The AI-mazing Race: The Truth About AI and How To Use It For Far More Than (Bland) Copy

September 29, 2023
Lindsay McGuire
Lindsay McGuire
Associate Director of Content and Campaigns at Goldcast

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Artificial intelligence. It's everywhere, and marketers can't stop talking about it. Some folks are convinced that AI can do everything and put us all out of work, while others claim that it's a worthless tool that creates bland, generic content.

So, who's right? Should you go ahead and hand in your resignation today and forfeit the game to AI? Or should you forge ahead with business as usual and totally ignore the hype?

We believe that the answer lies somewhere in between. AI is a powerful tool, for sure—and yet it can absolutely produce crappy, homogenous content that reads like an elementary student wrote it.

Based on our own experience using AI for marketing, we've developed the following tips to get you started with integrating AI into your marketing strategy.

Read on to learn more:

  • Think outside of the (writing) box
  • Create sh*itty first drafts, not final pieces
  • You don't need an all-new toolbox
  • Create better marketing plans with AI
  • AI still requires a human touch

Think outside of the (writing) box

AI tools allow you to do so much more than just spit out copy (though of course that's helpful!). Try using AI to do any of the following.

Create unique graphics.

Well-known companies like Adobe have added AI to their suite of tools; Adobe's is called Firefly and relies on generative AI to come up with new image designs.

Find pull quotes.

Many AI tools will scan your copy and then pull out the most "quotable" pieces, giving you ready-to-use snippets for social media, blogs, and more.

Analyze data.

A popular AI tool for this is Tableau, which can comb through massive amounts of data and then put together visual reports. You could also use AI to predict your future sales, based on past trends.

Brainstorm titles for your projects, podcasts, blogs, events, and more.

Notice we used the word "brainstorm" here—we often find that the AI doesn't give us the final title, but it helps spur new ideas along the way that help us get there. Think of it as another voice in the room adding to the idea convo!

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Identify code bugs.

Microsoft AI Lab's Code Defect AI is one example of a tool that can look at patterns in your bug data and prevent future ones from happening.

Suggest schedules and locations for events.

If you put in all of the data you have about your event, as well as your goals, AI can put together sample schedules and come up with geographic and even venue suggestions for you to browse.

Digest event feedback.

Drop in all of the feedback you receive from your event attendees, and then ask AI for insights on what trends it sees across responses. This can be especially helpful if you get a ton of feedback (which, good for you!).

Discover what works.

If an event of yours (or one of your competitors, even!) does really well, ask an AI tool to analyze all of the content and pull out what made it successful. Once you know, you can try to replicate it with a future event.

Translate content to boost accessibility and reach.

AI can translate existing content into different languages, helping you expand your audience for each asset.

Cool ideas, right? And this is just a handful of ideas to start with! The possibilities are endless. Next time you're stuck on a challenge or a question, try taking it to AI and seeing if it can't help you get somewhere new.

Create sh*tty first drafts, not final pieces

There's generally always a wave of panic when new, groundbreaking technology is released. Will humans be eradicated as a result? Will we become puppets at the hand of this grand, new technology? Is the workforce as we know it going away?

To put it plainly, we don't think these fears are founded—and if you've played around with AI, you're probably well aware that it doesn't hold a candle compared to the work of talented creatives.

The best way to look at AI content tools is that they can help you get through the hard early stages of writing and get a first draft underway to work with. That might not be as awesome as receiving a ready-to-go draft, but it's still pretty awesome.

To reiterate: You'll always need a human editor to go through your AI-created drafts and refine from there. Humans, not AI, are the missing link when it comes to infusing personality, understanding nuance and inclusive language, and adding in emotional touches, like empathy and excitement.

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You don't need an all-new toolset

If you're ready to start experimenting with AI, you might be worried about budget limitations. The good news is that you don't need to go out and buy a bunch of new tools; we're willing to bet that some of your existing tech stack already has AI built into its capabilities. (And if it doesn't, it's probably coming soon.)

For example, Notion AI allows you to unlock the power of AI within the Notion platform. Notion AI can create summaries based on your notes, compile next steps into a checklist, move between different writing tones, edit and translate your writing, and more.

Goldcast used Notion’s AI tool to help brainstorm titles for our upcoming AI Summit.

In a similar vein, Asana Intelligence helps decision-makers prioritize resource management and provides real-time recommendations to help teams meet their goals. The platform builds optimized workflows based on your goals, organizes your workload, and can even act as a work coach.

Goldcast is getting in the game too with our AI-powered studio, Content Lab, which helps you turn your events into easily consumable, repurposed content—within minutes! Content Lab can pull out the best video clips to share, draft an SEO-friendly blog post, translate transcripts into 50+ languages, and more.

Create better marketing plans with AI

Let's talk about some real-life ways you can put AI to use in your marketing workflows!

Use AI to help with content briefs

AI tools can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to putting together your briefs, from preliminary research to suggesting trending topics for you to focus on.

Consider outsourcing your keyword and SEO research, asking AI what's worked well for a piece of competitor content, or prompting it to tell you what types of content would work best for a certain topic. It can also develop basic content outlines you can use as a starting point.

Create a timeline for your project

Who wouldn't benefit from adding a skilled project manager to your team?

AI can perform a multitude of project management functions, from reviewing past project data to come up with realistic estimates for your current project, to breaking your project down into specific tasks that need to be accomplished. Certain tools can even account for your team's bandwidth and alert you when you don't have enough resources to complete a certain project on time.

Plan your promotional strategy

Ask AI how, when, and where you should promote your content or event.

AI can assist with segmenting your audience, which allows you to better personalize your content for each segment. It can also suggest which channels you should use to promote your event, as well as the best timing to post on each platform.

AI can help with paid search, too! Some marketing-specific AI tools can help you decide where to funnel your budget, helping you get the most reach for each dollar spent.

Repurpose event content

Once you've worked hard to execute an event, it makes sense to capitalize on your content by turning it into other marketing assets. AI can help!

We've talked about Goldcast's Content Lab, and we highly recommend checking it out if you want to create a multi-channel content strategy in mere minutes!

Sign up today to repurpose content, whether you're asking AI for suggestions on what you can do with a specific marketing asset or taking a video and using AI to break it up into fun, bite-size clips.

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AI still requires a human touch

AI is powerful, but it's up to smart marketers to find the balance between artificial and human intervention. We think viewing AI tools as a complement to your own creativity is the best approach.

While there are still no shortcuts on the way to quality content, AI can help you accelerate the brainstorming process and come up with better ideas, faster. That's no small feat!

If AI fascinates you, watch our AI Summit: How Marketers Can Harness the Power of AI! Over the course of an afternoon (or morning, or evening, depending on when you watch!), we'll dive deep into how to use AI ethically and creatively, ways in which generative AI can spark your creativity, and how you can use AI to turn your events into a multi-channel content strategy.

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