Marketing CLARITY Podcast
Marketing CLARITY Podcast
AI Copywriting Tools: Helpful Or Hurtful?
Copywriting can be one of the most challenging tasks for small business marketers. To address the headache, many artificial intelligence (AI) copywriting tools have flooded the market. But are they worth the cost? Are they actually any good?
Today, on the Marketing CLARITY Podcast, I’m joined by Kayla Naab and we discuss the AI copywriting tools we’ve used, the pro’s and con’s of using an AI copywriting tool, and how the proliferation of AI copywriting tools could affect content creators and small business marketers.
🔗 LINKS 🔗
Jasper.ai
Copy.ai
Kayla Naab on Twitter
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Welcome to the marketing clarity podcast, the show that welcomes our robot overlords today on this episode. I have one of my favorite people, one of my favorite guests to talk about a AI, artificial intelligence writing tools. Kayla knob. She is a brand guru, a creative. And, you know, I know I just every time you're on it's got to say, just baller at the Twitter. Okay? You need to follow her on Twitter. But she's here, Kayla. Hello.
Kayla Naab:Hello. I'm glad to be here.
Ross Herosian:Did I do you justice? Yes. Introduction.
Kayla Naab:Yes, brand strategy, Content Strategy copy hanging out on Twitter all day until it goes away.
Ross Herosian:I mean, burning down the house on Twitter. So what's your Twitter handle so people can go and follow you. By the way?
Kayla Naab:It's at Kayla knobs. Okay, y la NABN.
Ross Herosian:Web Web. Artificial Intelligence. Now, I use. One of these is called Jasper. It was previously called Jarvis. But they actually gotten a lawsuit with Marvel. So they had to change to Jasper. I didn't know that.
Kayla Naab:That makes sense.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, yeah. And you, you've been using one or some books. Where are you at with these?
Kayla Naab:I've played around with a few. The one I've used the most is copy.ai copy.ai.
Ross Herosian:Okay, great. Now, I think it's important to talk or mention that this AI world. Even though we're going to specifically talk about words copy today. They are now getting into visuals. Also. Jasper does it but I don't want to pay to upgrade to use it because I don't personally see the value in it right now. But these other ones do also. So maybe down the road when and if either of us start using that. Or if we use it or if we see value in it. We'll bring that to the show. Definitely want to talk about that today. We're just talking about words. Okay, now, what? Let's start. I always love a good pros. Cons. Yeah. So you're out there. You're a small business marketer, right? Hopefully, you have a marketing and content plan. If you don't go to get marketing clarity.com For goodness sakes, yes. Get it done. Get her done as the years. Go it's do it, get mark, get marketing clarity.com Go do that. So and so that you are creating content. And the what happens? The dreaded writer's block, what the hell do I write? That's where these tools come in. Right. So I think that's one of the pros.
Kayla Naab:Yeah, idea generation its use is
Ross Herosian:idea generation. Right? Yes. But I think just like anything else, you gotta come to the table with something. Right? Yeah. I mean, you have to eat you have to put something in for to spit something out.
Kayla Naab:That's it. You know, I think it's an entirely new skill set to learn how to put in a good AI prompt. That's something none of us have ever learned before. Right. So it's a pro and a con at the same time. It's a new opportunity, but it's also a challenge.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, you know, I, I have, I have enjoyed using Jasper to really break up that writer's block. And I think one thing that's really important here is that very rarely, if ever, am I using exactly what it spits out? Yes. I think almost never honestly. Yeah. Okay. Because I still think there is absolutely in you as a brand evangelist, as someone who did like, you still need to insert your voice now in these tools. You can say, Oh, how do you want it to sound? Yes, witty or funny or serious or something like that. Right? But a single adjective is not going to do justice. I would hope to your brand or your voice.
