With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years, it's no surprise that AI is starting to impact the copywriting field.
In fact, AI copywriting tools, and there are AI copywriting rules we should be aware of as those tools become more and more popular with content creators. as they can help save time and improve the quality of your content. However, as with any new technology, there is a learning curve. This blog post will cover my four golden AI copywriting rules for letting machines write EPIC content.
Before we talk about those rules, let's reflect on what can go wrong if you violate any of those 3 AI copywriting rules. You'll hear many experts and creators say that AI content is terrible and doesn't come even close to human content - and they're right.
Even though I am a big fan and heavy user of AI tools like Jasper.ai, I have to agree. And here's why:
One of the most important aspects of good copywriting is creativity. Machines are not capable of being creative. They can take existing data and rearrange it differently, but they cannot develop new ideas.
One of the most important AI copywriting rules to follow is never to forget that AI is just a tool. You still have to think for yourself and evaluate the angles you want to take on a specific topic or how you'd like to tell a story. Sure, AI content creation tools can spark ideas (that's what I often use them for), but you must put creativity into your writing.
Another essential aspect of good copywriting is understanding context. This includes understanding the client's brand, the target audience, and the project's overall mission. machines cannot understand context because they lack human empathy and intuition. As a result, they cannot produce copy that aligns with the writer's needs.
A good copywriter must be able to connect with an audience on an emotional level. Think about what you'd like your copy to do. Chances are, you want your readers to follow your call to action.
Well, here's the catch for AI writing tools... humans only take action once they believe that the CTA will work for them and have established a decent level of trust with the person calling them to do something.
AI would have to understand what motivates and challenges us mere humans to produce content that deeply resonates with us.
Copy that sounds like it was written by a machine will never resonate with readers. A good copywriter puts shivers down your spine.
For example, when you read through an excellent landing page, you'll find yourself nodding your head as you read the headlines.
Or let me tell you about that Lego Iron Man sitting left to my monitors. It's about as tall as my coffee mug and looks me straight into the face. The red and golden bricks resemble the mask of Iron Man surprisingly well. Below the mask is a Lego Avengers sticker. I use this Lego Iron Man as a reminder that even superheroes get challenged to their core and that they always find a solution and save the planet.
If you're not made of stone, you just imagined Iron Man while reading through the last paragraph. (This is the Lego figurine, by the way.) AI would have difficulty writing a story like this and invoking similar vivid pictures or emotions.
A good copywriter knows how to write in a human voice so that readers feel like they are having a conversation, not being talked at by a robot.
With AI content's drawbacks or challenges out of the way, let's dive into the rules. Like most new technologies, you can create exceptional results if you follow a predefined framework and approach the tech with a learner's mindset. I hope the AI copywriting rules I set up for myself can help you get up to speed.
When giving input to an AI copywriting tool, it's essential to keep your language simple and easy to understand. This will help the AI software better understand your intended meaning and produce more accurate results. For example, instead of using a long, complicated sentence like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," you should use a shorter, simpler sentence like "The fox jumps over the dog."
If you want your AI copywriter to generate high-quality content, you need to be specific about what you're looking for. This means providing clear instructions and concrete examples. Jasper makes this easy with their Recipes feature that you can try out with their free trial, and The AI Author adds to that with their outstanding community and training materials.
For instance, if you want your AI copywriter to generate a blog post about solar energy, be sure to include relevant keywords such as "solar energy," "renewable energy," "solar panels," etc. The more specific you are, the better results you'll get from your AI copywriter. You must be prepared for the article to have wrong facts and lack of storytelling, though - that's your job to add in.
Even though AI copywriters are getting better and better at producing error-free content, it's still important to proofread and edit your final product before publishing it. Grammar- and fact-checking is one of the most important AI copywriting rules you have to follow.
In my experience of generating well over 200,000 words with Jasper since it came out, I found that the platform adds in random phone numbers, facts, references to made-up historical events, etc. The AI does it because those elements work in the flow of the copy it is creating.
In 90% of cases, it makes sense to reference a statistic, a fact, or a historical date. But it cannot know what the right number or fact to reference would be. We have to edit those and make sure we ethically use AI.
I'm personally using Jasper.ai to create content for this blog, for my email newsletter, and to write my subject lines for the newsletter. Jasper is great for coming up with content ideas, too - though I use Google's auto-suggest feature more often these days.
Refining and expanding on existing content that is close to ranking on the first page of the Google search results is what I most commonly use it for - and for writing a skeleton of a blog post like this one which I customize and finish.
Using AI content tools without having a clear use case is a recipe for failure. You don't know what to expect or how to measure if the tool speeds up or slows down your content creation.
Here's a screenshot of some of the pre-built templates Jasper offers:
It is mighty if you use it as a tool and don't expect 100% ready-to-use copy.
You're likely seeing a pattern in my AI copywriting rules by now. You could summarize them as "make the best of what the AI gives you but keep your head turned on."
There's a reason AI copywriting tools have not made good copywriters redundant yet. They cannot write 100% stellar copy. They're at 50%-65% from my perspective. You can quickly create 10-20 blog posts for your site, run them through Grammarly, and publish them. To take it one step further, you could run the AI-generated content through a tool like Lumen5 and create a video from it using AI.
There's quantity. But there's not the level of quality that you, as a professional creator, demand from your content.
The AI can give you an unfair advantage in terms of speed, churning out ideas, and generating a first draft that's usually better than what most people would come up with.
I hope these AI copywriting rules will help you create better content faster. They help me personally keep my content marketing game up and stay at such a high level that I can get brands to sponsor my newsletter - so there's undoubtedly a use-case and financial incentive for me to keep using them.
