EPISODE 013 | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

5 Tips to Save Time and Copywrite Like a Pro 

Let’s talk about AI, specifically ChatGPT and specifically from a small business owner's perspective. For us, AI has been a game-changer. And my goal with this episode is to help you utilise ChatGPT effectively for your own business. I’ll share key insights I've gained whilst using AI effectively and I'll also provide additional tips that could benefit you.

Whilst there are so many different AI tools that can revolutionise your business operations, our focus during this episode is on ChatGPT. We'll explore how it can be a game-changer for small business owners juggling multiple roles and projects, with the core takeaway being how powerful it is as a brainstorming ally. It's not about replacing your tasks, but progressing your initial ideas.

To help you, I've also created a free guide that comes with this episode (you can receive this below). I recommend first listening to the episode, and then, when you're ready, download the guide, to help you bring these concepts to life.

Let’s get started!

WHAT IS CHATGPT?

So, what is Chat GPT? When I asked ChatGPT itself for a brief explanation it said “ChatGPT is a digital helper trained to talk and write like a human. It's made by a company called OpenAI. Think of it as a smart robot you can chat with!” Put even more basically, it’s an AI platform that will write copy for you, following an initial prompt, a prompt being your typed request.

Simply explained, you can ask ChatGPT to help you with any form of copy for your business, from newsletters, social media captions, marketing booklets, it can suggest titles for any documents you create … basically any form of copywriting.

Let’s say you own a catering business, you can give it a prompt, asking it to write a newsletter for your subscribers, to introduce your latest seasonal menu; you simply need to include the details of your upcoming menu within the prompt and in a few seconds, it will reply with a detailed and completely bespoke piece of copy, tailored to your direct request.

For small business owners, often juggling multiple different roles, having direct access to a writer at any time of day is a game changer. Incredible as ChatGPT is, it of course has its limitations and it’s important to fully understand what these limitations are and how its best to use the platform.

So before we get into the incredible benefits and how you can incorporate ChatGPT into your day to day, let’s look at what Chat GPT is and also, what it isn’t.

Chat GPT is an aid, an assistant, a speed writer, a copy writer, and an internet researcher. It’s a time saver and when used well it’s a phenomenally powerful system; it’s a great tool when it comes to supporting you in generating and brainstorming ideas, delving deeper into topics to add additional points, researching topics, helping you to get started when you have writers block and it helps you to work faster and improve your efficiency, but it will never, ever replace you, nor your brand voice.

It is not strategic, Chat GPT doesn’t know your products, it doesn’t understand your incredible services, it doesn’t know who your audience is, and who your customers are, or indeed what your unique goals are, where you are looking to grow, the new audience you are looking to attract and the community you are looking to build. It doesn’t know your unique stories, it doesn’t know what you have experienced, it doesn’t understand your day to day or know what is important and crucial for you to share as part of your brand voice, and what your community want to hear, what resonates with them the most and what moves them to support you and purchase your offerings.

So, my key piece of advice is to think of Chat GPT as a brainstorming partner and a platform that will give you an initial outline and first draft, and then it’s over to you. Spend time editing and recrafting the words and the overall layout so your final copy is succinct to you and your voice; add in personal stories, humour, insight and experience. Personalise the content at every opportunity.

Chat GPT is a great tool for those of us who struggle to generate initial ideas, to come up with topics relevant for our business and to start the initial writing, particularly when you are faced with a blank piece of paper. I fully hear you, it took me a long time to feel confident in what I was saying and how I was saying it, so my advice to you is the same. Use ChatGPT to help you to create the outline, and then make it your own. Never share or publish it without personalising the content.

You might be questioning whether ChatGPT’s output really does need to be re-written, but I feel very passionate about this.