Kayla Naab:Oh, I mean, I think about if your brand is witty. Well, what does an AI think is witty? Like where are they getting their measure of wit or their measure of humor their measure of authority. I would interrogate that and be really careful about the tools I'm using. where they're getting their information. But then yeah, adding that flavor on top of it and making sure your voice is strong. And your message is actually clear. That's still on you, even if you're using AI for sure.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, so the other thing too, with actual functionality for those you out for the small business marketers out there that want to either kick the tires on these, or are intrigued by these, with this copy.ai, does it have a browser extension or plugin? I'm not
Kayla Naab:sure what I know is you can pull any kind of copy in there and create prompts from copy or from your own kind of thoughts. So there's lots of outcomes. You know, at this point, they're able to produce email subject lines, or ad copy, or even the starts of blog posts. At this point, AI is willing to do long form as well.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, that's the that is the interesting thing about Jasper also is that there are a number of different I think maybe they call them recipes, but prompts. So it's not just like, you know, it could be a YouTube video title, it could be a YouTube video description. It could be a blog, short form, it could be a paragraph generator, it could be a blog, outline generator. So it kind of gives you, let's just call them the H ones are the h2 is probably h2, you know, the little headings that you would use, if you were going to build a blog, hey, here's some things, you know, like, here's some of the starting points. But I would hesitate greatly, again, just to go back on this as to like us exactly what it spits out there is still a certain amount of polishing of that's no good, that is good. That's way off. That kind of thing. That I think still, when you do that, you need to once again, have kind of understand your true north of how do I either make this my own? Or how do I throw this away completely, because it's just not going to hit the mark.
Kayla Naab:That's it. And I would say you have the same challenges. And the same struggles, if you're hiring a writer who's a human being, right, you still have to know how to assign content and make it clear what you're trying to get to, you still have to give them some kind of indication of your brand guidelines. And you still have to edit it on the back end and make sure it's strong. Just like I don't think anybody would take a piece of copy from a new copywriter that never worked with before and slap it up without reading it. The same thing is true here. And I would even argue that it might be a little bit more of a risk, because AI doesn't know your strategy. So you can talk to a human copywriter about how your subject line should perform what you hope it does for you. Ai doesn't understand that, at least not yet.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that kind of gets moves us now into, you know, the cons, if you will, of of using an AI tool. One of the think the big ones, is that there there is no, I think like 100% guarantee that you're not going to run into plagiarized or even I would even say Duplicate content. Yeah. Right. I mean, as these things grow, how, how specific? Are queries going to be that you don't get duplicative content?
Kayla Naab:Right, right. And I wonder if this goes into that how many people are using these tools, and how many of them are getting very similar outputs, or overlapping outputs, even? I trust that most of these machine learning algorithms were built to avoid it, not to just copycat things, but you never know. I would say be careful about the tools you're using and who you're trusting, but also just run it through a Copyscape or double check it make sure that it's clean and ready to go. You should do that anyway.
Ross Herosian:Yeah. And what's and also, I mean, what, once you get into using AI tools, let's say there is a proliferate proliferation of it, you know, how do you get into the, the freshness? Yeah. Right. Like it what, to what degree is AI? I guess I would say learning, right, but that's part of its thing is that it's learning as it's go, I suppose. But not only that, but like learning and then making adjustments or getting more creative. You know, like, I Why does
Kayla Naab:it get that? Right? Right. And I don't claim to be on the technical end of this stuff. So I'm sure there are developers in this world that could come and tell us all about it. That would be fascinating. From a marketing standpoint, it's within our jurisdiction to make sure we're being really careful using these as tools for ourselves as well as for clients, you don't want to make promises to your client that this content is going to be strong and performative if you're not sure. And I mean, it just goes back to really vetting your resources all the time. One thing that I really wonder about on that same kind of conversation of proliferating is, this is an extreme example, but what if everybody started using AI tools? At what point in the future? Would we come to a past where no new creativity is feeding that algorithm? Right, of course, I don't believe we'll really get there. But we should be concerned about how close we can come to the sun in that. In that issue, I think it is something to be concerned about, are we creating enough new and fresh to feed them?
