Over the last few months, the chatter around generative AI has taken the whole world by storm. Even if you are someone who doesn’t operate at the crossroads of content and technology, I’m sure you would have still found mentions of ChatGPT on your newsfeeds, right?
Now, while AI as a concept isn’t really foreign to us, the fantastic applications of generative AI tools has what managed to capture our collective imaginations wholly, and definitively.
Businesses across diverse domains are now busy figuring out how they can incorporate these powerful tools into their operations.
In a similar vein, email marketers at large are busy, too, evaluating the possible implementation of AI tools in their daily scheme of things, particularly email copywriting.
Given the nascent nature of the topic, in this blog we explore the opportunities, challenges, and considerations involved in using AI tools for email copywriting in this blog. Read on to find out more!
Opportunities
- By now, ChatGPT has been able to carve a reputation for itself as an excellent writing assistant. Gone are the days when you’d have no choice but to have the blinking cursor on your screen mocking you for hours on end.
Now, even if you have the faintest wisp of an idea, you can feed it to a generative AI tool and have it yield rudimentary first drafts for you.
Of course, these drafts won’t be stellar, but they don’t need to be either! They simply need to have fodder enough to get your creative gears whirring.
- Small and mid-sized businesses can really shore up their content efforts by introducing generative AI tools to their existing content team. Such tools would allow them to level the playing field without forcing them to burn a hole in their budgets.
- Generative AI tools can prove to be a blessing during high-traffic periods such as the holiday season when brands have to send out several similarly-worded emails to their contacts.
With the help of AI tools, all they would have to do is prepare a master template, and receive the variations of their choice in an instant.
- In the course of giving you the luxury of obtaining multiple equally compelling variations of a particular content entity (be it your subject line, body copy, or the CTA phrase), AI tools ultimately help you bolster your A/B/n testing efficiency as well.
- By taking care of the gruntwork, AI tools, are, in essence, allowing email copywriters to focus more intensively on their craft and achieve a level of perfection that they had perhaps not envisioned previously.
- With more and more brands adopting AI tools, brands will be pushed to work that much harder to secure a distinctive edge for their communications.
Subsequently, the overall pedigree of brand communication stands to witness a significant upgrade. On a similar note, this can also make marketers assign greater priority than ever to customer-centricity.
Challenges
- At present, content produced by AI tools needs to be taken in with a pinch of salt. It can be redundant, inaccurate, laden with jargon, and, more importantly, will lack the personality and spontaneity that only a human mind is capable of.
Hence, human intervention is imperative while working with such tools. Whatever output you receive from these tools, be sure to have it vetted through the lens of an experienced content professional to make it usable.
- Plagiarism is a monumental challenge plaguing generative AI tools at present. If you are not mindful, you’ll end up, unwittingly, of course infringing copyrights and inviting a never-ending wave of legal disputes in the process.
- Content produced by such tools might carry bias and stereotypes. This is a direct consequence of their training on data sets that are skewed and on those whose factual veracity hasn’t been soundly examined.
- Your understanding of your brand tone and identity is tacit. No matter how much of it you manage to put down on paper, there will always be that tiny kernel that will elude articulation.
As a result, you might face difficulties ensuring consistency and tone fidelity while generating brand communications with the help of AI tools.
- In order to establish yourself as a thought leader, you need to deliver content to your audiences that is both, original and insightful.
And such content derives from the writer’s lived experiences. After all, one is in a position to offer valuable suggestions or recommendations only after they have greyed their hair in that particular field.
So, while AI tools can obviously help you whip up large volumes of content in the blink of an eye, they can’t substitute your lived reality.
Considerations
- Generative AI tools have resulted in the creation of two extremist camps- one that vehemently refuses to adopt it, and the other that is willing to relegate all its content responsibilities to it.
The ideologies of both camps are flawed. Adapting to new technology is something that mankind has been required to do since time immemorial; it is how we push the boundaries that exist at present and give rise to new, exciting possibilities.
Hence, refusing outright to engage with a technology that is evidently going to alter the landscape as we know it isn’t very prudent. On the other hand, relying completely on these tools and negating human intervention isn’t wise either.
At the end of the day, AI tools are accompaniments that exist to enhance our productivity WITH our involvement. Expecting them to substitute us completely is impractical.
- There are a number of ethical considerations to be made while using content produced by AI tools. As mentioned previously, such content is not free from bias.
As a result, you could very well end up propagating misinformation and hate speech, spreading unfathomable hurt and disorder in the process.
Wrapping It Up
Using AI tools for email copywriting is a subject that involves multiple facets.
Hence, in order to develop a comprehensive and holistic understanding of this matter, we got in touch with some of the brightest minds in the industry, and tabulated their responses in a neat infographic. Check it out here!