In this thoughtful and transparent episode, Liz Wilcox — the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing — tackles the question everyone’s asking: how should small business owners use AI in their email marketing? Liz shares her honest experience experimenting with ChatGPT, why she believes AI shouldn’t replace your writing, and how to use it wisely — as a support tool, not a substitute for your voice.
Episode Highlights
- Liz’s honest confession: she doesn’t use AI daily — her assistant Patricia uses it occasionally to write podcast descriptions or brainstorm topics.
- The story behind this episode: inspired by a longtime email reader named Andrea (or possibly Andrea).
- Liz’s first real use of AI came during a writer’s retreat in 2025 — she used ChatGPT to duplicate her existing email sequences, not write new ones.
- She prompted it with past emails and asked it to adjust them for new topics.
- The keyword: duplicate, not create.
- Her core belief: AI can help with ideas and efficiency, but should never replace your unique human connection.
- Why “human to human” writing still wins — readers can feel when content is AI-generated, and it dulls authenticity.
- Liz’s quirky self-check moment: wearing a “Delulu” shirt and cat ears to boost her mood while recording — a perfect metaphor for authenticity in marketing.
- The deeper message: struggling through writing builds resilience, skill, and creativity — essential traits for entrepreneurship.
- The Chick-fil-A vs. McDonald’s analogy:
- Both use AI, but Chick-fil-A uses it to enhance human interaction, while McDonald’s uses it to replace it.
- Chick-fil-A, open six days a week, earns more per store than McDonald’s because it maintains that personal touch.
- The takeaway: use AI to support connection, not eliminate it.
- Final encouragement: if you have neurodivergent needs or energy limits, use AI as needed — but challenge yourself to stay present in your writing.
Key Takeaways
- AI should enhance, not replace: Use it to duplicate, refine, or brainstorm — not to write for you.
- Human connection wins: Readers can feel authenticity in your words.
- Struggle builds skill: Writing your own emails helps you grow as a business owner.
- Tech as a tool: Follow Chick-fil-A’s model — use AI to elevate, not eliminate, the human experience.
- Grace and growth: Adapt AI to your capacity, but keep your voice at the heart of your message.
Links and Resources
How AI Is Disrupting Our Industry, and What We Can Do About It
Join Liz’s annual pass waitlist here!
Join the Email Sound Booth Facebook group here
Check out Liz’s free welcome sequence here
Liz’s Kit [Convertkit] affiliate link
Transcript
What’s up? What’s up? Liz Wilcox here. This is episode 168 addressing the AI elephant in the room. Listen, AI, I know it’s here to stay, baby. And you know, the way I see AI is that AI is meant to change our lives. We aren’t meant to have to change our lives for it, like it changes our life. We don’t change our life for it. Right? So hopefully that makes sense. It made sense in my head, but I’ve said it. So here we are. You know I don’t re record these, right? You know I don’t edit these.
Anyway, honestly, my use of AI—the way I’ve used AI—is almost Zillow. So of course, Patricia, my admin assistant, you know, she’s used it a lot more than me, but I’m not saying she uses it every day. She uses it to write the descriptions of this podcast. Sometimes she uses it to give me ideas for the podcast. Oh, by the way, this podcast idea came from Andrea, or Andrea, a long-time email list reader. So again, if you’re not on the email list, why not? She uses it a lot more than me, but we still don’t use it every day.
And honestly, we don’t, we don’t use it in our email marketing. Now I will caveat that and backtrack on that to tell you that yes, I have used it in my email marketing before. I was taking the summer off in 2025, so in May of that year, I knew I had a lot going on in August, but I didn’t want to come back to work in August and have to hit the ground running. So I took an entire weekend. I actually flew from Florida to Michigan to a writer’s retreat. While everyone else was writing their fiction novels, I was writing emails. And this was the first time I used AI to help me write emails. But I spent the majority of the time prompting ChatGPT, putting in previous emails, telling them, hey, this is a sequence I already wrote. Can you change it for this new subject? Okay? And then I ended up tweaking from there.
