How ChatGPT Is Shaping The Future of Copywriting
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On this week’s episode, join me as I explore the game-changing potential of ChatGPT and its impact on the copywriting and marketing industry.
Learn about the undeniable benefits and potential drawbacks of AI, gain insights into how to harness its power in your own writing, and discover the biggest pitfalls to avoid if you’re new to using AI.
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(This is transcribed by 🤖 so please excuse the funky sentence breaks, misplaced periods, and typos. The robots are doing their best!)
[00:00:00] What I love about AI is it's the answer to the epidemic of content burnout that has been plaguing creatives and artists and entrepreneurs for the last decade or more.
Hello and welcome to the Copy Lab Podcast, the marketing and business podcast that teaches you how to write better, sell more, and ignite your business even if you suck at writing. I'm your host, Sara Estes. Entrepreneur, copywriter, marketing strategist and founder of Copy Tiger, where I help changemakers, disruptors and dreamers get their message to the masses.
Let's get started.
Hello, and today we are diving into the topic of AI, specifically ChatGPT and how it affects the copywriting landscape. This is a hot topic, and while I know that everyone is talking about ai, this, AI that, um, it is a part of the conversation that we need to talk about it is becoming hugely adopted in the writing spheres.
So if you're a copywriter or you're an entrepreneur, you need to know how to use ChatGPT and other programs that are similar to it to help you along in your writing process. So I wanna start off by saying I am definitely not an expert in ChatGPT or ai, but like a lot of us, I'm just someone who's out there using it and exploring it and having a lot of fun in the process.
And I wanna talk to you guys about it. As a copywriter, I've seen how AI technology has transformed the way we work. It's no longer just about writing persuasive copy. Now we have machines that can help us generate the content faster and more efficiently. But does that mean we don't need copywriting skills anymore?
Absolutely not. In fact, I think that combining human creativity with AI will produce the best work. AI can help us write better headlines and come up with more engaging content and even optimize our copy for different platforms. But it's still up to us to imbue that content with magic and personality and unpredictability and storytelling that resonates with our audience.
We have to put that in there. So there is definitely still, and there always will be a place for human writers. To make that content actually connect with the readers. Now, some of you may be skeptical of AI or you've never used it before, but let me tell you, the numbers don't lie. In just three months chat, g p T had over a hundred million chat users.
That's a hundred million people who are already using AI technology to create content. So that speaks volumes about how many people are getting excited about it and how many people are trying it out, and incorporating it into how they operate. Now, if you're a copywriter like me, maybe you're thinking, oh my goodness is, are our jobs gonna be lost?
Are we, do I need to figure out something else to do? And the answer is no. Will some copywriting jobs be lost to ai? Yeah. However, it doesn't mean that we should fear AI or resist it. Instead, let's just focus on the positive change that it's bringing to our industry. With ai, we can automate all the mundane tasks and focus on the creative aspects of copywriting that require the human touch.
And honestly, that is the fun part. Anyways, it's the tedious, mundane stuff that has always sucked for everyone. So that's why I'm really excited about AI is it's cutting out the stuff that most of us don't like to do anyway. At least for me, I don't. So if you're a copywriter or you're writing copy, should you be using ai?
Quite simply yes, because it helps you do your job better. By embracing ai, you can boost your productivity, streamline your workflow, and produce better results for your clients or your business. It's kind of funny to record an episode about AI knowing full and well that by the time anyone hears this. Or if you're listening to it in six months, a year from now, definitely two years from now, none of it will be relevant.
It all is changing so fast. I don't really see much of a point in talking about the specific technology I'm using or programs I'm using. But I do think it's important to talk about it in terms of how we as copywriters and entrepreneurs approach the technology in terms of incorporating it into our everyday business operations.
Now I'm a huge fan of ai. I think it's amazing and I remember when I first heard about it feeling extremely panicked, especially as a writer. I've been a writer for 13 years and I, the conversation that I was hearing in the media and from people who honestly really didn't understand the technology, they were saying that writers were gonna be extinct and everyone was gonna lose their job and.
