(Ep 5 of 5) Digital Course Marketing with AI — What to Automate and What to Write Yourself

AI can save you hours in your business—but it shouldn’t replace you. In this episode, we’re talking about how to use AI in a smart, strategic way to simplify your marketing without losing your voice.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 ✅ Why not all AI is equal (and the difference between generic ChatGPT and custom AI Assistants)
 ✅ How to use AI to speed up brainstorming, outlines, and drafts
 ✅ What you should always write yourself to keep your personality and connection front and center
✅ Pro tips to get better results from AI (better input = better output)
✅ How the output from one AI Assistant can become the input for another—so you build marketing momentum faster

Plus, I’ll show you how the Digital Course Assistant membership gives you custom AI Assistants designed specifically for course creators—making it easier to launch faster, market better, and stress less.

🎁 Want to market smarter using AI—without sounding like a robot?
Check out everything inside Digital Course Assistant at digitalcourseassistant.com

I’m giving away a FREE year of the Digital Course Assistant membership to one lucky course creator.

It only takes a second to enter, and the giveaway ends July 31, so don’t miss out.

📌 DigitalCourseAssistant.com/win/

If you loved this episode, I’ve got something fun for you. Right now, I’m giving away a FREE year of the Digital Course Assistant membership to one lucky course creator! That means 12 months of custom-built AI tools to help you launch faster, market better, and stress less — totally free.Head to digitalcourseassistant.com/win to enter now. Earn extra entries by sharing!

Transcript

 Welcome to the Digital Course Assistant podcast, the show for course creators who wanna launch faster, market better, and stress less. I'm your host, Julie Ball, and each episode I'm sharing tools, tactics, and AI powered shortcuts to help you grow a smarter, simpler course business. This is season one, and our focus is smarter marketing for course creators.

 Today we're talking about how to use AI wisely in your course business. What to automate, what to keep personal, and how to use tools like digital course assistant to market smarter.

Here's the truth. Not all AI is equal, and not everything should be delegated to a bot. Yes, AI can feel magical, but it's not a one size fits all replacement for you. Just because a bot can write an email, a social post, or a sales page, doesn't mean it should. At least not without your brain guiding it. AI should be a tool in your toolbox, not the driver's seat of your business.

Instead, use AI to speed up ideation, outlines and drafts. So in practice, here's a few places where AI can save you hours. Brainstorming ideas for emails, social posts, and lead magnets outlining your sales page or nurture sequences, drafting rough copies to overcome that blank page struggle...

instead of staring at a blinking cursor or a blank page for you pen and paper people, you can get a structured starting point in minutes. Key words starting point.

So what will you still write yourself? You'll still write your stories and your point of view because those are what connect your audience to you.

AI can give you a first draft, but your stories, your personal examples and your unique teaching style are what transform that draft into content that really resonates.

Here's what that might look like in practice. Personal stories, I'll use those same niches that we've been u been using all season. Uh, we'll start with Pilates example. So with a personal story for Pilates, AI can draft an email or a sales page for your Pilates course, but you can add a personal story that builds connection and trust.

For example, when I tried my first Pilates class, I literally rolled off the mat onto the floor during side planks. But I kept showing up and that's what I teach my students now ...progress over perfection every single time.

So these moments that make you real to your audience where she was saying she rolled off the mat, you can reassure them that you've been where they are.

Another way this might play out is with your why and your values. And I'll use the parenting example for this one. AI can suggest benefits of your sleep training course, but your values gives your message soul. So for example, I believe every parent deserves a full night of sleep without guilt.

Babies thrive when parents thrive, and that's why I teach gentle evidence-based sleep strategies that work for real families.

You can see how putting your values into it. Where she was saying, I believe every parent deserves a full night of sleep without guilt. That's gonna really, really resonate with her ideal target audience.

So another way that this can play out is with your voice, like your brand voice, I think this one gives it some personality- things like catchphrases or maybe pop culture references. So AI can draft solid content, especially these first drafts, but your voice is what makes your audience feel like you are in their dms, cheering them on. So maybe you're known for saying something like cue the confetti or progress not perfection.

Or maybe you sprinkle in pop culture nods like song lyrics that make your audience smile. These phrases and even your most used emojis can be part of your brand assets. They make your content unmistakably yours.

The bottom line is that using AI isn't about replacing you. It's about speeding up the drafting process so you can layer in your stories, your values, your personal touch, and when you add your words and your warmth or your brand voice, your marketing becomes both efficient and deeply human, and that's what builds trust and drives action in your course business.

The biggest mistake I see course creators make with AI is expecting it to replace them entirely. Your audience wants connection, not just information. AI can help you say more, but it's you that can connect with your audience.

