Should You Rely on AI for Website and Email Copywriting?

AI has been taking the marketing world by storm. Companies of all types and sizes have started using it for email copywriting, content writing, website copy, and more. With its fast proliferation, a debate has arisen as to whether or not AI content writing is a good development or a bad development.

In this article, we’re going to take a quick look at this question and how you can properly use AI for your business.

The benefits and drawbacks of AI content writing

First off, AI stands for artificial intelligence. When it comes to writing, it’s able to source information from the entire internet and create unique content based on the instructions, keywords, topics, and phrases you feed it.

Some of the primary benefits of AI for website and email copywriting are:

• Quick turnaround – AI programs provide content within a matter of seconds
• Cost effective – AI platforms are usually around $100 or less for an annual subscription
• A seemingly endless supply of ideas – You can keep telling the AI to spit out more and more ideas or variations around a given topic

Some of the primary drawbacks of AI email and website content are:

• Potentially bad for SEO – Google is increasingly valuing content through the lens of understanding and trust and is stepping up their efforts to “clean up” the internet. Unaltered AI content may not fit the new Google criteria for valuable content that is worth showing to their users.
• Inconsistent quality – Based on what your query is, the quality of the email and website content AI provides may be very different. A lot of it depends on what information it can find about the topic that already exists on the internet. It tends to do best with simple, specific topics.
• Possibility of plagiarism – AI platforms pull information from multiple sources to create a text, but that text might not be completely unique. A legal risk may arise if the content it creates is too closely related to the work of another author or artist.

How to write effective email and website copy

Creating compelling, persuasive copy has a huge impact on your sales and conversions. Effective writing can convince your readers to do something: subscribe to your newsletter, purchase a product, or support your latest campaign. Ineffective copy isn’t just ignored by the reader, it could even turn them off from your brand. The stakes are pretty high when it comes to your content.

The primary problem with using AI for your content copy is that the topics you’re writing about are most likely not so simple and straightforward. Though you may not even realize it, your industry has a specific way of talking, a specific way of referring to things, even a specific tone. AI may be able to get some of the nuts and bolts of the content right, but if left unaltered, the typical person in your industry will most likely be able to recognize that something is off.

Basically, your email and website copy won’t sound authentic, personal, or even correct without some human intervention. AI simply does not have the emotional intelligence to tell a story or to tailor information to a specific audience. Without that emotional intelligence, it’s hard to sound compelling or make a sale.

Ways to effectively use AI for email copywriting and website content

Although it’s not a great idea to use AI for unaltered content writing, it is a very useful tool for assisting with the copywriting process. Think of it as your assistant; don’t take advantage of it and let it do what it does best.

• Research – When it comes to email copywriting and website copy, AI is great as an idea generator. Having writer’s block? Punch your topic into the program and see what content ideas come out the other end.
• Proofread your current material – There are AI tools that can check your email and website copy for grammar and spelling errors, as well as highlight keywords and phrases that should be used to improve SEO.
• Very short copy – AI can also be helpful in generating ideas for headlines, taglines, and names.

AI is a tool, nothing more (for now)

When it comes to content writing, AI is an imperfect tool. Most likely, your text will still need extensive edits to ensure it has the correct specific information, the right tone, and so it doesn’t sound like AI created it. In other words, you will generally still need to have an experienced copywriter on hand to take your email or website copy over the finish line, at least for now and the near future.

Want help creating effective content copy? Contact our team today.