That basically AI was gonna replace everything. Now, as we've learned, that is definitely not true, but what AI will do is collapse the time that it takes to do a lot of things. It used to be pretty tedious. If you've ever been in charge of producing a lot of content, whether it be daily blogs or weekly scripts, daily emails.
You know that it's hard to produce a large amount of content without seriously burning out. What I love about AI is it's the answer to the epidemic of content burnout that has been plaguing creatives and artists and entrepreneurs for the last decade or more. It is no fun to sit for hours and hours and hours trying to write new blog posts after you've already written 200 blog posts for your website.
It can be really taxing on your brain. And what I love about AI is it provides a little bit of relief for people who are struggling to continuously come up and create new content. So I want you to think back to when Photoshop first came out. It was like a breath of fresh air for designers and artists all over the world.
There was no more tedious manual work. No more cutting out images, no more time consuming edits. With just a few clicks, you could remove an object, change the color scheme, or distorted an image beyond recognition. It was a game changer for the industry. Today we're seeing a similar kind of thing happening with ai, just how Photoshop made designing easier.
AI is making content creation faster and more efficient. But like with any new technology, there are skeptics. Some people think that AI's gonna take away jobs and reduce creativity. But let's take a look back at Photoshop. Did it take away jobs? I. No, it actually created new jobs. Designers and artists had to learn to use the tool and new opportunities arose because of it.
The same can be said for ai. Sure, some jobs may become automated, but it's up to us to adapt and learn new skills. And just like with Photoshop, AI is opening up new doors in the industry and we can now personalize content and analyze a bunch of data and optimize copy for different platforms like we've never been able to do before.
But here's the thing. AI isn't a replacement for human creativity. Just like how Photoshop can't replace a skilled artist's hand or someone with an amazing eye for good photography, AI can't replace a copywriter's magic touch. And AI is simply a tool to help us do our jobs better and faster. So AI and Photoshop have a lot in common.
So when I'm trying to think about. How to approach embracing this new technology into my business and the way I write. I like to just go back to the days when Photoshop was new, and that kinda helps me put everything in perspective. So let's talk about something really cool for a second, and that's how AI can improve people's quality of life.
What AI is doing is it's leveling the playing field for people with learning disabilities, dyslexia, or other issues that cause them to find it difficult to express themselves in writing. So writing can be a real challenge for these folks, and that can lead to feeling self frustration and anxiety and low self-esteem.
But with AI writing, We're opening up a whole new world of possibility for a very large section of society. By using ChatGPT and AI writing, they no longer have to struggle to keep up with their peers. They can focus on the substance of their writing rather than getting bogged down by the technical details.
So that can give them the confidence and the tools they need to express themselves fully and effectively, and that is something we should all be excited about. So first we need to talk about the fact that ChatGPT is a language model. That means it's not a research tool, it doesn't know what works best and what doesn't work best in the marketplace.
And it's only got data that goes up until. About 2021. So anything that happened after 2021, it hasn't registered. So it's important to remember all of these limitations because when people first start using ChatGPT, they think it's like a wizard, Google, God, and that it can answer questions truthfully and accurately.
And if you've listened to any recent media that has come out, all of it is really trying to troubleshoot. The fact that AI lies about things, it gets stuff wrong and it doesn't produce correct answers to questions, but what it will do is it will give you an answer that sounds correct, because it's a language model.
So what it's doing is it's picking up on patterns of speech and it knows how to create a sentence that sounds like it would have been created by a human. So it's really, really important to know the distinction between a search engine like Google. Versus asking a question to AI because what AI is gonna do, if you ask AI a question about something about, let's say a legal matter, it is not going to 100% give you the correct answer because it doesn't know what it's gonna give you is an answer that sounds very good.
It could be incorrect, but the pattern of the language is going to be believable. So this is where you need to be very, very careful. If you are using AI or if you're using ChatGPT or any of these types of programs, you need to be filtering it through your own judgment. You know what you're trying to say.
