How I use ChatGPT as a copywriter
There’s been a lot of…erm, chatter on LinkedIn over the past lord-knows-how-long: copywriters vs. ChatGPT.
AI is going to kill copywriting.
No one needs writers anymore.
ChatGPT is stealing your jobs.
Here’s how to tell if someone used ChatGPT…
Maybe that’s why I keep writing about AI; it feels totally inescapable, especially if you’re in a creative industry.
(I don’t know why everyone is so eager to kill off art, but I guess that’s a topic for another day.)
We creatives can’t keep fighting it; it’s here to stay. So we really need to learn how to work with it.
I will never use copy straight out of ChatGPT: I respect my writing voice too much for that, and I respect my clients’ brand voices that they’ve worked so hard to refine and maintain more than that.
But I do use ChatGPT to help strip away the parts of writing that make it so damn hard—the parts that make me want to throw my hands up in the air and call it a day. ChatGPT has helped me speed up my process while still maintaining the high quality I demand of myself.
Here are some prompts I’ve been using to make me a better, faster copywriter.
Help me be a subject matter expert
Over the years, I’ve become pretty good at writing for highly technical subjects, especially in engineering and innovation. But I would spend hours researching and understanding the topic. It’s not enough for me to just know the straight facts for a blog post or website; I need to know how concepts connect, and how a subject is relevant to other tangential, seemingly irrelevant things.
It gives a much better lay of the landscape; it helps you come from a place of expertise that feels genuine—not like it’s coming from a marketer.
Because you can smell the light, on-the-surface copy of a marketer vs. an SME.
So I love to create custom GPTs where I feed a ton of docs into it—think, white papers, spec sheets, industry articles, etc.
From there, I ask a ton of questions. Many of them are along the lines of, “Can you explain in layman’s terms…”
It feels so much more like having a dialogue with an expert. And since I’ve given it the technical information written by experts, I feel more confident in what it’s teaching me. And if I ever have any doubt, I ask it to cite its sources.
Create an outline for me
I’m a firm believer that writing from an outline is so much easier than rawdogging it down a blank page. And I usually have a pretty good idea of where I want a piece to go, whether it’s a webpage, a blog post, or some other piece of long-form content.
If I have a topic in mind, I’ll ask it to put together an outline for me—and then I cherrypick from there. Sometimes I roll my eyes and say, “Ugh, mine is so much better.” But other times, it fills in some blanks or gives me ideas for sections I wouldn’t have thought about.
Proofread, check for awkward phrasing, and check for accuracy
One of the things about going freelance as a copywriter is that you’re on your own—you don’t have someone to bounce a sentence off of or proofread behind you; it’s all on you. And when you’ve been staring at a piece for awhile, it’s way too easy to miss things that won’t be picked up by spell check or Grammarly.
So I’ll put my finished piece in and ask it to spellcheck, proofread, and tell me where things feel unnatural. If it’s a technical piece, I’ll ask it to point out if any facts are misstated.
That helps me give it a second look with fresh eyes, like I have my own personal proofreader with me at all times.
This helps cut down on ticky-tacky revisions from my clients, which is always a big win.
Suggest SEO improvements
One thing I’ve always struggled with (despite being in SEO my whole career) is naturally putting keywords into a piece. I very much lean toward writing for style, not SEO.
To help me break through this, I’ll give my finished post, along with a list of target keywords, and ask it to give me suggestions for how to improve SEO based on those terms.
Tell me if this matches the voice I’ve outlined
If I have a documented brand voice, I’ll create a custom GPT with the voice programmed into it. When I’m done with a piece, I’ll copy/paste it into the GPT and ask if what I wrote matches the voice I’ve outlined.
It’s just another gut check/set of eyes to make sure I didn’t overlook anything egregious.
Also, I tend to keep a running list of rules as I get feedback from clients or start to feel the voice a little more. I’ll plug in my preferred vocab and phrasing, making sure that it catches any errors or missteps I may have overlooked as I got into the groove.
Help me figure out how to wrap this up
Have you ever gotten to the end of a piece and hit a wall on how to wrap it up cleanly and with impact?
It happens to me all. the. time. I’m great with openings and transitioning between thoughts and paragraphs, but getting to the end and walking away with a message? Not my best.
So I’ll put my rough piece into Chat and ask it to give some suggestions for how to wrap it up. Again, I never copy and paste verbatim from Chat; I really do hate the way it writes, even if it’s following a documented voice. But editing is easier than writing from scratch, and it usually gives me enough to jumpstart my creativity.
Another thing I use: if I’m writing a technical piece and I’m not sure how to connect the dots or explain a concept, I’ll put a question in brackets in the middle of a sentence. Then I’ll plug the piece into Chat and say, “Please give suggestions for how to address the questions in brackets.”
Boom—it helps connect the dots, and it’s up to me to do my due diligence for accuracy.
Summarize podcasts for social post copy
Podcasts have become a huge hit for ‘easy’ social content (it is to laugh to call it easy), but someone has to break them up and write posts about it.
Problem is, it’s a lot of time to sit and listen to 30-60 minute podcasts all the time.
So, I’ll export a transcript, stick it into Chat, and ask it to give me a high-level summary.
I’ll also ask it to pull out valuable snippets verbatim from the transcript.
From here, I can make custom LinkedIn posts in my client’s voice, concepts, and words—and really build an entire encyclopedia of their catchphrases and knowledge.
I can cut other snippets much quicker.
From there, I can draft my post or kickstart my brain by asking the right questions.
Write questions for an interview and structure the story
I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but structuring an authentic story in an interview-style video is one of the biggest copywriter chores, in my opinion. But as soon as I started to ask Chat for help, it’s become quicker and much more enjoyable.
It really does help to understand how to make an edit come together, though: you want to make sure you’re listening for great intros and closing thoughts; you want to make sure you’re going off-script and asking the right questions while you’re in the process of the actual interview.
But using Chat to structure this will make it easier to pay attention to the things that matter, so you end up with the best story.
If you’re a copywriter, don’t fight AI. It’s here, and we’re always going to have people who dismiss real creative work because it’s faster, cheaper, and easier to just let Chat do all the work.
But I think over time we’re really going to see a shift in results: those who solely rely on the robots aren’t going to see the ROI that we can get with real creative, because they’re constantly going to be getting lost in the echo chamber instead of standing out.
Use it to enhance your creativity, not destroy it.
More thoughts on content strategy
