ChatGPT is hitting the headlines worldwide. Have you heard of it?
The online AI chatbot has gone viral, gathering 1 million users in a mere 5 days. This is seriously impressive growth when you consider Instagram took a slow and steady 2.5 months to gain popularity, and Facebook took 10!
But is it here to stay? Is ChatGPT a good thing? And will it change the way we do email marketing?
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses AI technology to interact with you in a near-human manner. In case you’re wondering, the name stands for Chat Generated Pre-Trained Transformer – catchy, right?
The incredible language processing tool was brought to us by a company called OpenAI back in November 2022 and has both scared and impressed us with its abilities since. ChatGPT is currently completely free to use, though as of February this year, there is now a paid subscription option dubbed ‘ChatGPT Plus’ available to US users for $20 a month.
But what does it actually do, you ask? What doesn’t it do. You can use ChatGPT to answer questions, like a smarter Siri, or to produce content. Fancy a chat about pre-Tudor history? ChatGPT can do that. Want to hear a joke? You betcha.
Looking for help brainstorming ideas, summarising article text, writing code or formulating blog posts?
It can do all of that, too.
How ChatGPT Works
OpenAI trainers gave the ChatGPT model a huge range of real-life text data so that it could generate responses that sound as human as possible.
To use ChatGPT, all you need to do is visit chat.openai.com and create an OpenAI account. Once you’ve signed up and logged in, you’re good to go and can start talking with ChatGPT.
Most people get started by asking a question. Anything you offer up to ChatGPT is considered a prompt; this might be a question, or a request, depending on what you want to get out of your interaction.
For example, if you teach people how to market themselves better and run courses and webinars, you could prompt ChatGPT to…
- Create 10 Facebook posts promoting your best-selling course
- Come up with 5 catchy email subject lines to introduce your newest offering
- Write a follow-up email for people who attended your latest webinar
- Write a 120-character meta description for your blog post about lead bait
- Write a personalised blog post on ChatGPT’s impact on email marketing…
(Damn. Why didn’t I think of that last one!)
ChatGPT then uses the bottomless pit of information on the internet to formulate its responses.
Can ChatGPT Be Used For Marketing?
Some people have reservations about the introduction of AI into marketing, imagining an ‘I, Robot’ situation with Will Smith defending us against a race of demonised robots… Back in reality, ChatGPT is a tool that can enhance your digital marketing offering if used carefully.
The chatbot is here to help. But carefully does it…
Effective marketing revolves around getting people to act on their human emotions and reactions, and AI is simply not human. ChatGPT language was trained using real-life conversation, but there are so many nuances of human language and conversation that it’s impossible to replicate.
For this reason, the downsides of using ChatGPT for your digital business marketing still currently outweigh the advantages. Not convinced? Let’s take a look.
The Benefits Of Using ChatGPT For Your Marketing
Here’s why you might consider using ChatGPT to help you in your marketing efforts…
- Pure Speed
Prompt ChatGPT to create something for you, and you’re looking at a couple of minutes wait. And then boom. That blog you were stressing about writing is done! You’ve just ticked one of your many, many jobs off today’s task list, and you didn’t need to research, plan, write or edit the thing.
We all know how much time content generation takes up, so this appeals, right? Not to mention how stressful it can be if it doesn’t come naturally, or you’re out of ideas. Speaking of which…
New Idea Generation
Got writer’s block? Or maybe you’re just sick to the back teeth of thinking up interest-grabbing stuff to write about. We can’t all be good at everything.
Prompting ChatGPT to come up with new ways of phrasing things and new hooks to reel your readers in with can feel like a quick win when you’ve got other pressing matters to attend to.
The Disadvantages Of Using ChatGPT In Your Marketing
The upsides are appealing, aren’t they? Who wouldn’t want to save time and energy creating new content? Well, before you jump in and start using the chatbot, have a read through some of the downsides.
Quality Can Take Time
Because ChatGPT scours the internet for information based on your prompt and your prompt alone, you’ll only get a quality response – one that you can actually use – if your prompt is well-written and specific.
Vague simply won’t do, because the model will just guess what your question means and give you answers it thinks you want. ChatGPT needs context, and that means providing it with a backstory. Some guides out there suggest beginning by prompting the chatbot to ‘Act like you’re this expert’ to help set the wheels in motion.
You’ll likely need to spend time thinking about what you want from ChatGPT, as well as quite a bit of trial and error, before you get the response you want.
Lack Of Human Nuance
We’ve mentioned this already. AI chatbots are not human; they aren’t you. So ChatGPT won’t be able to generate responses that sound like you do, with your particular written style that shows off your personality.
Sure, you can still add that in later… But that’s as good as writing it or thinking it up in the first place, isn’t it?
Editing Is Still Vital
Even the best responses from ChatGPT will require editing. You’ll need to read everything over, not just to make sure it’s what you’re after, but because Google doesn’t rank purely AI-generated content and copy very highly.
What About Values?
ChatGPT is an impressive AI chatbot but hasn’t been trained to align with human values. And our values sit at the heart of our emotions. That’s why, along with other reasons like its predictive processing, ChatGPT cannot replace or replicate the emotional side of human communication that’s so crucial to great marketing.
Can You Define Your Anti-Target Market?
OpenAI’s viral chatbot will likely have its place in the future. When the testing phase is over, and its training has been refined further, it might form a key part of our digital marketing movements.
For now, have fun with it. Use the tool to generate ideas and other low-maintenance tasks like identifying keywords to spark new, creative ways of doing things and save a little bit of time. Play with it, but don’t rely on it to do all of your hard work.
Using ChatGPT to create your email marketing content runs the risk of ending up with something that simply doesn’t hit the mark… A waste of time and money. It’s simply not human enough to engage readers and win you more business.
What are you struggling with at the moment? Two heads are better than one. But instead of asking ChatGPT for help, give me a go! Click here to book a call with a real human being with tried-and-tested solutions to your problems.
