In the first days of ChatGPT, you couldn’t have gotten me to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Of course, it didn’t help that one of my clients told me he would use AI to “fill in the gaps” in my copy. Yikes. Was AI going to replace me?
But as some of the excitement settled, I got curious. These days, ChatGPT and I have a (mostly) healthy relationship. I see it for what it is: a tool, not a replacement.
In fact, it’s a pretty useful tool, especially for getting around the dreaded writer’s block. Here are some ways I’ve started using it to enhance and expedite my own copywriting process.
To brainstorm
For me, the hardest part of copywriting is just getting started. Once I’ve come up with a few taglines or section headers, the momentum builds and I tend to generate more pretty quickly. But getting to those first few can feel like trying to pull a truck out of the mud.
Rather than staring at a blank page for 15 minutes, willing myself to come up with something, I’ve started turning to ChatGPT to get my creative juices flowing.
For example, I was recently asked to brainstorm some names for an evil supervillain, for use in an online game aimed at helping players make a real-world impact. I fed this prompt into ChatGPT and got some real gems:
Did I use any of these names? Absolutely not. But they spawned other ideas and eventually I was able to come up with a pretty solid list of options that my client loved.
So what’s the trick for using ChatGPT to brainstorm? Here are a few pointers:
- Be specific: tell ChatGPT exactly what you want, what the company does, and who the audience is.
- Adjust your prompt as needed: if you don’t get what you’re looking for the first time around, tweak your instructions until you do.
- Remember this is just a start: there may be rare occasions when ChatGPT gives you exactly what you want, but in my experience, it usually needs to be tweaked and edited by a human afterward.
(Be sure to check out our other tips for writing a smart AI prompt.)
To outline
Another thing that can slow me down when I’m just getting started on a piece (especially a longer piece) is outlining. This is something ChatGPT can help with as well.
For example, if I can get slightly meta here, let’s say I asked ChatGPT to create an outline for a 1000-word blog post on how copywriters can use ChatGPT:
Again, would I use this exactly as is? Probably not. For one thing, including the history of AI doesn’t seem super relevant, and I think copywriters are probably already sold on the importance of writing compelling copy in today’s digital landscape.
But this is a great starting point that I can now tweak, using my human knowledge and real-world experience as a copywriter.
Once again, being specific and tweaking your prompt as needed are probably my best tips for using ChatGPT to outline, but here are a couple other pointers as well:
- Include article guidelines: in your prompt, don’t forget to include things like word count, keywords, and target audience.
- Pick and choose: feel free to take the points you like from the outline, leave the ones you don’t, reorder, and add your own.
To establish a voice
One of the reasons I don’t believe AI will ever replace human copywriters is that a bot just can’t channel the bold, original voice that many brands demand.
But when you’re trying to come up with a voice for a new brand, or translate that voice into the piece you’re currently writing, ChatGPT can be surprisingly helpful.
For example, I was recently asked to write a braces guide for kids, and to make it fun. I was struggling to figure out just how to do that, until I got on the phone with my client and we tested out the limits of ChatGPT.
We fed it increasingly ridiculous prompts until, sparked by a few AI-generated phrases, we finally came up with the idea to give the braces guide a superhero makeover. I don’t think I ended up using any of the copy that came directly from ChatGPT, but it was crucial to helping me find the unique voice this project called for.
Here are my tips for using ChatGPT to establish voice:
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- Experiment: keep feeding that bot adjectives until you get the right combination, and don’t be afraid of going too far: sometimes that’s the best way to get ideas.
- Try a few different things: even if the first thing you get is perfect (it probably won’t be), try tweaking and regenerating the bot a few times just so you have options.
- Save the results: one of the nice things about ChatGPT is that it saves your history (at least, for a few months), but if you get something really helpful, it may be worth copying and pasting it into a Word doc so you can refer to it again down the road.
Is AI the future?
A few weeks after my first AI scare, I had another client tell me something much more reassuring: “this will never replace writers like you.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
Once I stopped being scared of AI (though I can’t say I’m entirely at peace with it now), I started to see it as an opportunity. We’re living in a pivotal moment. We get to choose how we’ll use this exciting new technology, and if we get it right, instead of hurting our business, it can help—enormously.
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