Ross Herosian:When that happens, we'll be we will then do an episode about this crazy new concept of using humans. Your copywriting? Have you tried this the cons of humans of using human actual human labor? For your copy
Kayla Naab:that ideas is scare the Gen alpha or Gen whatever really
Ross Herosian:out there? It's a crazy idea. I don't know. I don't know if it'll take but I think it's, it might just be crazy enough might just be crazy enough to work that will make you know, I think that the other thing here too, you mentioned creativity. You know, I can appreciate very much. So being a small business marketer being a solopreneur being, and then also working with my clients who are also small business marketers and things like that, that it's sometimes hard to find the hours in the day, hour, the 30 minutes, the 10 minutes. It has to be creative. Right? I understand that. I am not someone, I think who I'm not someone who is a all or nothing type person. I did. So that's where I do think that AI tools can be very helpful to you to help move the ball, move things forward. You know, and I think a relatively constructive way. But I do think that it still requires your, as we've talked about your input to guide it, right to make it unique to make it meaningful to make it valuable, yes to your audience. And I think the other big thing here is I always want to support the creative process. Yeah. And I, you know, the concern there of AI taking, taking jobs now has made its way into, I mean, it's been here for a while, but into content, content creation, that it's not just about, you know, drones delivering pizza. It's about drones writing your copy,
Kayla Naab:right, and they actually then get the permission and the space to craft the world we live in. content becomes our environment, especially you and I are both perpetually online. I think I'm worse, but that generates everything. I read everything. I'm consuming everything I believe in know about the world. And I think it's dangerous to trust all of that to machines. At the same time, yeah, of course, I'm an advocate for creatives having work so I definitely don't want to see marketing agencies commoditize the creative process by handing it off to a robot However, this does present lots of opportunities for copywriters to come in and demonstrate what makes them different, what makes them valuable over that initial tool. And so no, I don't think there's anything wrong with using an AI tool for your copy. I think you know, my thesis on it is just be real careful.
Ross Herosian:Yeah, yeah, hunch and and I think also for those talented good copywriters, you just you come in you can prove yourself and or you can look at this tool, and you can utilize it, but then you know how to even make it that much better. So perhaps you're able to then increase your own level of output, potentially,
Kayla Naab:you know, when I had thought about that there's there's a lot of benefits to the copywriter for using these tools, not just people who don't want to deal with copy, right? I think learning the tools learning to work with them and make them an Augment to your existing processes, very smart. I also think knowing that you're the liaison to this thing helps you protect that end result from being Totally commodified by by the robots, I think you're able to step in and say, I'll be the creative voice that makes sure this ends up. Okay. And there's a lot of value and a lot of future in that
Ross Herosian:thing. Does this have the same type of impact that maybe what we've seen with social media management where, you know, Okay, listen, those people, candidly, who are never going to pay for proper social media management, or in this case, pay for a copywriter? Yeah. Would I rather them have some tool to help them then no tool? Yes. Yeah, does it doesn't mean, I don't want them to understand the value of working with a good copywriter. However, I can also appreciate the challenge when you are a small business marketer, and you know, you go to Fiverr, or you go to an Upwork. And you have maybe some idea what you're getting, but you don't, you're kind of just hiring out of the blue. Okay, so you don't know what you're getting there. And potentially, that could be a big investment, that that's a scarier investment than just being like, Okay, I'm gonna try this thing. I'm gonna play around. And so I agree completely. Yeah. And I think that's where if you are one of those small business marketers, I really, you know, wish the advice were as simple as like, find someone that's trustworthy, you know,
Kayla Naab:simple. Just find a bit higher than with all the money that you have. What is wrong with your rackets?
