Tom Ruwitch

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Another AI-Easy-Button Backfire

By Tom Ruwitch

Here’s a cautionary tale about AI gone haywire… I host a podcast called The Story Power Marketing Show, and I get mountains of emails pitching prospective guests. Over the last few months, more and more of those pitches have been AI-generated. They’re simple to spot. They always open with some generic praise about the podcast…

RecomMONDAYtions ~ 2026.04.13

By Tom Ruwitch

Recommended Resource Craft: More than a Notetaker, Less Complex Than Notion If you’re looking for an application for note-taking, document management, task tracking, white-boarding, journaling, and more — but you don’t want an overly complex app like Notion — Craft may be the solution. Available on Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, and the Web, Craft is…

Farm-living Ain’t The Place for You

By Tom Ruwitch

“Ever got to the stage with marketing when you just want to quit it all and live on a farm?” So asked “Jason” on Reddit last week. And the crowd went wild. There are a lot of frustrated marketers out there, ready to trade in their laptops and online real estate for hoes and green…

Farts in Space

By Tom Ruwitch

If you’ve been following the news from outer space, you know NASA spent $30 million and 10+ years building the world’s most sophisticated space toilet — only to have it break on day one of the Artemis mission. Turns out scientists spend a lot of time and money thinking about how to handle poo, pee,…

Another Stupid Marketing Trick… Has This Happened to You?

By Tom Ruwitch

I have a new entry on my ever-growing list of “Stupid Marketing Tricks That Give Marketers a Bad Name” — Calendar Spam. It works like this… Tricky Marketer gets your email address. Maybe you opted in to Tricky’s list. Maybe not. Tricky schedules a public event — a workshop, webinar, whatever. Tricky puts that event…

To Em-dash or Not to Em-dash?

By Tom Ruwitch

A client told me he has stopped using em dashes in his content — like this — because they’re a “dead giveaway that AI wrote it.” That inspired me to launch an informal, 100%-unscientific poll: 1) Do you use AI to help you draft marketing content? 2) If yes, do you remove the em-dashes? 3)…

RecomMONDAYtions ~ 2026.04.06

By Tom Ruwitch

Recommended Resource The Unofficial LinkedIn Algorithm Guide for Marketers I recently downloaded the The Unofficial LinkedIn Algorithm Guide for Marketers from Trust Insights and found it very useful. It cuts through the guru noise and explains how LinkedIn’s AI-driven system actually evaluates your content. Updated through March 2026, it includes three practical checklists — for…

“Email” Wasn’t The Problem; His Strategy Was…

By Tom Ruwitch

“The phone’s not ringing.” That’s what my client told me when he said his email campaign wasn’t working. He’s a commercial real estate broker. He sent property notices to prospects. Each email linked to a flier and prospectus. It wasn’t generating warm prospects and sales. So, for him, it meant “email marketing doesn’t work.” Before…

How Miles Davis Went From “Best Kept Secret” to Legend in His Field

By Tom Ruwitch

Here’s a story about how a little-known musician broke through and became a star — and how you can do it, too. A few nights ago, Melissa and I heard an all-star jazz band perform in honor of Miles Davis who was born 100 years ago — May 26, 1926. Miles grew up in East…

This April Fool Could Have Been a Billionaire

By Tom Ruwitch

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Ever heard of them? Of course you have. They’re the guys who founded “Apple Computer” on this day (April 1) 50 years ago (1976). How about Ronald Wayne? Heard of him? He’s the Pete Best of Apple. The third co-founder. The one no one remembers. The April Fool. On April…