OpenAI’s ChatGTP and GTP-4 are the fast-growing technologies in the world right now. What started out as a fun AI-powered chatbot has evolved significantly over the past 6 months. Did you know it can now build a simple computer game in under 60 seconds? Or that it has built a website based off of a hand drawn sketch – in mere minutes?
A lot of professional services businesses are in a bit of a tizzy about ChatGTP – is it coming for our jobs, or can we find a way to leverage the tool ourselves?
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot since the start of the year. Copywriting and content creation are two areas that are constantly being discussed as things that AI has the potential to replace. So how will we adapt to this new artificial intelligence ‘threat’ everyone keeps asking me about?
At BeKonstructive Marketing we view AI technology and ChatGTP is a tool that can be leveraged by our human copywriters. A tool that can help us gain efficiencies by condensing hours of market and competitor research into a quick summary that takes a few minutes to read.
Our team have embraced ChatGTP, and I think it is fair to say that all of us use it at least once a day for one purpose or another. I often use it to look up stats or to help me generate blog topic ideas relating to a particular theme. In fact, I used it for this article – I asked it what some of the most interesting applications of GTP-4 technology are, which I then used in my opening paragraph.
We use it – but is it going to replace us?
I think that ChatGTP has the potential to make some copywriting jobs redundant – but I don’t think it will replace us entirely. I think ‘average’ copywriters need to be worried. Copywriters who regurgitate existing content into ‘listicles’, or who make no attempt to create new ideas or generate new conversations.
But for those of us who take a journalistic approach to copywriting – by looking for the new angle or story – I don’t think we have anything to worry about. AI repurposes existing information and ideas. It doesn’t generate new ideas and it is not strategic in its approach.
“Anyway, the point is that GPT-4 might be able to outperform journalists on some dry, generic assignments. But its lack of self-consciousness and reflexivity prevents it from excelling at more creative projects. GPT-4 can generate language. But it can’t truly think. It can only regurgitate text it finds on the internet in novel combinations. Basically, it offers a facsimile of expertise that’s belied by the glibness of its analysis and occasional errors.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/gpt-4-chat-gpt-ai-jobs.html
Eric Levitz
Essentially – I think that ChatGTP has the potential to make lazy copywriters redundant; but for those of us who take a ‘no corner-cutting approach’ to content creation, I think it can help us create efficiencies (ironically by cutting corners when it comes to market / industry research, competitor research, and fact-checking), allowing us more time to spend being creative and strategic.
Why should you choose a human copywriter over ChatGTP?
I was at an event last week and I overheard someone bragging about how they’d used ChatGTP to write all of the content for their website. “All 2,000 words!” they exclaimed. And the marketer in me shook my head at all the many many problems this approach opposes.
- Firstly, ChatGTP writes generic content – so your website is now filled with generic non-brand centric content.
- Secondly, your website content is not going to be optimised for SEO – a requirement if you want to rank in Google.
- And thirdly – 2,000 words? For your entire website? This article alone is 2,000 words long – an entire website should be closer to 20,000 words!
I think this is one of the major problems we will see with tools like ChatGTP. That people will bypass professional advice completely. Yes, ChatGTP can help you write your website content – but it can’t tell you who your target market is. It can’t tell you what your brand values are. And it can’t tell you how to communicate your brand values to your target market in a way that makes them take action.
By bypassing a marketing team or copywriter, you’re missing out on strategy and storytelling – two key elements required in marketing copy. Without strategy and without storytelling, your content is just… words. Boring, lifeless, AI-generated words.
I want to highlight the argument I’m making here by sharing three copywriting projects that our team have worked on this year, and the specific parts of these projects that cannot be replicated by AI technology or tools like ChatGTP.
Human Copywriters Build Emotion
The first example comes from our friends over at Optimum Recoveries.
Optimum Recoveries are celebrating their 14th birthday this year. The client (Angela), had a creative concept that she wanted our team to create content for. The concept was that of the elephant – the elephant is the symbol for a 14th anniversary, and is known for being strong, wise, stable and have strong protective ties to their family.
Angela wanted the birthday message to their ‘family’ (team, clients, community) to tie in with the elephant symbolism while thanking them for their continued support of Optimum Recoveries.
The level of collaboration and storytelling required for this project could not have been performed by AI. We needed to build emotion into the words – so that readers could really understand how heartfelt Angela’s words were, and how grateful she is for their support.
