Ok! We admit it. We’re starting to love AI. No, not because it’s doing work for us, but because it’s helping us do our jobs better. As marketers on a small and agile team, we’re all doing a lot, every single day — but with a little help from our robot friends, we can do so much more.
It’s a fun time to be in content marketing, especially if you can find the right tech to make your work easier. Today, we’re sharing our working definition of AI and five tools our team can’t live without.
What do you mean by AI?
We’re not pretending to understand all the nuances of technology entirely (we’re marketers, after all), so when our team talks about artificial intelligence (AI), we generally use the term as explained by IBM: a blanket definition to include any activities that leverage computers or machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind.
Groovy.
The top 5 AI tools we use to boost our content, marketing and strategy
At Content Matterz, we’re strategists, marketers, copywriters, project and account managers, and designers. We all use some form of AI technology to perform our roles more efficiently and effectively — even if we’re reluctant to admit it.
We did a Slack poll to see what favorites our team is currently using, and here are the results:
1. Grammarly takes the gold
Resoundingly, Grammarly took the lead for top AI tools, including yours truly, resident senior copywriter and editor. You can utilize this resource a few ways, either by using the platform or a plug-in in your browser. As someone who drafts hundreds to thousands of words per day, I lean on Grammarly to catch and suggest alternative ways to spell, punctuate or arrange troublesome sentences.
Our team works predominantly in Google Docs, which has some AI built into the platform with suggestive text and its own spell and grammar check. As a fun bonus, if you opt in, Grammarly will regularly email you an update with your stats — I don’t wanna brag, but this copywriter is 97% more productive than other Grammarly users.
Pro tip: If using the Grammarly plug-in, draft your entire piece before activating it to compose your content uninterrupted. Then once complete, check your work and see how you did! You can accept or reject suggestions, and if you have the premium version, you can see what areas of your copy might need to be clarified for readers.
2. We get Rev’d up
There are many speech-to-text options out there, but in a pinch, we like to go with Rev, especially if we need quick and editable captions for a video or a high-quality transcript of a client interview. What’s nice is that Rev offers both human and AI transcription options, as well as English closed captions and globally translated subtitles. Inclusivity and marketing best practices go together like peanut butter and jelly, and companies like Rev make adding captions to your video a breeze.
Pro tip: Never tried Rev before? If you have a few items that need transcriptions, sign up for a free trial and thank us later.
3. Yes, we use ChatGPT
If you’ve read any of our other articles, you may have noticed we talk a bit about our friend “Charlie.” Some of us (cough, cough) were very resistant to the idea of robot overlords coming for our jobs, so we did what any person would do and humanized the technology with a name. Our Charlie is the free version of ChatGPT, but instead of using them to write all our content, we lean on the chatbot to quickly understand complex topics and industries.
Pro tip: Play with your prompts. Adding “in the context of [fill in the blank]” is an easy way to dial in what response you will get. Again, don’t use ChatGPT to write the content for you; instead, use it as a tool — in conjunction with other sources to confirm accuracy — to get up to speed with a new concept quickly.
4. Finding creative inspiration with Midjourney
Looking for the Charlie equivalent for AI-generated images? Try Midjourney. While we trust our design experts and the beautiful graphics they whip up from scratch (and years of practice), this app is an image generator tool that allows us to create any image we want for internal purposes with only a few simple prompts. Just like ChatGPT, it can take some fine-tuning to get exactly what you want, but the only limitation is your own imagination!
Pro tip: If you’re looking to boost morale internally, a fun way to give your team a little break is to see what images people come up with and share your findings in Slack.
5. How could we not mention HubSpot?
It’s true: we’re HubSpot evangelists. Though we’re on the edge of our seats waiting for the new HubSpot AI tools, the sales and marketing power platform has long provided a range of automation and AI features to streamline marketing, sales, and customer service processes. We’re talking about automating lead nurturing, marketing campaigns, sales tasks and so much more.
While some of us depend on social media scheduling like our days depend on it, others of us appreciate how HubSpot helps us optimize email marketing. HubSpot truly is THE PLATFORM for businesses seeking to automate and enhance various aspects of their operations.
Pro tip: Get more out of your platform by partnering with an agency that is fluent in allll things HubSpot.
Need content? Let us wrangle your robots!
Our above list hardly scratches the surface of all the available AI tools, but we think what we’ve shared is an excellent place to start. Though we joke a lot about robots coming for our jobs, at the end of the day, it’s how we humans can use available technology to improve our work.
At Content Matterz, we’re pros at navigating the latest ideas and tools to help our clients deliver content that drives results. Whether you need help getting started with (our favorite platform) HubSpot or just want to talk to a person, hit us up!