Ina Toncheva

Helping B2B tech & deep tech companies communicate complex products with compelling messaging that resonate with target audience.

Founder

The Indigitals

Strategic marketing consulting and training for B2B tech companies, helping them achieve sustainable growth.

Co-Founder

Мечка страх мен не

Podcast Creator and Host

Telerik Academy

Co-creator of the Digital Marketing Upskill Program at Telerik Academy. Teaching marketing fundamentals—product positioning, ideal buyer persona, marketing funnel; content marketing & marketing strategy.

Trainer Digital Marketing

Imagga

Marketing Strategy

Chaos Group

Creating an managing the content marketing strategy. Data and content driven growth.

Content Marketing Manager

Progress

Leading the marketing programs for Progress mobile product group and managing a small remote team.

Demand Generation Campaigns Manager

Planning new product launches and go-to-market strategies for new products, collecting market intelligence, crafting product positioning and messaging.

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Planning and executing new product launches and executing on the implementation. Creating and managing the marketing and content plans to help drive sales. Community building, working closely with industry influencers.  Monitoring and analyzing product performance data, running PPC and social media advertising, coordinating and executing on PR, advertising campaigns and technical conferences.

Senior Brand Manager

I was creating and updating content for web and offline: website, events, marketing materials, advertising, PR and other communication.  I was creating and managing the marketing and content plans to help drive sales. I was coordinating PR, advertising campaigns and technical conferences.

Brand Manager

LAUNCHub

Mentor

Germanos

SIF 309 Music and Film Production

Production Manager

Marketing for B2B Tech and Deep Tech | Trainer & Speaker | Podcast Author and Host @ Мечка страх, мен не

Marketing for B2B tech and deep tech - I help companies articulate their marketing and content strategies. 
AI for Content Marketing - I help marketers use the right AI tools in their content marketing pipeline. Guiding principle: There is no AI strategy for marketing without strategy for marketing. 
Personal branding - I work with tech leaders and founders to help them grow their personal brand.
I host a podcast called “Мечка страх, мен не”, which studies courage and fear 🎧🐻
I teach marketing in Telerik Academy 🎓

I’ve spent time in the last few weeks testing the most popular AI writing tools to see what’s actually worth using in 2026.

Here’s the quick rundown of the ones I shortlisted:

Jasper
A reliable all-rounder for marketing teams.

Pros:
- Excellent brand voice control
- Very natural, human-like tone
- Smooth workflow: brief → outline → draft
- Strong for multi-format publishing and campaigns

Cons:
- Price may be high for small teams or solopreneurs
- Requires significant guidance for thought-leadership or technical content
- Fact-checking still essential

Surfer AI (part of Surfer)
Surfer AI is one of the best tools for creating content that ranks. 
(For fairness: Semrush’s AI Writing Assistant is very similar, but at a higher price point)

Pros:
- Best-in-class SEO optimization and real-time scoring
- Clear improvement suggestions and SERP-based tone
- Great for topic clusters and multilingual output

Cons:
- Writing quality is less human, more “optimized”
- Always needs human editing for voice or nuance
- No custom brand voice yet
- Not ideal for narrative or expert-driven content

 ChatGPT
The most flexible, customizable, and creatively powerful AI research and writing partner. 

Pros:
- Best brand voice control on the list
- Highly customizable via Custom GPTs
- Strong research and ideation output
- Exceptional value for money

Cons:
- Requires setup and experimentation
- Not built for SEO/AEO without enhancements
- Lacks built-in team workflows or governance
- Output quality depends heavily on your prompt and setup

Writesonic
Shines when you want one platform that covers basic SEO, AI search visibility, and content creation & automation.

Pros:
- Combines AI writing + AI-search visibility
- Easy to use templates and integrations (WordPress, Zapier)
- Visibility tracking for how AI systems reference your brand
- Built-in basic SEO/linking features

Cons:
- Writing quality and brand voice control are not best-in-class
- Advanced AI search visibility features behind high-tier pricing
- Credit system limits long-form output unless upgraded
- Not a full team-workflow/governance platform

Rytr
Smart, budget-conscious choice for creators who need speed, simplicity and affordability. 