What if everyone used ChatGPT and simply cut and pasted the copy.  Within a very short amount of time this generic copy would be everywhere, there would be no brand stories, no insight and no humour – customers would switch off. They would stop feeling an affinity to any brand and gradually each product would lose its value and originality. The unique voice that differentiates every brand would start to erode. People launching businesses would find customers unwilling to pay the value of their offerings because there would be a lack of personality, the unique talent of the business owner would not shine through. Everything would become commoditised.

So, with 14 years of business experience, I can't stress this enough—ChatGPT isn't your replacement. It's an aid.

Your audience really wants to hear your unique perspective, your insight, your stories and your real-life examples. Your business is about you, it’s what your customers have signed up for.  Your audience wants to understand what sets you apart from everyone else, what differentiates your brand and makes it special. They are looking to invest in brands that align with their preferences and values. Please never make the mistake of becoming generic and disappearing into the background. Be bold, be unique and let AI simply assist you.

Within our business we don’t use ChatGPT to write our copy, we use it to help us generate more ideas and to help us move far quicker through tasks.

It’s not there to take over your writing, but to inspire, to help you break through any writer's block, and significantly quicken your tasks.

As many brands drift towards generic AI-driven content, I'm here to ensure you stand out; I want to make sure your messages are amplified and after all the hard work you are putting in, every effort leads to success within your business.

Let’s look at the key steps you need to help you gain the most from ChatGPT:

1. STARTING PROMPT

Our first step is: honing that STARTING PROMPT. Remember the age-old saying? To get the right answer, you’ve got to ask the right question. That’s what creating a stellar prompt for ChatGPT is all about. It sets the stage, provides the context. Think of it like briefing a colleague or a friend before a brainstorming session. Except here, your "colleague" is ChatGPT.

When drafting that prompt, as a foundational set of points, before going into the specifics of the project, include these three clear points each time:

• A brief description of your business, your primary function and location.

• A snapshot of your main offerings and what makes you unique.

• And a general description of your target audience.

And follow this with the specifics of your project. Don’t worry about writing this down, I’ve included it within the free guide, along with a series of example prompts and replies, to help bring this a little more to life.

While some swear by including tone descriptors, i.e. a guideline describing your brand voice, whether casual, professional or humorous, etc. I've found it can muddy the waters. Trying to get the tone spot-on isn’t always helpful. Instead, view ChatGPT as your brainstorming buddy—useful, but not a straight-out-of-the-box solution.

2. GENERATE IDEAS

ChatGPT is brilliant when you're looking to GENERATE IDEAS. Be it for blogs, newsletters, social media posts —you name it. When seeking ideas, start broad. Pose a general topic, then drill down based on a combination of the AI's suggestions and where the ideas take your thinking, remember it is helping you to generate ideas, which you can refine and explore further yourself.

You can ask ChatGPT for blog topic suggestions around specific subjects to help and support your audience. For example, for a homeware brand, you might ask ChatGPT for a list of topics around the subject of styling areas of your home. ChatGPT will then list a few ideas, you can then ask it to expand further in a specific direction or generate additional ideas. I find it works best when you start relatively broadly and then begin to focus on one of the ideas, and go in deeper. This way you come up with a list of brilliantly original ideas, that you have directed, based on your knowledge of what your audience will value and links to you and your brand.

It's like rapid-fire brainstorming without the awkwardness of bouncing off potentially oddball ideas in a room.

3. COPYWRITING

Armed with your initial prompt and idea, you can then pose your specific question. Whether you're writing a blog topic, drafting an 'About' page, or perhaps writing a series of social media posts around a specific subject, or simply writing a list of email responses to typical requests you receive. It's important to remember here that you need to be very specific with your prompt and explain exactly what it is you are looking for. With ChatGPT, your prompt completely shapes the outcome.

Let’s say you're working on a blog post. You've picked an idea from ChatGPT's earlier suggestions. Feed that back to ChatGPT. You'll likely get a concise article to use as a foundation. Then, tailor it. Add your anecdotes, tweak sections, and make sure all the writing is a true representation of your unique voice. Edit paragraphs, change words, make sure it is your voice.

