ChatGPT continues to rock the marketing world — and for good reason. Its capabilities go beyond what the previous generation of AI tools could offer, and it seemingly can give a well-defined answer to any question.
But when it comes to using ChatGPT for marketing content, there are some significant guardrails that need to be in place. Small businesses especially may be more likely to fall into common traps as they may face a greater temptation to outsource marketing efforts to the chatbot. Here are our recommendations on using ChatGPT for digital marketing content without compromising your results or putting your business’s reputation at risk.
Table of Contents
The Role of ChatGPT In SEO
To be clear: Marketers should not use ChatGPT to write blogs or on-page content.
Why not? Google’s 2022 Helpful Content Update aimed to filter out websites and content that do not offer relevant and unique insights to users. Google has reiterated that its algorithm prioritizes high-quality content, whether it’s human or machine-generated. But large language models have inherent limitations. They can’t fact-check themselves, and their use of predictive text makes them unoriginal and repetitive after just a few sentences.
Publishing content written by ChatGPT as-is will likely result in Google finding the content unhelpful, which could jeopardize your site’s rankings. It’s simply not high-quality content. That said, ChatGPT can help in the formulation of ideas.
Topic Research
When it comes to research, ChatGPT is the starting point, not the finish line. On the other hand, ChatGPT can quickly provide a list of ideas for your marketing content, but it can also lead you astray. It’s well documented that ChatGPT can be inaccurate and misleading, and this is an unavoidable reality of large language learning models. No amount of updates from creator OpenAI will resolve this.
So while you may use the prompt, “Give me 10 ideas for a blog post about spring fashion,” you’ll want to evaluate for yourself which of ChatGPT’s answers are relevant to your audience.
Recommend SEO Changes On Copy
Once you have written the content, you will likely already rely on some AI-powered tools for spell-checking and grammar. ChatGPT can also review your digital marketing content and offer some recommendations.
To ensure it offers the best response, phrase your question to include the target industry, the tone, the age group you are targeting, and so on. Such specific information can help ChatGPT understand precisely what you were going for while you were creating the content.
Here’s the catch. While an SEO company will use extensive metrics to make data-driven decisions, ChatGPT does not conduct any sort of metrics review prior to answering your question. It may share some general tips, such as “add relevant keywords,” but it’s incapable of the keyword research required for effective SEO writing.
It’s like someone saying “You should eat more vegetables to be healthier.” It’s generic advice, and not wrong, but it’s a far cry from a customized meal plan prepared by a dietician.
Keyword Research
On that topic, what about using ChatGPT for keyword research in your marketing efforts? ChatGPT is the first to admit that it cannot provide real-time data.
As you can see the results are quite limited. They offer you a starting point but do not offer much information. In contrast, tools such as Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner are specifically designed to find search volumes and keyword difficulty, displaying detailed information and numbers to back up the results. By first finding the general outlook of a keyword through ChatGPT you can then use better tools to dive into details.
Brainstorming Email Content Ideas
Using ChatGPT to create digital marketing content for SEO may not be the best move, but it can function as an excellent brainstorming tool. You may use ChatGPT to help in crafting email headlines or content ideas.
Emails are still one of the most effective marketing channels today and rival SEO in terms of click-through rate (CTR). Data shows that the CTR for emails in 2021 was up to 15% in top industries. However, many people do not capitalize on their email list because they cannot craft emails that can convert, which results in their audience marking them as spam.
A good way to increase your CTR and add another lead-generating channel to your business is by using ChatGPT to brainstorm for email copy ideas. Use it to help you come up with interesting angles and ideas to help increase your email opening rate. This can help keep your company top of mind while reducing the probability of being marked as spam.
Again, receiving a few ideas is not the same as working with a comprehensive email marketing strategy. ChatGPT can help a team overcome writer’s block, but it can’t run a full campaign.
Content Strategy or Calendar
Many marketers struggle to create a content strategy or marketing calendar since it entails a long-term plan. It is easy to deviate from this plan if you do not have everything set. It is also challenging to come up with content ideas stretching for an extended period of time.
Using ChatGPT for marketing can help you create a content plan and come up with ideas.
In this case, ChatGPT’s tendency to be repetitive could work to your advantage. Building on prior ideas to create content clusters is a legitimate SEO strategy, but, once again, ChatGPT should never replace careful market research and monitoring of industry trends.
Final Take
So is using ChatGPT for small business marketing a good idea? As it stands, the inherent limitations of a language-learning model and Google’s stance on helpful content mean your company needs expert human analysis to ensure quality and relevant content.
Think of ChatGPT as a futuristic assistant to help you save time. In some ways it’s similar to a calculator that can compute complex math equations in fractions of a second instead of the hours it would take to solve by hand. ChatGPT offers that same type of convenience for a variety of different tasks. But you still need a human who understands how to use it correctly — and how to recognize when the output doesn’t make sense — in order to get the most out of it.
Coalition Technologies is a global digital marketing agency with the reach and expertise to craft a customized strategy for your business. Get in touch with a digital strategist to discuss your ideas today.