Pros:
- Extremely easy to use with minimal learning curve
- Excellent value for money for short-form, low-budget content
- Broad language and tone support

Cons:
- Not designed for high-quality long-form content without heavy editing
- Lacks advanced brand-voice customization and team workflows
- Output can feel generic or repetitive
- Fewer integrations and capabilities for larger teams

This is the short version.
My full breakdown (pros, cons, pricing, test results) is in this article: https://lnkd.in/dUuVyDPZ

Am I missing a tool you swear by?

AI for Content Marketing Advisor | Marketing for B2B Tech | Speaker | Podcast Host @ Мечка страх, мен не

At the start of 2025 I had a vision with a capital V.  I was going to build the website for AI in content marketing. A fully automated, AI-powered content machine. Writes, designs, uploads, optimizes, makes coffee.

Reality check #1: The Website
No magical AI website-builder that “does it all in a weekend.” Just good old WordPress and a human designer.

I flirted with vibe-coding it myself, but let’s be honest: I couldn't build a front end and a CMS and be confident that I would know what to do when things went wrong.

Reality check #2: Content
Sure, I constantly use AI for SEO planning, research, drafting, editing and brainstorming.

But guess which articles got backlinks and strengthened my domain before the organic traffic even caught up?

The opinionated ones. The ones that took time, endless rewrites (with the priceless help of AI), and were years behind anything “automated.”

Reality check #3: Visuals
This is the one area where I can pretend I’m futuristic.
It’s basically Canva or ChatGPT prompt + Ideogram execution = ✨magic✨

Reality check #4: SEO
The AI tools of SurferSEO and Semrush work great. Let’s give it this one win. Moving on.

Reality check #5: Newsletter
Half AI, half me, half impulsive chaos.
Yes, that’s three halves. Welcome to content marketing.

Reality check #6: Distribution
This part is not glamorous.
Still me showing up, pitching, posting, sharing, repeating.
(If someone builds that tool, call me.)

The lesson I didn’t really need a few month experiments to learn:

In a sea of AI sameness, strong content stands out fast and the strongest signal for this is mentions and links back to you.
Not the Semrush or SurferSEO outline that you “improved” with Claude.
The stuff you actually put your brain and experience into.

So no, I’m not giving up.
aiforcontentmarketing.ai stays the home for marketers who plan to be irreplaceable with AI, not replaced by it.

Note to self: 
More trust in your expertise and passion.
Less panic about optimization.

In the very beginning of my marketing career, I had an extravagant, borderline-abusive boss.

One random September day, he stormed into our office and slammed the door behind him.

“Are you ready with the concept for the Christmas promotion?”

“No,” we said, glancing at each other in our still-summer dresses.

His nostrils flared, widening menacingly.

“You knew from last year,” his voice rising,
“no — three years ago, five years ago…”
now shouting,
“that Christmas would come on the same date this year and you’re still not ready!”

Bang. Door slam.
Silence. We breathe.

He was terrifying, but he wasn’t wrong: some events don’t surprise us.
We just pretend they do so when we react at the last minute.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about that moment as I map out what’s already shaping marketing in 2026.

Content is becoming instant.
Attention is shrinking.
Distribution is turning into the toughest challenge.

None of it is sudden. It’s simply arriving faster than we’re used to.

🔮In this month’s issue, I explore what’s changing (whether we’re ready or not) and a few tools that can help us adapt thoughtfully, without the last-minute scramble.

View newsletter: AI for Content Marketing

In the very beginning of my marketing career, I had an extravagant, borderline-abusive boss. One random September day, he stormed into our office and 

Open article: Christmas Comes on the Same Date Every Year by Ina Toncheva • 2 min read

Christmas Comes on the Same Date Every Year

Here’s the real story of AI in marketing in 2025 — not the hype cycle version, the inside-the-industry one.

Spoiler: it was chaotic, electric, exhausting… and it changed everything.

