How to Supercharge Your Marketing with AI
Since January, therapists have been asking me nonstop how they can use AI to expedite their content creation process. It makes sense: you’re wearing enough hats, so why not hand one off to a free language-learning model?
Since ChatGPT 4’s release on March 14, it seems like it’s the only thing that the marketing community talks about anymore! And for good reason: it’s pretty awesome, and Google has condoned the use of AI in content creation. But it also has some significant limitations.
Here are my thoughts on how to infuse AI into your marketing and some ways that you can get started today.
AI-generated content is the “new floor”
Rand Fishkin, cofounder of Spark Toro wrote an incredible article on how AI-generated content is the “new floor.”
What does that mean exactly?
According to Fishkin, “if your content isn’t better than what AI can produce, it’s not worth making.”
So what does that mean for us?
AI is not the easy way out
Unfortunately, I’ve had to get real with many weary-eyed therapists and tell them that no–AI doesn’t replace good ole’ fashioned content creation.
Can ChatGPT speed parts of the content creation process up? Absolutely. But speed cannot come at the price of quality. Your #1 priority when creating content isn’t just to create it because a private practice coach recommended that you blog three times per week. When creating content, your priority should be to create something impactful and lasting that benefits potential clients and strangers alike.
Is your content worth bookmarking? Is it helpful enough that users will share it with their friends? In your opinion–and be honest–is your content the best resource out there for that particular topic? If not, before you open a new tab and start up a conversation with ChatGPT, reconsider your priorities.
Are you creating content just to create content? As Fishkin says, “if your content isn’t better than what AI can produce, it’s not worth making.”
AI can absolutely contribute to expediting the process of creating high quality content, but don’t consider it to be the easy way out.
It’s becoming standard practice
AI has increasingly become a more integral part of our world for years now–Google has used AI to improve its algorithm since 2015, and the first successful AI program was written in 1951. To keep up with the times, I recommend starting to think about AI as your partner in work (and life, for that matter).
Constantly ask yourself things like…
Can I automate this process?
Could ChatGPT help me create this?
Could AI eventually help me with this?
Get curious and creative and let AI do the rest.
Be aware that more and more people will start using ChatGPT for their marketing, so be especially careful when publishing content that might be a duplicate of another piece of published content–a big no-no in SEO.
I did a quick test, and it looks like ChatGPT rewords answers to the same questions (screenshots below), but I would still almost always reword or make edits to anything ChatGPT spits out.
That being said, I’ve noticed that the therapy marketing world is typically a few years behind, so if you’re already diving into AI-generated content, you’re ahead of the game 💪
Limitations of ChatGPT
According to research and my own personal experience, here are the top limitations of ChatGPT.
Generic tone
ChatGPT will default to a very generic tone. Like I said earlier, I recommend rewording or making edits to almost everything that ChatGPT generates.
You can also try what I did, which is asking ChatGPT to reword something in how I described my tone. Note that ChatGPT does not work with writing samples, so you’ll have to accurately describe your writing tone (and likely still make edits).
Not updated past 2021
This isn’t a huge issue for more evergreen mental health topics (i.e., topics that remain fresh and relevant for years), but it’s still not ideal.
Not always helpful
ChatGPT is seriously conflict-avoidant–it cannot form opinions or subjective interpretations. This isn’t always an issue for factual information (if it’s correct, that is–more on that soon), but you’ll still need to add your take or “spin” on a topic or bit of information.
In my opinion, the best content is education (i.e., facts) + your opinion. In fact, it’s central to creating effective thought leadership content (definitely read this article on thought leadership content from Animalz).
ChatGPT is the food-equivalent of an off-brand, unbuttered piece of wheat toast. And no offense to off-brand, unbuttered wheat toast–but I don’t really care what it has to say :) But people DO care about what therapists have to say–especially these days amidst a staggering mental health crisis.
Not always accurate
ChatGPT can simply be wrong and make up incorrect facts–these are called “hallucinations.”
Keep in mind that ChatGPT is a language learning model. It’s not a fact and logic model–it’s trained based on language, interaction, and subjective judgments from “labelers” (i.e., the people behind the screen telling ChatGPT whether or not it did a good job).
