Cut Your Marketing Learning Time by 90% (with NotebookLM)

Used AI to shortcut weeks of research into one session.

As marketers we run fast.

But most of us still waste afternoons digging for the one tactic that moves the needle:

• 38 Chrome tabs

• 15 Reddit rabbit‑holes

• 8 blog posts

• 1‑hour YouTube “masterclass” that gives you a single usable tip

I used to do the same until I fed every source into NotebookLM and turned it into a 30‑minute cheat code.

Marketers don’t drown in information scarcity; we drown in information overload. The winners aren’t faster Googlers, they’re faster synthesisers.

The Numbers That Made Me Switch (Planning Time Cut By 90 %)

After NotebookLM:

• Research time to build a cold‑email playbook: 30 min (instead of 5 hours)

• Sources to review: 1 searchable knowledge base (no more scattered databases)

• Booked demos from first send (test list, 100 leads): 3 hits

What NotebookLM Actually Does:

• Upload your PDFs, transcripts, or YouTube videos.

• NotebookLM turns them into a private search engine that answers in plain English citing the exact doc it pulled from. No guesswork.

Here’s what makes it different from ChatGPT:

• It only pulls from your materials, so the answers stay grounded. So no guesses, no hallucinations.

• Responses are tight and contextual. It references specific docs when it replies.

Real Example: Cold Email Outreach Case Study (Rezerv)

I am currently working with Rezerv, helping them scale up marketing to fitness and wellness studios.

One promising channel we identified: cold email outreach - getting studios to switch from legacy systems.

Which meant I had to get up to speed, fast.

10‑Minute Source Hunt:

1. Search YouTube for:
   “Cold Email” + (“Masterclass” / “Course” / “Expert” / “Podcast” / “Millions”)

2. Filter by video length.
   Anything over 20 minutes is solid. 1 hour+ is gold.

3. Check the comments.
   If people say it's useful, it probably is.

4. Add the YouTube videos into NotebookLM.
   Aim for a mix: strategy, copywriting, technical setup, deliverability, case studies.

The outcome? A “mini brain” that answers cold‑email questions in seconds.

From Sources → Strategy (Exact Prompts)

Now start asking the right questions and contextualizing answers to your business.

Use these prompts to turn raw notes into a tailored cold‑email playbook for Rezerv:

Prompt #1:

“Give me a summary of everything I need to know about cold email outreach.”

Use this to get a high-level overview across all your uploaded sources.

Prompt #2:

“What are the best practices I should follow before launching a cold email campaign?”

Covers setup, domain warming, deliverability, list building. Basics that will break your campaign if you skip it.

Prompt #3:

“What are the top 2 tools experts consistently recommend for cold email outreach?”

Cuts through tool overload. You’ll get what’s mentioned most across your sources.

Prompt #4:

“Give me a step-by-step plan to start cold email outreach for Rezerv, a SaaS platform for fitness studios.”

Now you’re layering in context, making the outputs shift from generic to usable.

Prompt #5:

“Contextualize the offer for Rezerv — what value would resonate with fitness studios in a cold email?”

This helps frame the “why switch” angle that most businesses fumble.

Prompt #6:

“Give me 3 examples of the first cold outreach email tailored to Rezerv.”

Actionable. You’ll get draft-ready options that map to the frameworks in your source material.

Wrap Up: Learn Faster, Execute Smarter

NotebookLM isn’t just for organising info, it’s a shortcut to deeper understanding and faster results.

I test AI workflows on real marketing problems.

And turn the useful ones into 10x Playbooks.

So business owners and solo marketers doing it all themselves can skip the guesswork… and copy what actually works.

→ I drop one of these 10xPlaybooks 🚀 every week. Don’t miss the next.

John