4. INTRODUCTION & SUMMARIES

Step 4, you can ask ChatGPT to summarise a final piece of writing for you, or write an introduction or a conclusion.

This I love and after a quick edit, is a very neat function. I love creating and writing content, but my writing is very far from polished and I often find introductions, conclusions and summaries tricky and laborious to write, so this has helped enormously, and has led to me loving content creation even more. I also love that I’m taking my own original content and boosting it in a way that I know will be hugely valuable and quickly digestible for my audience.

5. PROOFREADING

And lastly, you can also ask ChatGPT to proofread your entire copy for you. Be careful here though as you can ask ChatGPT to proofread and rewrite, but you will potentially lose the tone of your voice that you have worked hard to create, so instead, simply ask the AI tool to point out any areas that may benefit from being edited. It will then list a series of suggestions, outlining where they lie within the written piece. This is a little like having a full-time editor with you, at all times of the day (or night), whenever you need them. If you struggle with grammar and articulating yourself clearly, this will be a fabulous tool for you, and it’s also a great way to help you improve your own grammar.

I have also occasionally asked ChatGPT if I have missed anything that might be helpful within my writing. More often than not it comes up with a few great suggestions that can be added, again using your own voice. You can also ask exactly where in the written piece the additional points should be put, which is again great for saving time. Be warned though, as not all the suggestions may make sense, so read carefully and sense check before adding!

I have a few immediate action points to help you identify where ChatGPT might be able to help you within your day-to-day:

1.     Make a first list, with all the areas in your business that need daily and weekly copy - for example emails, social media captions, blogs, and newsletters.

2.     Next, write a second list, with of all the copy that has remained unchanged for several months or even longer and would benefit from a refresh. This could be your website's About page, product descriptions, or social media bios.

3.     From your two lists, pinpoint three areas to focus on first, ideally choosing any you have been avoiding for a while and/or those that drain you the most. Let’s focus on the ones that once finished, you will help you to feel good and motivated afterwards.

So, which updates have you been avoiding and which daily/weekly tasks drain you? I would love you to list the three biggest priorities, so you can use ChatGPT to genuinely alleviate some pressure quickly and turn it into something positive, to help you feel a little lighter and ready to tackle key projects that need your time and attention.

4.     Next, organise these three tasks in order of importance; decide what you could tackle today or tomorrow, what can be done next week and what over the next couple of weeks. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed and begin to think of all the areas of copy that will benefit from a refresh or by coming up with a new simplified system to help with your day-to-day efficiency, but if we write a huge list, we will be overwhelmed and most likely put it all to one side. By identifying just three initial areas, and then listing them in order of importance, this creates a systematic approach, which becomes achievable and you are more likely to complete.

If we are looking at too many areas at once, our focus becomes muddled and there is little room to learn, fully embrace and fine tune one area, before we are ready to move onto the next. But by tackling each projects step by step, you will find ChatGPT can really help you transform elements of your business with speed and ease.

I wholeheartedly believe these insights will transform your copywriting projects, and in turn they will streamline your process and boost your confidence, meaning you will never have to look at a blank piece of paper again.

Remember the key principle, the quality of the output depends on the clarity of your input. It's a skill, crafting the right prompts. And just like any other, you'll refine it over time.

Now ironically and I bet you are wondering, I didn't use ChatGPT to help me write notes for this episode, so this is another reminder how important it is to solely use ChatGPT as an assistant and simply when you need it. It's there to assist, and never, ever to take over your creative process. It’s very much there to help and support you, just when you need it.

I hope you are now feeling excited, and you see ChatGPT as a great tool and an assistant within your business. But remember, as helpful as it is, it needs direction. It’s essential that you first fully understand your brand, you are able to pinpoint your unique messages, identify your target audience, and articulate your offerings. Without this groundwork, ChatGPT will merely return generic answers. It's not a magic wand, but with the right guidance, it transforms into a powerful ally.

To get started, grab the free guide below!

Philippa x