So keyword is, I put a sequence in that I already wrote. I did not ask ChatGPT to write me any freaking emails. I asked them to duplicate the emails I already wrote. And that is, is really, you know, we, we could end the podcast right there. I really want you to take away like AI and stuff should not write your emails, but it could help you come up with ideas. It could duplicate your emails for you. Now more than ever, I feel like, we just need that human to human connection, right? And if you’re using AI to write your emails, you’re missing out on that, right? Like, I can’t explain it, and this might sound woo woo or whatever, but you know, when you watch a YouTube video or an Instagram reel or whatever and you can just tell that it’s AI talking to you, I believe we can tell AI writing from real writing. Okay. I really, I really do. I mean, maybe I’m delusional.
Actually, I’m wearing a shirt today that says delulu. Hang on, let me move the camera. If you’re watching on YouTube, maybe I’m delusional. I am wearing kitty ears today. I honestly, if you can’t tell, I’m kind of feeling like crap. So I put on a silly shirt and a silly headband to try to feel better. Anyway, it feels like crap when you get a bunch of AI generated content, doesn’t it? Like, doesn’t that just burn out your brain more than the other, the other stuff?
So I’m not saying don’t use AI and I’m not saying don’t use AI in your emails, but really, I invite you to struggle with writing emails. I invite you to struggle with writing emails. That’s got to be my next email I got, right? Like, when you’re using AI to write your emails, I really feel like you’re missing out on some deep work. I feel like running a business, starting an email list, there should be some struggle in that. I know, even I’m guilty of it. Like, oh, email, so simple. Come, follow me. You know, there’s a million and one of me telling you that this is freaking easy, but guess what? It’s freaking not okay.
Writing emails is easy for me because I love writing, but you know, it’s not easy batching these podcast episodes, editing the podcast episodes. That’s why I don’t do it. Figuring out my lighting, you know, all that stuff is hard for me, you know, but even, even though email writing has been easy, it hasn’t been easy. Learning how to get replies, learning who my audience is, stuff like that is deep work. And if you’re using AI for the majority of it, I really feel like you’re missing out on some of the struggle that actually should be included in creating your business when you struggle.
Like, if writing emails is hard, sure. Use the AI to come up with ideas. Join email marketing membership for $9 a month and I’ll help you there. Right? Do those things. But you gotta build the skill, you know, business you have to build a lot of new skills. You have to build a lot of resistance or not resistance. You have to build a lot of resilience so that you don’t waver when crap hits the fan. You have that built in resilience. You’ve done hard things before. You’ve overcome the BS of not having the skill. You’ve created all these new skills so you can get creative to clean up the mess, right? That is the crap that hits the fan.
Anyway, that’s. That’s all. That’s really all I gotta say about AI. Oh, the last thing I want to say, and to my point about, you know, human to human, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B, B2C, whatever, you’re human to human. I just want to share this quick story about chick fil A versus McDonald’s. So if you’re not in North America, Chick Fil a is like this fast food chicken place that’s a phenomenon. Basically, it’s always so busy they’ve had to restructure their entire drive through because they cause so much traffic. Anyway, Chick fil A and McDonald’s, they both use AI, okay? They both use AI to enhance or change the checkout experience, right?
So if you’ve ever been to McDonald’s in the last couple years, pretty much there’s nobody at the counter. You go to a computer, you know, they’re using AI to help you make your selections and take your order, right? Chick Fil A does the same thing, except they didn’t get rid of the server, the person taking your order. They equipped them with the AI. So these people are outside, literally with like a little iPad or whatever in their hand, and they’re you. They’re using AI to speed up the checkout process. Now let me tell you, Chick Fil A, if you don’t know, is closed on Sunday. So it’s only open six days a week. A week, store for store. Chick Fil A makes more money than McDonald’s. And McDonald’s is open an extra day, okay? And has longer hours. Some of them are 24, 7, right? But chick Fil A outperforms them. Why? Because they use the technology to enhance the customer experience, to enhance the way you interact with the humans. Unlike McDonald’s, who eliminated the human experience. So just let that marinate.
Listen, if you feel like you have some neurodivergency and you feel like this doesn’t apply to you, listen, I’m not your mama. I don’t know you. I don’t know your capacity. I don’t know your capabilities. So don’t let me guilt you into struggle. But I do invite you to challenge yourself when it comes to your email marketing, to really try to truly connect with your people by using your voice.
All right, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Sorry, I’m not feeling good. I hope. I hope this helps. Love ya. I’ll see you on the next episode. Join the membership if you want help writing. You want that human touch to your emails, I got you covered. Link in the show notes. All right, you’re awesome. Bye.