The 101-Thing Marketing Problem

I had a moment last week that probably sounds familiar. I was staring at my client's marketing to-do list (always recommend using Monday.com). Literally 101 items ranging from "optimise product descriptions" to "research competitor pricing" to "create social media content calendar." Everything was marked urgent. Everything felt important.

Here I am, advising ecommerce teams on growth strategy, and they’re drowning in the same tactical quicksand as everyone else. The irony wasn't lost… while they were manually checking competitor prices and writing product descriptions, the actual strategic work, the stuff that moves the needle, was sitting untouched. This isn’t how the marketer should be kept busy.

Isn’t the simple solution not doing these 101 things faster, but figuring out which ones you can hand off to AI so you can focus on the work that actually requires human brain power?

The Great Task Audit

I took that overwhelming list and started sorting. Not by priority, that's what got us into this mess, but by what actually needs human creativity versus what's just... work.

The "Only Humans Can Do This" pile was surprisingly small:

• Strategic positioning decisions

• Creative campaign concepts

• Customer insight interpretation

• Relationship building

• Complex problem-solving

The "This Could Be Automated" pile was embarrassingly large:

• Product description writing

• Competitor price monitoring

• Social media post creation

• Email flow drafting

• Basic market research

• Performance report generation

• Ad copy variations

• SEO content optimisation

What Actually Worked (And What Spectacularly Didn't)

I spent the next three weeks testing AI tools on the "automatable" tasks with one of my ecommerce clients. Here's what happened:

The Wins: We automated their product description process using Claude.ai with custom prompts. What used to take 2 hours per product now takes 10 minutes (including human review). The descriptions are actually better. More consistent, better SEO, clearer benefits.

Their competitor price monitoring? Set up automated alerts through a combination of web scraping tools and AI analysis. Now they know within hours when competitors change pricing, instead of manually checking weekly. Go check out what Jacob and the Relay.app team have created so you can do with with ease.

The Disasters: AI-generated social media posts were... soulless. Technically correct but completely devoid of personality. We're back to human-written posts, but now AI handles the research and initial draft structure. That frees up time for creative thought… which then allows for better work. See where I’m going here? AI… you do the grunt work for me. Manage the machine.

Automated email sequences worked great until they didn't. The AI kept defaulting to overly promotional language that didn't match their brand voice. Lesson learned: automation needs constant human oversight.

The Real Question: What Should You Actually Automate?

After months answering this question, here's my honest assessment. Don't automate everything just because you can. Instead, ask:

1. Is this task repetitive and rule-based? Product descriptions, basic research, data compilation? yes. Creative strategy, customer relationship management? no.

2. Can mistakes be easily caught and fixed? Automated reports with human review? Fine. Automated customer service responses? Proceed with extreme caution.

3. Does this free up time for higher-value work? This is the crucial question. If automating something just fills your time with more busy work, you've missed the point.

What I'm Actually Recommending Now

Start small. Pick one repetitive task that's eating up hours but not adding strategic value. For most ecommerce teams, that's usually:

• Product description writing

• Basic competitor research

• Social media content ideation (not creation)

• Performance report compilation

• Email welcome sequence drafting in Klaviyo

Test the automation for two weeks. Measure not just time saved, but what you actually did with that time. If you're not using those freed-up hours for strategic thinking, customer research or creative problem-solving, the automation isn't working.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here's what I learned: most of those 101 tasks? They're not all equally important. Some are busy work we've convinced ourselves is essential. Others are genuinely critical but don't require human creativity.

The goal isn't to automate everything, it's to automate the right things so you can focus on the work that actually grows the business. Strategic thinking. Creative problem-solving. Understanding your customers better than your competitors do.

Because at the end of the day, AI can write product descriptions and compile reports. But it can't figure out why your conversion rate dropped last month or come up with that breakthrough positioning strategy. Yet.

That's still human work. And frankly, it's the work that actually matters. But, your AI chums can certainly help. They can spark ideas for you. The output won’t be perfect, but you’re hired as a marketer. Go make diamonds.

What's one repetitive task that's been eating up your time this week? I'm curious what you'd automate first and what you'd do with those freed-up hours.