Five Guidelines for Marketers Using ChatGPT and AI Tools to Create Successful Campaigns and Content

Just two months after OpenAI released ChatGPT, the conversational artificial intelligence (AI), one hundred million users signed up, setting a new record for consumer-application growth. But beyond the novelty of a chatbot that can pass the Turing test, this and other new AI tools can be very useful for marketers if you know how to use them. 

But maybe you’re just beginning to explore these possibilities with ChatGPT for yourself and your team. Based on our experiences, we would recommend five guidelines to help marketers get started with AI tools like ChatGPT.

• Use ChatGPT and AI to become more efficient, such as refreshing old content.

We have used ChatGPT for a number of projects and found it to be great for refreshing copy, especially for short content like e-mail subject lines. The old rule of thumb for writing headlines and subject lines is to write fifty, and then you’ll get one that works. ChatGPT can generate countless variations that provide potentially fresh perspectives or more compelling arrangements, which can be especially useful for A/B testing.

• You can use AI as a brainstorming partner.

Because of ChatGPT’s massive amount of training data (570 GB and 175 billion parameters for GPT-3), it has a vast store of statistical relationships between words. When you ask it the right questions, you may find that it connects ideas that you had not noticed before, which can be useful for getting past a rut on a blog post or e-mail campaign. 

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You can also input some copy and ask the AI for title ideas, or try word association activities for content ideas. “When I say [word], what does it make you think of?” Generative AI can be a significant timesaver and a brainstorming partner. 

• Don’t always accept the output at face value — ask a follow-up question.

One of the most interesting experiences that I’ve had with ChatGPT was when I entered a prompt to write a paragraph and then followed up with clarifying questions about specific references made in the copy. The AI admitted it didn’t know the answer to the original question and had provided a relatively vague answer to cover its lack of knowledge.

AI models don’t have a comprehensive understanding of a subject, just a statistical probability that words should be in a particular order in response to a prompt. That means that AI models sometimes “hallucinate”— confidently proclaiming fake answers. The results can be amusing and sometimes quirky, but they are a reminder that large language models should not be treated as infallible sources. We need to guide the AI with our questions and verify sources, just like any good writer would.

• Test whether the tool is better at short-form versus long-form content for your company.

ChatGPT can generate both long-form and short-form content, but long-form content tends to run short even when you give the AI a specific word count. My team and I like using ChatGPT for shorter content, like e-mail subject lines. Maybe the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself yet for long-form copy, but shorter content opportunities for on-page SEO, e-mail, and paid ad headlines all have worked well with the AI model. 

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Your use cases may be different, so make sure that you test ChatGPT with the specific content that you need, and then take notes for the future.

• Don’t count on publishing content straight from ChatGPT and other AI.

Most marketers are excited about the advancements in AI. Others fear that AI language models will replace the need for human writers. But automation – as capable as it seems to be – should not be mistaken for the creativity, innovation, and empathy that humans can create. 

ChatGPT should be viewed as a tool to simplify repeatable tasks and provide suggestions and insights — it requires the nuance and compassion of humans to improve the work from “good enough” to remarkable. I believe that at least half of the content that ChatGPT generates needs some level of human editing. ChatGPT can certainly guide your content and make suggestions, but you need to refine the writing, infuse the brand voice, and add final touches to reach the right audience.

Ultimately, ChatGPT and other AI tools can help you save time, save money, and increase revenue, but it is still just a tool. AI is imitative, sometimes in surprising and entertaining ways, but because it cannot go beyond its training data, it cannot truly replace human creativity. Use it responsibly. Use it creatively, and both your company and customers will benefit.