Pros and Pitfalls of Using AI in Marketing Content Creation

Seemingly overnight, the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has gone from abstract to a tangible (and never-ending) list of applications. Cue the infamous ChatGPT. And I know this can cause some digital marketers to shake in their boots because, who are we kidding, automation has put a lot of people out of jobs before.

But the reality is AI will never be able to replace the human behind content creation. I’m in the boat where I do think we can embrace certain AI tools to make our jobs a bit easier and make it work for you (not against you).

I’m always on the lookout for new and emerging technology, constantly testing these tools against my current content creation workflow. Considering the current state of AI marketing tech, here have been the pros and cons of AI-based marketing software and my favorite tools I’ve used so far.

The Current Situation

A recent study by Bynder, a digital asset management platform, found that over half (55%) of respondents currently use AI tools in their content creation processes.

This study revealed that marketers are using AI to automate tedious, time-consuming tasks like:

• Creating first drafts (54%)

• Optimizing content / SEO (43%)

• Spelling and grammar checking (42%)

• Paraphrasing and summarizing (38%)

Similarly, the American Marketing Association found the top three uses for AI in marketing were content personalization (56.5%), predictive analytics for customer insights (56.5%), and targeting decisions (49.6%).

Here are some of the use cases HubSpot recommends for AI marketing:

• Content personalization 

• Data analytics and forecasting

• Chatbot content

• Automated email campaigns

• SEO

“AI,” in theory, can be so nebulous. So, what does it look like when all of this is used in practice? You might be interacting with AI marketing more than you even think. How?

Let’s take a popular music platform, Spotify, for example. This platform uses AI to track users’ previous listening history, location, artist interactions, and more. Then, Spotify will display personalized playlists (Discover Weekly and Daily Mixes) and email users music or podcast recommendations based on this information.

One step further? Spotify recently debuted its brand-new AI DJ that uses generative AI technology to provide a lineup of personalized music recommendations based on what they know you’ve listened to and enjoyed.

The more you use the AI DJ and tell it what you like (and don’t like), in theory, the better it will get. From my experience, the AI DJ just needs more data to work better and isn’t quite there yet – for reference, it attempted to play Gregorian Hymns based on my past listening to Alternative Folk and Pop.

But I digress – AI marketing is all around you. But the key is to know its limitations and which applications work best for your unique marketing needs.

How to Use AI in Marketing

There are many limitations to AI marketing technology (more on this later). Still, there are some scenarios where AI tools can make your life much easier without sacrificing creativity along the way.

The first is to use it for uber-repeatable tasks. Take, for instance, you’re writing the same emails over and over again but want to personalize each of them. AI tools do a good job of taking past copy you’ve entered and spitting out slightly different or personalized versions.

These tools also work best when writing or asking about existing knowledge. I promise you won’t get it to generate anything incredibly novel or life-changing. Remember, these tools require information to learn and improve, so they can only give you things based on what it’s already been told.

Some ways I use AI marketing platforms are to create blog or article outlines. I particularly enjoy using AI technology to find the best keywords for my content and ensure it’s well-optimized using SEO tools.

Other marketers might use this to create a first-pass draft for their content. No shame on anyone who does this, but as marketers, we have a duty to create original, tailored content using a honed brand voice. And this simply isn’t feasible with the tools we have right now.

Besides the content, AI provides pretty stellar data analytics and insights to create top-notch marketing assets and better inform your campaign to improve overall performance. This can save your marketing team (or team of one) time planning and get them back to doing the work they love!

The key here is to embed AI marketing tools into your existing process to free up time and focus on more creative tasks.

The Pitfalls of AI Technology

While there are some fantastic uses for AI in the marketing world, there are just some things it can’t or won’t do very well.

One of these things is generating new, original, or creative content. Again, it can only create things based on its previous knowledge. So, any work requiring creativity or audience trust-building shouldn’t be given to AI-based tools.

This also applies to writing in a specific brand voice – AI marketing software’s ability to write using a specific brand voice is sub-par at best. AI-generated content can sometimes sound very inhuman. If you’re going to use it for content generation, be sure to make the necessary edits to breathe some life back into it.