You can read the final piece on Optimum’s website here.
Human Copywriters Sell Experiences
The second example comes from a new client Omega Wellness Centre.
Omega Wellness Centre are a mental, physical, and spiritual health centre that takes a holistic person-centred approach to their services. They were building a new website and needed help with the copy and messaging.
Omega provides a very unique approach to the way they help individuals manage a broad range of mental health conditions. They needed their website to communicate the experience – not just the service or the programs.
Their tone is very calming, welcoming, and approachable. Very human, and very different to the usual clinical and impersonal tone that can be associated with businesses in the allied health space.
Their messaging needed to focus more on the experience and the outcomes of participating in their programs, and less about the technical / scientific elements. Although those couldn’t be forgotten about completely as the service is backed by a very experienced and qualified team.
An AI tool could not have completed this project. You need human copywriters if you want to connect with a human audience. While ChatGTP might be able to create information to fill in pages about addiction or cognitive behaviour therapy – it will be hard pressed to do it in a manner that makes the reader feel seen and heard.
It would be clinical, matter-of-fact and cold. But Omega Wellness Centre needed copy that was warm, understanding and comforting.
You can view Omega’s new website (and their new copywriting) here.
Human Copywriters Are Strategic
The third example comes from our own website.
We are currently working on a copywriting project of our own. We are rebuilding our core services landing pages including rewriting all of the copy as well as rebuilding using a new layout concept.
So far, we have rolled out the new copy and layout for both our Brisbane Copywriting Services and Brisbane SEO Services pages.
These pages have been written strategically. Before writing a single word of text, we thought strategically about who our target audience are and what information they need to convert into a lead.
We asked ourselves:
- Who is our target audience, and what level of knowledge do they have about this topic?
- When they come to our copywriting or SEO pages, how far along in the decision making process are they? Do we need to educate them about what SEO is, or can we assume they already have a solid understanding?
- What information do they need to get from where they currently are in the customer buying cycle, to filling in our contact form or requesting a quote?
- What style of language is going to appeal to them the most?
- What are their pain points or motivators? How do we specifically address them?
- What is their goal? What are they trying to achieve, and how are BeKonstructive uniquely positioned to help them achieve those goals?
An AI tool does not think about your copy strategically in this manner. It answers a question. While you can feed it some additional information like who the target audience is, it will never be able to express your unique approach or offering – and how that addresses the specific needs of that audience – the way that a human copywriter can.
If I’d asked ChatGTP to create a page of copy for a landing page about SEO, it would have been factual and informative. It would likely have included the section about the benefits of SEO – but it wouldn’t have been able to create the copy about our processes, or the case studies and examples. It wouldn’t have the understanding that a lot of our SEO clients come to us after having a negative experience with another SEO company, and that trust, transparency and communication are extremely important to them.
You can view our new copywriting page here and our new SEO page here.
You need human copywriters if you want to connect with a human audience
I keep coming back to this example whenever I talk about AI and copywriting. Your website copy is responsible for being your 24/7 sales assistant. If you wouldn’t dream of replacing the human sales assistants with a robot in your bricks-and-mortar store – why are you considering replacing them online?
It takes a lot of time, money, and resources to get people to visit your website. Whether you’re using SEO, Google Ads, social media, billboards, radio ads or any other advertising medium to drive users to your website – it doesn’t happen by chance. To spend all of that time and money sending people to your website, just to serve them generic, AI-generated content with no heart, soul, or emotion once they get there?
Well, that’s a missed opportunity if ever there was one.
“Writers should be able to keep ourselves relevant by getting creative. Really, we just need to lean into the most inextricably human parts of our craft.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/gpt-4-chat-gpt-ai-jobs.html
Eric Levitz
Our Awesome Human Copywriters
Our humans are awesome. They have a background in marketing, they are creative, and strategic, and they specialise in connecting with humans through words. Skills that AI technology will never be able to completely replicate.
Good businesses learn to adapt and evolve – to embrace technology and learn from it. And that is exactly the approach that we are taking at BeKonstructive Marketing. We are looking at how we can use ChatGTP to make our processes more efficient, so that we can spend out time where it serves our clients better – on strategy, on generating creative ideas, on building emotion, and on crafting unique stories that express our client’s marketing messages in a clear and concise way.
If you’d like to learn more about our approach to copywriting, or would like the assistance of our awesome human copywriters to help you with your next copywriting project – please get in touch.
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