If you don’t know off the top of your head whether or not something ChatGPT generates is correct, verify the information with another third-party source.
Unclear how it arrives at certain conclusions
This isn't necessarily a big one for marketing use cases, but sometimes you won’t understand the leaps and bounds ChatGPT took to arrive at its conclusion (remember–it is not a logic model).
Danger of toxic or biased outputs
Like I said, ChatGPT is more conflict-avoidant than a codependent people pleaser, but there’s still danger that ChatGPT generates toxic or biased output.
You’ll be able to catch this right away, but it’s worth noting–especially when we’re dealing with highly sensitive content like mental health.
Can’t understand what’s important and what’s not
ChatGPT is not a sentient being (at this time 🤖). It can’t feel anything, so all words mean exactly the same thing to it until someone trains it to understand language differently.
This can be a major problem and leads to what’s called “misalignment issues.” ChatGPT was trained to fill in gaps in sentences, i.e., masked language modeling. So sometimes, ChatGPT can fill in the blanks with words that don’t make sense or aren’t correct because it’s predicting.
Here’s an example from an overview on how ChatGPT works.
“The roman empire [MASK] with the reign of Augustus.”
“The roman empire ended with the reign of Augustus.”
“The roman empire began with the reign of Augustus.”
Pretty different, huh? Not to ChatGPT (until someone tells it differently).
What ChatGPT had to say about its limitations
I of course had to ask ChatGPT what its limitations were.
Kristie: “Hey, ChatGPT–what would you say your limitations are when it comes to creating marketing content?”
ChatGPT: “As an AI language model, my limitations when it comes to creating marketing content are primarily related to my lack of personal experience and contextual understanding of the brand and its target audience. While I can generate text based on the inputs provided to me, I don't have the same level of intuition and creativity as a human marketer who has experience working with the brand and its audience. Additionally, while I can generate high-quality content, I may not always be able to understand the intricacies of a brand's specific marketing goals or the nuances of their brand voice. This is why it's important for marketers to work with me as a tool to enhance their own expertise and insights rather than relying on me as a sole source of content creation. Ultimately, the most effective marketing campaigns are created through a collaborative effort between humans and AI.”
There you have it :)
How to use AI to supercharge your marketing
My default advice is to use ChatGPT to automate tasks that you don’t need a Masters degree for. Here are a few examples.
Outlines
Use ChatGPT to outline blog posts!
Remember to infuse your “take” on the topic throughout the content or add a section dedicated to your opinion (which interestingly enough, ChatGPT recommended by saying “remember to provide examples and personal stories to make the content relatable and engaging for your audience” at the end of the outline). Here is an outline ChatGPT created for a 1,000 word blog post on ADHD and sleep.
Lists
Do you really need to rehash the same listicle-type information that’s public knowledge? Definitely not! Save your time by having ChatGPT create lists of publicly available information like the symptoms of anxiety or the mental health benefits of exercise.
But as always, review the information and edit for your voice and opinion.
Title tags and meta descriptions
Ask ChatGPT to create title tags and meta descriptions for you. You can also ask it to include a certain keyword in it so it’s SEO-optimized too.
Topic ideation
If you’re looking to freshen up your blog or Instagram feed, have ChatGPT generate a few topic ideas for you.
You can be generic with your questions like “what are some good blog post topics about depression?” or get a little spicier with your prompts to uncover more interesting topics.
Here are some screenshots from my conversation with ChatGPT using a generic prompt and then a spicier prompt.
Introductions
Introductions to content can be really difficult to write! I love Brian Dean of Backlinko’s approach to introductions that he explains in this guide to copywriting (check out the “Master the Lead” section), but if you’d like a leg up from ChatGPT, ask them to write an intro for you!
Ready to mess around with ChatGPT?
I hope this helped you understand how ChatGPT works, how AI can help your content creation process, and a few ways you can get started. But remember: there are many possible use cases for AI as your marketing sidekick, so get creative!
Ready to get started? You can try ChatGPT out here.