If it has anything to do with something that's factual, you have to go and check. The sources do not rely. Do not ask Chad g b T a factual question. Now, what it's great at is coming up with ideas and inspiration for things to write. This is why I love it. This is how I use it. And if I think if you are a writer, Or a creative in any way, shape or form, you should definitely be using it this way.
So I refer to this as the ideation process. When you're trying to come up with ideas for things, chat, g p T is an incredible place to start. Now you have to go into it. Remembering that it can give you plagiarized ideas. It can give you illogical ideas. If you ask it something like, give me the most irresistible email subject line that peaks curiosity and will result in a high converting email campaign, what it spits back out at you is not gonna be the answer to that question.
And part of the reason why is because ChatGPT doesn't really know. What the answer to that is it isn't a trained copywriter, so this is why now that everyone has the power to write, you need to understand what good copywriting is in theory, so that you can mold and manipulate the AI to actually produce great results for you.
Or you can judge based on what ChatGPT is putting out what it's saying. On what's actually good, right? So you can ask it to give you 20 options of an email subject line, and you can go through and if you know what the criteria for a good email subject line is, you can either find one that works, cuz the majority of them won't.
Or you can use that as a kickoff point to create your own subject line. Now what I love about ChatGPT is that it will, when I start asking it to come up with ideas, it'll bring up some words that I might not have been thinking about, which is super exciting. And that's a really fun process. Um, you know, sometimes we can get stuck in a bubble or we're on a time crunch and our brain just isn't thinking as expansively or as broadly as we might if we were in some other circumstance.
So where ChatGPT becomes really fun. Is that when you're up against deadlines and you're trying to be creative, you've got a place that you can generate some ideas and get going. I can't tell you how many times I have been stuck on something. That previously would've stalled me out for days trying to think of the right way to put something or the, you know, the exact terminology that I was looking for.
When today I can just go into ChatGPT, start brainstorming there and get over that hump. Even if ChatGPT doesn't tell me exactly what I'm looking for or exactly what I'm trying to find, it gives me enough of a starting point that I can usually get there myself. That's what I really love about using ChatGPT.
So after using ChatGPT for many months now I want to talk about some of the pitfalls that you need to be aware of before you start going into it now. If you're gonna be using AI as a professional writer or as a business owner, you have to understand that what it puts out initially, if you just asked it, ask it one question.
That answer that it gives you is going to be the most generic AI content, and that is the stuff that people are going to get really tired of and bored of. They already are. But in a year, I can't even imagine in a year or two what that. Type of writing is going to feel like for everyone because that is now so accessible and is gonna be highly produced.
It's paramount that we write even more creatively so that we take whatever AI is giving us and. We put even more personality behind it and even more unpredictability. That's gonna be the key thing that's going to rise to the top in the next few years of writing, is that unpredictable factor. Because AI is a pattern machine, basically, it recognizes patterns and it can spit out patterns.
So when you're using it, you'll see. And I want you to go, you know, that's why I want you to play around with it cause you'll see the limitations very quickly. But say you're trying to create an email sequence. So what ChatGPT will do is it will sound very similar and it'll use the same phrases or the same intros.
And even if you try and ask it sometimes to like vary things up, it will not budge from that pattern. So as a writer, you have to come in and you have to edit that pretty heavily in order for it to sound good. And you have to know the angles, and you have to know the copywriting psychology in order to make sure that it's persuasive and actually converts because AI has become so pervasive.
Now. That's part of the reason why I wanted to start this podcast because you as an entrepreneur or you as a beginning copywriter, or you as a writer, you have got everything at your fingertips that you need to start producing great writing. All you need to know now is the theory and the philosophy behind extremely persuasive, high converting writing, and that's what this podcast is gonna teach you.
So you can take this knowledge and you can apply it to whatever you're able to do with ChatGPT. And with that, you can be unstoppable as a business owner, a writer, a marketer, or an entrepreneur. So if you haven't played around with ChatGPT yet, I encourage you to go to chat.open ai.com. That's where you'll be able to access the chat.
