft your headline, craft the hook, write the offer — these are things templates can't invent and bad automation will ruin.

Quick decision framework: if a task is repetitive, measurable and you can template it, automate it. If it needs judgment, pattern recognition or a bold creative leap, keep it human. Start with one micro-automation (welcome emails, social queues, comment triage), measure time saved, then expand sensibly.

Practical guardrails: keep a human-in-loop audit, version-control your templates, and set error alerts. Archive every human-written winning message in a creative bank so bots reuse proven lines without inventing tone crimes. Do the math: automate the grind, free the humans for the magic — then watch your marketing cook up better results.

Set it and forget it - workflows that save hours every week

Every hour you spend on repetitive tasks is an hour you could spend testing a new headline, sketching a hero image, or actually talking to a customer. Start by identifying the boring, repeatable stuff: welcome emails, lead tagging, content republishing, and simple routing from form submissions into your CRM. Those are the low-hanging fruits you can automate and forget until something breaks.

Practical workflows that earn back hours include a welcome drip that moves cold leads into nurture lists, a cart-abandonment flow that nudges without nagging, automated captioning and publishing for short-form videos, and a CRM rule that assigns hot leads to the right rep. Build them with whatever glue you like — native automations, simple integration tools, or webhooks — but keep them small and observable so you don't get a surprise avalanche.

Not everything belongs in the automated bin. Leave subject lines, first-touch outreach, brand storytelling, and segment definitions to humans. Those bits need judgment, voice, and a sense of timing that templates can't fake; automations amplify what you do well, they don't replace it.

When you design a workflow, follow a tiny checklist: define the trigger, decide the action, add safeguards and delays, create a rollback or human-handoff, then test end-to-end. Test and monitor weekly for a month; small tweaks in timing or copy often double conversion without extra ad spend.

Start with one flow and subtract the busywork. You'll free hours, reduce errors, and keep the fun stuff — creativity and conversation — firmly human. Think of automation as your over-eager assistant: set it up, give it clear rules, and let it fetch the data while you write the next great subject line.

Hands off the robots - messages you should always write yourself

Automation wins when it handles predictable, low-stakes work. Human writing wins when context, tone, and consequences matter. If a message can change someone's trust, decision, or emotional state, do not hand it to a template and a schedule. Machines can send a lot of correct words; they cannot shoulder responsibility for nuance.

Messages to keep human: product launch narratives that set expectations and handle edge cases; apology notes when bugs or delays impact customers; pricing or policy changes that require clear justification; crisis or legal communications that must be careful and consultative; and bespoke B2B outreach or contract negotiations where relationship capital is on the line. The common thread is high impact plus the need for judgement, not just data.

Use a short framework to make those human messages consistent and scalable. Open with empathy: acknowledge how the reader is affected. Explain the change or issue: be transparent and concrete. State the action: what you will do and what you ask the reader to do. Close with a named human and a next step: real contact details beat anonymous signatures.

If you must speed up, draft the message yourself, then create a lightweight checklist so teammates can adapt it without losing voice. That preserves speed while keeping the moments that matter unmistakably human.

Blend the machine with your voice - templates, prompts, and guardrails

Think of automation as a reliable sous‑chef: it chops, seasons, repeats — but you still do the plating. Start by building modular templates that reflect your voice: one for headlines, one for captions, one for long-form emails. Add a one‑line “voice brief” to every prompt (e.g., upbeat, slightly snarky, second‑person) so outputs don't drift into generic-speak. That single sentence is worth more than ten tweak sessions.

Turn prompts into a formula: role + task + constraints + example. For example, "You're a friendly founder; rewrite this caption to 120 characters, include one emoji, avoid clichés." Explicit constraints (length, reading level, banned words) get you predictable drafts. Save your best prompts as named snippets and version them when you tweak tone or audience.

Use simple guardrails that the machine can enforce and you won't have to police later:

• 🤖 Template: A fill-in-the-blank caption with slots for hook, benefit, CTA — reduces decision fatigue.
• 💁 Prompt: A one-line personality brief followed by a concrete task and a negative constraint (e.g., "no buzzwords").
• 🚀 Guardrail: A 3-point publish checklist: factual check, original anecdote, final human edit.

Finally, own anything that builds trust: first‑person stories, pricing nuance, legal claims, and customer emotions. Automate the scaffolding, not the soul. Schedule a twice-weekly review to edit, prune prompts, and retire tired templates — that tiny human investment makes automation feel like amplification, not replacement.

From triggers to timing - a starter stack that does not spam

Think of triggers as polite handshakes and timing as the rhythm of a good conversation. Start with three clear triggers you can track today: Signup (welcome + onboarding), First purchase (receipt + cross-sell), and inactivity (nudge after a quiet window). Keep events simple and named consistently so your automation platform doesn't need to guess which event means "hot lead" or "ghosted user."

As for channels, assemble a lean stack that respects attention: an immediate welcome email, an in-app message on the next session, SMS only for transactional urgency, and a short drip email series for nurturing. Use conditional branches: if someone opens the welcome, skip the in-app prompt; if they convert from the second email, halt the drip. These small rules prevent overlap and stop your system from sounding like a broken record.

Timing is where most folks either underperform or annoy everyone. Shell out these cadences: immediate confirmation (0–10 minutes), value-add follow-up (24 hours), gentle reminder (3 days), and a long-tail check-in (2–3 weeks). Add timezone-aware sending, a daily cap (max 1 marketing touch per day), and quiet hours. Implement exponential backoff for unresponsive users: slow the pace after each unopened message and re-engage with a different channel or message style.

Final checklist before flipping the switch: wire up event names, create a suppression list (unsubscribes + recent purchasers), set a 3-messages-per-week cap, and build simple A/B tests for subject lines and send windows. Monitor open, CTR, unsubscribe, and reply rates weekly and prune flows that irritate. Start minimal, measure ruthlessly, and let data tell you which automations add fans — not spam complaints.