Additionally, the content AI technology provides can be pretty low-quality. The data and information it uses are usually very inaccurate or outdated. For example, the standard version of ChatGPT doesn’t have access to any information after September 2021.

As marketers, we are well aware of the intricacies involved in devising and implementing an integrated campaign. Crafting messages suited for diverse platforms and audiences demands finesse and strategic insight – a machine simply can’t manage this.

While leveraging AI tools to simplify tasks and optimize efficiency is perfectly reasonable, it is crucial to remember that the human mind behind marketing efforts remains irreplaceable.

4 Helpful AI Marketing Tools (Beyond ChatGPT)

This is 100% unsponsored and simply my opinion based on the many tools I’ve used over the last year. This is not an all-inclusive list, but simply my top four favorites. Have one you think I should check out? Let me know!

So, if you want to explore more AI-based marketing tools beyond ChatGPT, here you go!

1. Grammarly

I’m a Grammarly die-hard through and through. Like other grammar checkers, it reviews spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But it goes far beyond this.

It also offers suggestions for different words, rewriting sentences to improve readability, or removing the passive voice. So, once I write something, Grammarly helps me do a major overhaul to ensure I send my clients the very best quality content.

Their new AI-generative feature, GrammarlyGO, functions similarly to ChatGPT, where it helps you improve or manipulate content. This tool definitely needs some work but can be helpful for quick content help or ideas.

2. Copy.ai

This platform can help you with copy creation or ideation for various types of short-form content, such as emails, blogs, and social media posts.

All you need to do is give it some information about the type of copy you’re writing, your brand/product, the goals of the copy, and your desired tone. Once you’re done, it’ll generate a few options to look over, use, or save for later.

You can choose from many templates for different copywriting projects, such as welcome emails, discount social media posts, case study overviews, or website pages.

For instance, say you needed help generating copy for a welcome email. You can choose the welcome email template, fill it out with information about your product/service, its benefits, and other things your subscriber might want to know, and choose your tone.

Then, once you enter all of this information (you can be as thorough or vague as you want), it’ll generate 3-4 options for you to review. If you don’t like these, you can have it create more. And if you particularly like one option, you can save or copy it to wherever you need to use it.

3. Semrush

This is my go-to platform for all things SEO, though the platform offers over 40 different customizable AI-based tools to help with all your marketing needs, like PPC, SEO, and social media marketing.

Some of my favorite Semrush tools are their keyword overview, keyword magic tool, and SEO Content Template.

Their keyword tools are extremely helpful for determining keyword analytics, such as volume, keyword difficulty, and SERP analysis. The keyword magic tool offers some analytics of different (but similar) variations of your original keyword and explores some potentially better ones to use in your content.

To start using the SEO Content Template, you simply need to enter a few target keywords (you can use the above keyword tools to help find these!). It’ll then generate an analysis based on your top competitors and a list of recommendations, including backlinks, text length, and how your competitors used your target keywords.

I will say this one is costly, but it does offer a limited number of free services, including 100 keyword searches, 100 page crawls, and 50 monitored social profiles per month.

4. Surfer SEO

I use this tool in a couple of different ways: as a content idea generation tool and as a keyword tool.

Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that can help you generate more organic traffic and rank better on search engines. Once you choose your domain, niche, and target audience, it will generate top-ranking keywords and a content outline and check for plagiarism.

You can choose to have the platform write the entire thing for you (which I don’t necessarily recommend) or simply use their detailed suggestions to write your own high-ranking piece instead.

The Keyword Surfer Chrome Extension works directly inside my chosen search engine (Google for me) to display a list of keyword ideas based on my Google search, the percentage of overlap with the original keyword, and estimated monthly search volume for the U.S.

We haven’t even seen the beginning of what AI can or will do – the possibilities are endless. But for all the skeptics out there, I encourage you to stay curious and give some of these tools a run for their money. Who knows, you might find a way to save yourself a few hours a week.

Nevertheless, AI should complement human creativity, not replace it. It should be used to streamline processes and free up time for creative tasks. At the same time, human input remains essential in crafting quality content with empathy and commitment to the brand’s core messages.