You can just use it in your browser. They have paid versions, but you can get the free version and. All you have to do is type in anything, just start playing around, but type in anything and have a little conversation. You can ricochet back and forth with the chatbot and it's really funny to see how the conversation rolls along.
In upcoming episodes, I'm gonna go in deeper about how to feed particular prompts into chat G B T in order to get back some really high quality results. But I just want you to know that. One of the key things as a copywriter that you need to do is you need to train it to understand your voice as a writer, and to do that, you can feed it, copy that you've already written, and ask it to use it as a template, or you can just keep massaging the conversation that you're having with it to narrow.
Down the scope of what it's producing. So you're making suggestions as you go along of little tweaks and ways that it can change the copy. The way I like to think of it is I'm tr always trying to ask it enough questions that there's no way that someone else has gotten to this particular kind of answer.
Now, that might be a long shot, but that's where I take it. I try and have the most creative prompts and have a. Big string of them that I've asked to make sure that nothing generic is coming out of it. I have never taken anything straight from chat G B T and put it into my work. I have not found that it is good enough to do that yet.
Now I know that newer versions of chat G B T are coming out like chat, g B T four and that kind of stuff, but um, as of right now, the copy really is not that good for conversion. Copywriting. It's great for some newsletter content or some emails, blog posts, things like that. Scripts. But I still think it's very generic and honestly sometimes a little weird or over the top.
And when you start to play with it, you'll see exactly what I mean. It just says stuff that is so bananas and, and no one would ever write that or speak that way and. When you start to see that again and again, you'll realize just how much editing needs to go into working with Chad, g p t. So it's definitely just a tool you can use to help inspire some creative thinking and to get you over those humps as a writer.
So ideally, you'll be able to write faster, write more, and have some creative avenues come up that you might not have otherwise thought of. So if you're going to be using chat G B T I strongly encourage you to do some research into what exactly you need to be feeding it in order to get the types of results that you want.
Now everyone, this is kind of becoming common knowledge, but the better inputs you're able to give it, the better output it's going to have. And I think people really underestimate how detailed they need to be with those inputs. So start looking around. And learning what types of things work best. And we're gonna go into it more into later episodes of the podcast.
But I just wanna throw that out there if you are just now starting to use it, that there, there are a lot of. Videos, free resources, or if you wanna go into the paid course realm, there are those two, but definitely get familiar with it. So what's happening now that people are using AI is that the content is becoming more uniform and it's got that AI feel.
There are certain red flags that you know that something was written by ai. There are little quirks, like if an email says, I hope this email finds you well, chances are it's an AI email. The other thing is that. When it writes headlines, if you don't push it further, it's just gonna do phrase and then a colon, and then another phrase.
So every time I see that, it just is a little more predictable and not exciting. So what's gonna become really valuable is that unpredictable, unexpected pattern disruptor in writing. And that's what I want to encourage you to embrace as an entrepreneur or as a copywriter, is to really start throwing in those.
Curve balls that AI just can't come up with at this point. It's going to emphasize that this is human written copy and it's gonna stand out because there is now tons and tons of content that's able to be produced. You want yours to stand out, and the best way for it to stand out is for it to be off.
Authentically written by you. And yes, that means you have to put in a little more effort and you have to get a little more creative. But like I said, that is part of the give and take of this AI situation is that a lot more mediocre content is gonna be out there, but the really creative stuff is going to be highly prized because everyone now knows that just putting words out onto the internet is not enough.
Anyone can do that and they can do it. Times infinity. And so what's gonna become important is that your brand is able to stand out through your unique messaging and your unique copywriting. So please don't underestimate that. All right, we're gonna end it there. Thank you so much for being here with me today.
If you liked what you heard and you got any value from this podcast, I want you to head over to copy tiger.com. Forward slash newsletter and sign up for my weekly updates. You'll never miss a podcast episode, and you'll get exclusive content and tips that are only shared through my email list. Follow and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast.
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