So what's the sweet spot? Let AI help you move faster while you focus on adding your unique stories and voice to your marketing.

Okay, so let's talk about something important if you're just starting to use AI in your course business. Not all AI is equal. And it's constantly evolving. There's a huge difference between opening chat GPT and typing write me an email and using a highly trained, purpose-built AI assistant designed specifically for modern marketing for course creators like those you'll find in the digital course assistant membership.

When you open chat GPT, it can feel like magic... at first. But you might find yourself getting generic bland copy prompts that don't feel aligned with your voice. Wasted time refining and clarifying and rewriting to make it sound like you, or just outputs that aren't strategic or connected to your funnel or your launch goals.

And sometimes you get these weird words that you had never used like delve into and embark on. Those aren't words that we usually use in conversation.

It's like asking a stranger to write your marketing without knowing your audience, your goals or your vibe.

But inside digital course assistant, you're not using generic chat GPT out of the box. You're using custom GPT assistants, highly trained, specialized tools built specifically for modern course creator marketing. I've done all the hard work on the backend to make it super simple for you to use.

These assistants are preloaded with the latest marketing frameworks tailored to online courses. They know how to write emails, sales pages, and social content that fits today's buyer's journey.

They prompt you with the right questions to extract your voice and your stories. They generate focused revenue aligned drafts so you can implement faster.

I don't know about you, but I've used CHATT right out of the box before, and I spend so much time in the back and forth.

I've created these custom assistants to help eliminate some of that. You'll still be able to have conversations with the assistant, but the output is gonna be so much more streamlined and better.

And the bottom line is AI is an incredible tool, but it's only as good as its training and context.

So using the tools inside digital course assistant means you're not just using AI to save time. You're using smart strategic AI to market your course. You'll get more clarity, confidence, and ease, and that's what helps you move from overwhelm and blank pages to action and momentum in your course business.

I wanna give you a quick pro tip that will completely change how you use AI in your course business. Ready? Better input equals better output. I'm gonna say it again. Better input equals better output.

AI is powerful, but it's not mind reading magic. The quality of what you get out of a custom assistant or any AI tool depends on what you put in. What this might look like in practice is say you give AI a vague prompt, like write me an email about my course. You'll get a vague generic email back.

But if you provide clear, intentional input, you'll get focused, aligned copy that you can use right away with very few edits.

All right, here's a next level strategy for using AI in your course business. You ready? The output of one AI assistant can become the input for another. I'm gonna say it again. The output of one AI assistant can become the input for another.

Think about how your course business is connected. Your brand voice and messaging influences your lead magnets. Your lead magnets connect to your welcome sequence and your welcome sequence sets up your sales page and sales emails.

When your message is clear and consistent through all those, everything in your funnel works together, and you can use AI to make that happen faster.

Inside digital course assistant, you'll start with foundational assistants designed to help you craft your brand voice and messaging so your content sounds like you, and to compile your course information clearly -that transformation, the outcomes, and what makes your course unique.

Once you have these foundations in place, you can use them as part of the input for other AI assistants you use for your business. You won't believe how this can improve the results you get.

Let me paint the picture for you how the compound effect of the input and output can help you grow your business.

So for the foundation, let's say you use the ideal student assistant to clarify who your course is for and the problems you solve, you're gonna get output from that. So then you plug that output into the list builder assistant to generate lead magnet ideas that align with your audience, specifically based off of who you are targeting. So you can see that's just two AI assistants that are working together, and you can see the compound effect.

Imagine if you took the output from those and put it into a sales page assistant or a launch planner. It continues to compound in a very positive way. These AI assistants get smarter the more that you work with them. Using AI assistants in this layered connected way keeps your marketing consistent, clear and aligned with your audience, and it helps you avoid the piecemeal random content trap that slows down so many course creators. When you do this right, this layering effect, it will feel like you've added five people to your team without actually having to manage any people.

So in today's episode, we talked a lot about that all the AI is not created equal that better input equals better output, and that you can layer the output to make your AI tools smarter.

So inside of digital Course assistant, you're not just getting random AI tools, you're getting a system of connected AI assistants designed to help you grow your course business step by step.

So each piece supports the next, and you market smarter, not harder. If you're ready to market smarter and simplify your business using AI without the tech overwhelm, you can get started at digitalcourseassistant.com.

Thanks for tuning in to season one of the Digital Course Assistant podcast. If you found these episodes helpful, it would mean so much to me if you would share the podcast with a course creator, friend, or leave a review to help others find the show.

Reach out if you want me to chat AI with your students or on your podcast. I love to talk shop. And thanks again for listening. I've had a blast recording this and building out the tools that I wish I had for my own course business, but I'm happy now to provide them to you inside digital course assistant.

Alright, that's it. See you next season.