Ross Herosian:Correct. Find someone. Yeah. But I don't know it. You know, I think if you were, I would say this. I know it is kind of again, going into the potentially into the abyss, but you know, marketing Twitter. So there's a there's a good little community on Twitter, he's hashtag marketing Twitter, have I think really good and talented now. It's, it's, it's difficult. I would like to think that I am trustworthy, I would like to, I don't need to think I know Kayla's trustworthy. So I would like to extend this to you that if you're listening to this, and you're like, I need help with my copy, I don't know what to do. You can you can reach out to either one of us. That's this is not a call to action solicitation for business. But I'm gonna tell you what I do a lot of times with people who come to me and I don't provide that service. I refer them to people in my network, who I know are trustworthy, who I know are talented, you know. So this solution for all is not that you contact me or Kala, right, but the solution for you listening to this podcast, is that we are at least, you know, we were accessible, you know, you can so I like to send, you know, send it forward and pay it forward. Now, I think the one thing here is, AI is also I think these tools are pretty affordable. What do you know, off top of your head copy.ai, where that's at,
Kayla Naab:they have a free threshold. So I've only used free versions, I have not paid for any AI tools at this point. And I really don't think you have to, if you're just going to use that baseline idea generation starter stuff, there are several free ones, ones we probably haven't heard of as well. And I would, I would argue, you've probably should test a couple of tools just to see the input processes different, the outcomes are different. Likely, even the source material they're referencing is different. So play around with it, there is no danger and no harm in testing these things out. And we usually do this kind of stuff to to give the community a little bit of a heads up, but everybody should test it for themselves.
Ross Herosian:I actually do pay for Jasper, I do. And I find that I find that it's I want to say it's the one I'm at is maybe like 50 a month or something like that. And they do have a really useful, they just launched a really useful Chrome extension. So what that means is like the little icon appears pretty much anywhere on the web where there's like a line of text and you can hit it hit the little icon and then you can type in this a write a paragraph about this or you can choose from their templates or their their recipes. So I will say just from my experience using Jasper I have used, I have found it to be very helpful.
Kayla Naab:I think that's great. And I mean, you know, different outcomes are coming. I'm seeing a lot of these AI tools, sharing those new features all the time like Okay, now we can do a full article. Now we can do a video script like lots of new, lots of new outcomes happening all the time. So even if you're not looking for social media or ad copy, maybe it's something else, even something scholastic or something different. There's there's tools out there. I think that my advice remains the same when you're exploring those tools. Just because that's how that tool spits out email subject lines doesn't mean that's how email subject lines have to look, etc. I'd be very careful about learning what you know about marketing strategy, from playing with these tools. So there's a big difference between strategy and ideas, and I want to make sure people understand.
Ross Herosian:Alright, kids, aren't kids. Everyone gather round, gather round, gather round Max. Max. Don't run with the scissors. Don't. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, kids, we had Kayla join us today. Miss Kayla was here. And what did I miss Kayla, what did we learn today in our conversation about artificial intelligence?
Kayla Naab:I think we learned that artificial intelligence is a great tool to get your brain moving to get ideas off the ground. We learned a lot about being careful about using these tools. And I think being really conscientious of what you want your outcomes to look like. And then I think we also learned that there's a lot of tools out there to help you produce good marketing, even if you're a small business. you're low on budget, and you're low on time. We all are and I think AI could be really helpful.
Ross Herosian:Thank Miss Kaelin nailed it. I think also we learned that it's still very important that you have a Hiller Hiler Keystone plan in place. And I think we also learned that it's, this is an okay place to start. Right? That this is that using AI tools, you can use them and then the one, maybe you'll find that you still have a gap, right? And that's perhaps where you say, Okay, now I am going to hire or talk to people or bring in a copywriter or something like that. Okay. So I think it's, it's important that there's no shame in using an AI tool, but you need to understand that this is still copywriting is still very much a creative content output. Yes. Heavily nuanced. Yes. It's vet. Yes. Heavily nuanced. So you know, and it is a craft. Right. So just as a machine can make a chair, right. Only Ron Swanson can make such a great award winning chair. Yeah. And so with that, we bring this episode of The Marketing clarity podcast to a close if you would like to check out the show notes. You can find them at marketing clarity. podcast.com. And before we leave again, Kayla, how can people connect with you?
Kayla Naab:Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all under Kayla knob que YLANWAB. And you know, I have a website as well. And you can find me basically anywhere of the internet goes perpetually online, as I said, to the internet.
Ross Herosian:Alright, everyone, have a great day. Talk to you next time.