January: Tool Euphoria
AI tools still felt magical. Showing NotebookLM or NapkinAI could blow a room’s mind.
ChatGPT quietly appeared in referral traffic. No one cared.
AI tool kits sold like hot bread. Simpler times.

February: The “Sound Like You” Moment 
My top content? Teaching people to train ChatGPT to sound like them.
Custom GPTs became the new lead magnets even though most marketers didn’t pay attention.
Deep Research launched and suddenly competitor analysis got… outsourced.

March: Video Boom + Brand Voice Panic
AI video tools leveled up fast.
Marketing teams didn’t. Legal departments tackled anyone who tried.
People trusted AI with drafts — just not their brand identity.

April: The AI Memos Shockwave
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke’s viral memo: “Reflexive AI usage is now baseline.”
Duolingo’s CEO echoed it.
Suddenly CEOs everywhere quietly adopted the same stance.
This was the moment AI stopped being optional.

May: AI Search + Training Fever
Companies asked: “How do we rank in ChatGPT and Perplexity?”
CEOs mandated AI adoption. Training requests increased.
“Workflows” became a word that meant everything and nothing.
One CEO told me they replaced their marketer with ChatGPT + Canva. (I wish I was joking.)

June: Tool Overload & The Better Model Debate
Tools launched daily — many built by people who do not understand marketers.
Marketers debated: Claude or ChatGPT?
Spoiler: the tool matters less than how you use it.

July: The SEO Panic
Rumors said Google punished AI-assisted content.
It didn’t. It punished low-quality content — which existed long before AI.
Organic traffic started dropping influenced by Google AI overviews.
The zero-click trend hit hard.

August: A New Marketing Job Title Appears
“Head of CEO Content.”
Personal brand strategy officially became infrastructure.
Content strategists everywhere exhaled.

September: SEO, SOE, AEO… Chaos
 “SEO is dead” trended.
 “AEO” trended harder.
 Meanwhile, experts reminded us to:
 • diversify channels
 • audit AI search visibility
 • create content that doesn’t exist yet

October–December: The Reality Check
Everyone is tired.
Expectations that AI would make content scale itself are obviously unrealistic.
AI consultants were multiplying by the minute.

If you survived 2025, congrats.
It was the fastest-changing year marketing has ever seen.

For 2026?
• Use AI daily, until it becomes a natural extension of your strengths.
• Content is becoming a commodity — distribution is the new superpower.
• Create content native to each platform. Simple resizing won’t cut it anymore.
• If short-form video isn’t in your mix yet, stop postponing it.
• No matter your role, your personal brand is your strongest asset. Don’t neglect it.

The Real Story of AI in Marketing in 2025

Mercury is still retrograde, so I’m not starting anything new. 
I’m re-purposing, re-posting, re-trospecting — waiting for the universe to release a stable version.

How are you treating this cosmic glitch?

I’ve been studying how Ali Abdaal (8M+ followers) creates content for YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn… and honestly, it’s a masterclass.

When most marketers and creators “repurpose,” what they actually do is surface-level adaptation: tweaking, shortening, or resizing the original asset.

Ali’s growth didn’t come from posting endlessly — it came from understanding what each platform’s users reward.

He creates platform-native content.
Not repurposed content.
Not resized content.
Not “copy-paste but shorter” content.

He understands the psychology, the expectations, and the consumption patterns of each platform.

Here’s what we can learn from him:

Instagram users want:
- Inspiration
- Short, emotional, fast content
- Aesthetic experiences
- Creator personality
- Quick motivation
- Social proof + behind-the-scenes moments

LinkedIn users want:
- Clarity
- Professional insights
- Frameworks they can steal
- Self-reflection
- Permission to feel stuck and human
- Stories that teach something

YouTube users want:
- Depth
- Solutions to specific problems
- Step-by-step systems
- Story-driven learning
- Long-form explanations with strong production
- “Edu-tainment”

This is why Ali feels native everywhere he shows up — because he treats platforms like different audiences, not different channels serving the same one.

