This article is the personal opinion of a Content Matterz employee on the subject of Copywriter AI and does not reflect the views of the Content Matterz organization.
Hello, my name is Nicole. I’m an experienced marketing content writer who’s terrified of what AI means for the rest of my career. My general apprehension is no secret around the proverbial water cooler (aka our team’s Slack channel): AI is scary for marketers, especially little o’l copywriter me.
And we marketers are not the only ones who feel this way. Just ask Hollywood writers who endured a five-month strike to wave their red flags. Most creatives (and yes, as an in-my-spare-free-time author, former painter and on-and-off again photographer, I certainly consider myself a member of this cohort) can’t help but feel threatened at the prospect of having the very livelihoods we’ve worked years or decades for snatched away by a bot.
So how did we get here?
ChatGPT took the world by storm, one prompt at a time
In 2023, ChatGPT was literally everywhere — even my retired father texted me about the novelty of using it. Citing reasons, including how people could ask it questions and the chatbot would respond in a conversational way that felt more like talking to another human than an AI system, it wasn’t a hard sell for sources such as CNBC to dive into the viral details. With more than 1.7 billion users, ChatGPT was POPULAR.
Who’s story is it to tell?
Like everything else, the concept of plagiarism is evolving, but can anyone really own information that’s floating out there in the ether? Recently, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, in a move which Marketing AI Institute Founder and CEO Paul Roetzer refers to as “a really big deal.” The Times has compared its action to the infamous lawsuit against Napster when record companies (and notably the band Metallica) sued the file-sharing service for unlawful use of their material.
But…what if it’s for training purposes? Straight from the source itself: OpenAI’s large language models, including the models that power ChatGPT, are developed using three primary sources of information: (1) information that is publicly available on the internet, (2) information that we license from third parties, and (3) information that our users or our human trainers provide.
…interesting.
How I use AI as a marketer; am I the problem?
As a marketer who spends the majority of their day job drafting original content for B2B tech companies, I’ll admit it. I use ChatGPT. But probably not for what you’d suspect. For me, the number one benefit of an AI-powered tool like ChatGPT is that I can better understand a generalization of the audience I am trying to reach.
Say I’m working with a client that has software that can simplify a complex accounting process, and they want a blog. But I don’t know a thing about accounting or the folks who do that all day. So, I need to quickly give myself some context outside what I know about our client’s tech. Before drafting, I might simply ask questions like “What’s the most time-consuming accounting activity for a business?” or “What causes accounting processes to be expensive,” or even “What pain points do accounting teams feel.” I don’t use any of the text I generate, but armed with this extra intel, I can write directly to my audience.
I’m not copying and pasting, but I see how easy it could be for someone to create their content this way.
Why AI still scares the marketer in me
My marketing career has taken me a long time to get to this point; I started back in the early 2000s figuring out how to make money with my BFA in painting. The reason I am good at what I do is that at every stop along the way, I have had to learn how to first listen and then problem-solve, usually with written words in one form or another.
Over time, I’ve managed to absorb real-life practical marketing applications from the viewpoint of a student (and later, a more senior-level employee). These skills, such as storytelling, how to write for SEO, communicating to various B2B and B2C audiences, and how to simplify complex products so people can understand the benefit they actually provide — all with language that is both conversational yet grammatically correct — are a culmination of my own curiosity and the lessons of those who’ve tried it before.
The threatening thing for me is that tools like ChatGPT can skip that decade-plus of observation-based experience and spit out whatever you prompt into it in minutes. Do you want to pay me for my time to draft a blog (that’s impeccably composed and exactly in your brand voice), or do you want to roll the dice with AI for something that’s…fine.
Optimistic predictions(?) for AI in marketing
It’s only a matter of years (if we’re lucky) until we’re all, “Well, back in my day, we had to do it all from scratch,” but AI is ingrained in what we do — it’s already here. As a senior copywriter who prides herself on the ability to create meaningful and strategic original pieces, it’s my expectation that the consequences for plagiarized and non-human generated content outweigh the benefits of having material made on the quick and cheap.
I predict — and hope — content marketing agencies, such as Content Matterz, can continue to deliver the highest quality work so clients continue to believe in the value of authentic, human-created content. I have no problem handing over tedious tasks to a bot; please, deal with this data or this spreadsheet! Send my emails out whenever it’s best.
Take this boring task and leave me with the creative part.
The best of both worlds
We’re at a time when businesses need to take advantage of available tools while continuing to put out campaigns that connect to the most important element — the human element. For B2B tech marketers who aren’t ready to hand it all over to the bots just yet but could use some help getting it all done, the team at Content Matterz blends old-school marketing tactics with the latest trends and tools to help your content marketing stand out.
Ready to cut through all the noise? Reach out today.