Why Your Copywriter Should Be Leveraging AI (And Why AI Can't Replace Them)
There’s a new guy on the scene. And they’re making a splash.
Cranking out words quicker than you can think them. Understanding your complex requests. Giving you multiple variations. All with a dash of charm.
It’s tempting to turn to LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT for all of your copywriting needs.
If you’re looking to get the job done, it’ll most definitely accomplish that. And as a business owner, getting the job done is your ultimate goal, right?
But it’s a little too soon to jump straight on the AI bandwagon. Right now, your best bet is to turn to a copywriter that uses LLMs as a tool to help their writing. Let’s dig into the who, why, and what of it.
But first, hi! I’m Andraya (she/her), the founder of Woven Wordsmith. I’m a copywriter and marketing strategist for sustainable brands. I write copy and craft marketing strategies for my clients to help them nourish their audiences, cultivate strong growth, and make more sales.
So, is AI capable of replacing my job? Or replacing your copywriter? Are you curious about the best way to use it to inform your marketing?
Let’s dig in.
Can AI Replace Your Copywriter?
At this stage in the game, no, AI can’t do your copywriting for you. That’s because a good copywriter is more like a copy engineer. We support our copywriting with marketing strategy to help our clients achieve their goals.
After all, good (and effective) copywriting isn’t just about getting words that sound nice on paper.
It’s about so much more.
It’s about having the words that land on the page carefully calibrated to the audience, the market, the industry, and the purpose for which they are needed.
As a marketer, I’ve made it my full-time job to keep a finger on the pulse of the changes in my industry. Every tweak in the climate solutions space. Every shift in the minds of your eco-warrior audience. It’s my job to be aware of this flow and serve my clients better with every scrap of new information.
AI tools have the ultimate goal to best answer the prompt given to them — even if they have to make up the answers. Its goal isn’t to listen to the customer and boost conversions.
As a marketing specialist, copywriting is the lifeline I offer my clients. The value copywriters bring to your business is our human touch and expertise. That’s what gives direction to what we write.
The value in what we write is in the action it encourages and the connection it builds. We’re writing text to get the reader to take the action we want them to. To get them to consider the action, we build connection.
A good copywriter brings a holistic and custom approach to each client. And their copywriting is informed by things that LLMs can’t even fathom right now.
The value of your copywriter is in their copywriting. And there are three factors that make them irreplaceable. They are:
Empathy — This gives the copy we write a sincerity that the target audience resonates with immediately.
Innovation — This allows for the copy we write to adapt to changes while meeting the unique needs of each client.
Insight — Our dialed-in niche knowledge makes our copywriting richly informed.
So, replacing your copywriter with an LLM isn’t recommended. AI is an advancement in technology — and we’ve seen many of those.
And with any new advancement, comes the opportunity for allyship. Which is exactly the best use of LLMs.
Your Copywriter Should Forge An Allyship With AI
When your copywriter teams up with AI, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Because at the end of the day, LLMs can be leveraged as tools to help us with the most time-consuming parts of our job. Things like ideating take a ton of time and energy. But AI makes it so much easier.
I use it to…
Suggest headlines
Outline my copy
Come up with metaphors and examples
Proofread my text
Check for editing suggestions
And so much more!
Even though these models are wizards at accomplishing those tasks, they still need correction and deep editing for the suggestions to be viable.
I would never ask an LLM to write copy for me and turn it in “as is” to a client. But there are parts of the process that it really helps with.
I like to think of it as my VA. I turn to it when the backend of my copywriting needs support. And when my brain needs an injection of creative support.
So with all this in mind, let’s get into what the future of this allyship could look like.
The Future of Copywriting + AI
It’s impossible to know what the future holds. Right now, AI can’t pull from the depth of human experience to write compelling copy. And it can’t think in the way that’s needed to recommend marketing strategy.
But maybe, one day, that’ll change.
An exciting development on the horizon is called LLMO or Large Language Model Optimization.
It’s the SEO of LLMs. And it could invite us to optimize our copy for AI language models, not just search engines.
This is *great* news when it comes to how we reach our ideal audience and serve our clients.
When it comes to SEO, we have to be super specific with a single keyword. LLMs, on the other hand, pull their information using context.
If you were to write a four-sentence prompt describing the cut, texture, color, and fabric of a t-shirt you’re after, Google wouldn’t know what to do with that. But an LLM would eat it up.
This is because LLMs can pick up on the context over a massive amount of text. And copywriters are magicians at context.
Storytelling, imagery, and emotional techniques drive copywriting. And that’s the type of stuff that creates context. So, LLMO would offer a huuuge opportunity for brands to better reach their ideal customers.
As copywriters, we’re going to be challenged into producing copy that’s even more helpful and targeted. We’ll be able to lose the hyper-focus on keywords and dial in our descriptions of things. And that’s what will make our brand awareness, niche expertise, and audience understanding more and more valuable in our copywriting.
What it comes down to is search engines (including LLMs) are only as good as the databases they’re pulling from.
I actually asked ChatGPT what it knew about LLMO. And it couldn’t find any relevant information. Because humans haven’t told it this exists yet.
Since humans (and our content) populate the databases, the demand to produce quality content isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.
Your Dream Team Is a Call Away
Hiring a copywriter who understands the ins and outs of marketing — and the help AI can give — is how you’ll get the best bang for your marketing bucks.
Any copywriter that leverages AI can save time and enhance creativity. But we don’t use AI to cut corners and multiply our deliverables.
Because writing with connection in mind will always be the intent — even if how we do it shifts.
People crave connection and curation, not just any blog or email. As an ethical sustainability copywriter, that’s exactly what I offer.
If you’d like to see the impact the dream team of sustainability copywriter and AI can make in your marketing, I’d love to chat.
I offer a free 30-minute strategy session to dig into your business, your goals, and your challenges. You can click this link to learn more.
I can’t wait to hear about your really cool, earth-healing stuff.
