​Sometimes, the success of your creative marketing hinges on some decidedly un-creative input. 
 
Here’s a true story. 
 
We were recently tasked with scripting a video for a client of ours. Granted, we have to cloak this in anonymity, but you’ll get the gist: 
 
The client of ours is a consultancy. They had created a breakthrough technical solution for one of their clients. Our job was to script a video, showing the whole world this breakthrough solution—while also anonymizing our client’s client. 
 
Follow? 
 
On the surface, this is a pretty straightforward assignment. We had to write a script which would show prospective clients (for the consultancy) how amazing this technical solution is. But it quickly became trickier than you might think. 
 
Our point of contact at the consultancy was one of the super-sharp technical people who had actually worked on this breakthrough solution. Let’s call him Steve. 
 
Steve was our source of input. And so Steve—not terribly shockingly—told us all about this breakthrough solution. Every nut and bolt. Every feature. Every output. Every paradigm-shattering spec. 
 
And we couldn’t write the script.
 
Know why? 
 
Think about it. 
 
Our task was to write a brief—as in, two- to three-minute—video, dramatically showcasing this breakthrough solution. 
 
Yet what had Steve, in all his ardent energy, failed to provide us? 
 
Of course: Act One.
 
Huh? 
 
Two sides to every story (and marketing piece)
 
A video like this—or any marketing piece like this—should follow what we call “a two-act structure.” Steve had given us all of the input for Act Two. That is, the solution.
 
But of course! Now it’s super obvious, isn’t it? 
 
A solution solves a problem.
 
What was the problem?? 
 
We asked Steve. And he said “Well, our client couldn’t do X.” And yes, he technically answered our question, but he didn’t exactly help us. 
 
And here we get to the gist of this article. Steve is not a creative pro. That’s not his job. He excels at plenty of other stuff, and the world is a better place because of it. 
 
But he needed a little help, a little nudging, from us, to give us the input we’d craved for Act One of this script. 
 
And so we asked him, “Could you tell us more, please? Why couldn’t your client do X? What were all the contributing factors? We want to know, as much as possible, about the sheer chaos they were confronting before your solution came along. We want the ‘Before’ to be horrendous! Inundate us with details! The messier, the better!” 
 
You could see the light dawning in Steve’s eyes. Of course! The messier, the better! Because The Great Wonderful Solution isn’t so great or wonderful unless it really clears what appear to be insurmountable hurdles. 
 
Once Steve got it, he got it. After all, who would know that client’s “before” situation better than him? He piled on with gory details, and voilà! We were able to pen a truly effective video. 
 
Clearly, you can extrapolate a lot from this little story. Marketing and advertising routinely require creativity. And just as routinely, your input sources may not be people who are naturally creative. 
 
But they can be coaxed. The information is there. You just need to tease it out. 
 
Need help with a creative challenge like this? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help! 

​You may know—if you don’t, here it comes—that we’ve been writing these blogs, twice a month, for more than ten years, here at Copel Communications. 
 
How do we always have something new to talk about? 
 
More important for you and your business: How can you always have something new to talk about? 
 
And when we say “talk about,” we’re, well, talking about things like blog entries. Videos. Social posts. Stuff that keeps you out there, in the eyes of your target audience, as a thought leader. 
 
Interesting note: This becomes all the more challenging in the age of generative AI. How can you possibly stand out amid the overwhelming tsunami of auto-generated material? 
 
Fast forward
 
We recently gave a presentation on this exact topic. We won’t dive into the details here, but AI—tools like ChatGPT—are amazing at effectively ingesting and then memorizing (how’s that for a mixed metaphor?) the entire internet. Just as easily, they can spit out (first half of previous metaphor) content at will, using said input. 
 
But they have one massive limitation that you don’t. It’s why their “intelligence” is artificial, and yours is quite real. 
 
We’ll circle back to their weakness—and your strength—in just a second. But first, let’s just talk about the mundane challenge of populating your marketing editorial calendar. 
 
You do have a marketing editorial calendar, don’t you? 
 
Oh, don’t be embarrassed. Lots of companies lack them. But it’s never too late to start. 
 
Think of it this way: Why break into a flop sweat every time you need to push out new material on a pre-determined cadence? If that’s an hour of stress, say, twice a month, why not eliminate it?
 
The solution is easy: Dedicate one big chunk of time, typically around year-end, to simply jot down a list of every month of the year, and then brainstorm the topic you’ll develop content for, for each month. It’s hard, but it’s a one-shot effort, and you’ll end up with a year’s worth of topics. 
 
Yes, it’s hard. But there’s a neat trick to it, as the headline of this article has not-so-subtly implied. 
 
Back to that ChatGPT weakness. 
 
Hindsight is overrated
 
ChatGPT seems brilliant because it can memorize the entire internet. That’s some feat. But here’s a feat you accomplish every day, which it can’t do: 
 
You look forward.
 
The internet is a repository of stuff from the past.
 
If you can spot trends among your clients, guess what? You’re already smarter than ChatGPT.
 
This dovetails with our populate-the-calendar challenge rather nicely. 
 
While you may be doing this at year-end (or right now, no one cares), you’ll be using information that ChatGPT has zero access to: Your thoughts, and your files. 
 
So here—finally!—is the trick we’d teased at the outset: 
 
Looking for topics for marketing material for your business? Look no further than your recent invoices.
 
Yep. You read right. Your invoices are magic fodder for this assignment. 
 
Look at any given one. It shows how you earned your keep, and how you delivered unique value, for any given client. And therein lies a story. Think back on what you’d billed for. There was, invariably, a challenge to solve. And you solved it. (And your client was happy to pay you for that expertise.) 
 
That’s a story. It’s a cool story. It’s a story that showcases your uniqueness and thought leadership. It’s also a story that ChatGPT couldn’t write in a million years. 
 
Here at Copel Communications, we practice what we preach. We build our editorial blog-post calendar, and stick to it. And we routinely open up our own billing files for cool stories that we can anonymize and share with you for handy tips and lessons learned. 
 
Need help with that next marketing challenge? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help!