I wrote up the full breakdown (plus a simple matrix you can use to apply this method to your own content).

Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/dtYudXEc

🌘 In honor of the final days of Mercury retrograde, I reviewed some of the best content repurposing tools — because this season is all about “Re.” Re-think. Re-use. Re-purpose. ♻️✨

No, these tools won’t repurpose for you. They just make it faster to do it right.

🎛 Repurpose IO
Automates cutting, resizing, and publishing video clips across platforms.

- Auto-publishing to TikTok, Shorts, LinkedIn, Reels
- Instant resizing + watermark removal
- Bulk workflows from one video or podcast

Why marketers use it:
Saves hours of manual exporting and uploading.

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Distribution & publishing once your clips and message are ready.

🎥 VEED
Makes videos look branded and professional with zero editing skills.

- High-quality screen recorder, polished output, and professional finish
- On-brand subtitles and caption styling
- Automatic caption translation
- Custom templates for Reels, Shorts, and LinkedIn videos

Why marketers use it:
Turns clips into branded assets that don’t look “AI-generated.”

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Polishing & visual formatting once you’ve chosen the exact moment.

✂️ Descript
Edit video and audio by editing the text transcript.

- Text-based editing
- Automatic transcription + speaker labeling
- Multi-format exports for podcasts, videos, and social content
- Studio Sound
- Automatic filler word removal

Why marketers use it:
Cuts down the time spent finding and cleaning clips.

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Selecting & cleaning raw clips before visual styling.

🎯 OpusClip
AI that picks high-engagement moments from long videos.

- Automatic highlight detection
- Captions, emojis, jump cuts
- Viral scoring

Why marketers use it:
Helps surface moments worth sharing fast.

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Idea extraction for video — you still choose which clips represent your brand.

🎙 ElevenLabs
Turns repurposed scripts into natural audio — without recording.

- Hyper-realistic AI voices
- Multilingual narration
- Voice cloning

Why marketers use it:
Repurposes written content into audio instantly.

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Audio layer once the script is finalized.

📚 Google NotebookLM
Understands your source content and extracts the best insights.

- Context-accurate summaries
- Quote extraction with citations
- Idea mapping across PDFs, transcripts, docs

Why marketers use it:
Helps identify what’s genuinely worth repurposing.

Where it fits in the workflow:
 📍 Research & idea extraction before writing or editing anything.

This is the short version.
The full breakdown (more tools, details, and recommendations by format) is here: https://lnkd.in/dx6Yf8Y2

I’ve been feeling in the past few months how hard it is to write things people genuinely connect with. Consistently. And then I get an email from Cards Against Humanity for Black Friday, and I laugh out loud.

I send it to the friends I played the game with this weekend.
I’m sharing it here with you.

Because honestly — how many Black Friday emails get shared around?

It’s not just because the copy is bold and clever.

It’s because it’s consistent with the boldness they show in every word they print. Their name. Their game. Their website. Their emails.

This is who they are, and they never pretend otherwise.

Their FAQ section is literally called “Your Dumb Questions.” My favorite:

Q: “Listen, I have some great card suggestions.”
A: “No you don’t. But you can submit ideas anonymously here if you want. We promise never to look at them.”

And it makes me think:

When you feel depleted, don't force it.
Remember why people read you and connect with you in the first place.

Not because you got every sentence perfect.

But because you showed up as the thing only you can be.

Go back to that core. Everything else starts there.

When students tell me the course helped them, that’s the part that matters most to me 🤍 

Earlier this year, I launched my video course on AI for Content Marketing with my partners at The Gen AI Academy. It’s been one of the best decisions for my own growth — and seeing marketers use the material and get results makes all the efforts worth it.

This is the system I teach my clients and teams and it’s all inside the course: https://lnkd.in/dzUt3Mm6

Mother | Marketing and Communications | Community Management

Because learning must never stop, regardless of where you are! Just completed The Gen AI Academy's AI for Content Marketing course, by the brilliant Ina Toncheva.

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