AI Won’t Separate You From Your Competitors, But Your Content Strategy Could

By Daniel Griggs, founder of ATX The Brand, a tech agency focused on solving problems and growing businesses.

No, I didn’t use artificial intelligence to write this article. And that will be an increasingly rare statement as content-generating software like ChatGPT, Jasper and Writesonic take over the digital marketing space.

If you’re like me, your social and news feeds have been flooded with information about these artificial intelligence softwares that seemingly have the potential to revolutionize how work gets done in most industries. This information ranges from projections about how bots will replace many jobs at tech companies to optimistic explorations of the creative possibilities now available to us. Whether you see this continuous progression of AI as a threat to your livelihood or the future of our civilization (or even just a fun plaything) there’s no doubt that AI-generated content is here to stay.

Because I work in website and app development and digital marketing, this topic comes up often with my staff and clients. I work with many small businesses that are wondering how AI generators like ChatGPT could save them money, time and energy on tasks that can now be easily automated. I even use AI within my own internal business processes. While the results have been mixed, it is clear that these AI softwares are learning more every day, becoming more nuanced and versatile—and becoming even more difficult to detect. While my content strategy team can still tell the difference between some articles written by AI versus by a human, that gap is quickly narrowing.

I’ve always been someone who embraces new technology and is excited to try the latest innovations to see how they can grow my business. While I think AI opens up a lot of new potential, there are also some serious limitations. Here’s why I think AI is a fantastic tool, but it will still only serve as a piece of the whole pie:

You need the system and the skills to be successful.

The reality is that any new system is worthless if you don’t have the skills to apply it to your business effectively. What good is the ability to generate 10 blog posts in an hour if you don’t know how to market that content in a way that will produce results? I have a client in the home services business who provides appliance repair services in his local area. He began using an AI generator to create articles for his website to generate more traffic. While he increased his content output, he didn’t increase leads. What he didn’t have was a strategy to reach his target audience. He had a lot of content just sitting on his site.

We came in and broke down the necessary details, such as all the geographical areas he serviced, the average age range of his target audience, the median income of his ideal customers, the most serviced appliances and more. With this additional information, we were then able to better understand exactly who we needed to create the content for. This allowed us to know the best channels to market the content and ensure that the AI generator produced better-customized content that fit his customers’ needs.

It’s one thing to use AI to generate content, but you need to know how to leverage it. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall? In the same way, if you massively upscale your content output but no one sees it (or worse, they see it and don’t care about it), how does that help your business?

Content writers may fade, but content strategists will increase.

Content strategists break down who the target audience is for clients, what their problems are and how to position their services or products as the solution for their customers’ needs. They also often possess the knowledge of how to use modern AI content-generating softwares to produce content that increases leads. Content strategists can see a client’s business from a “bird’s eye view,” which allows them to be more intuitive with their approach because the AI is doing the majority of the leg work.

Robots aren’t producing new, original thoughts. While AI might speed up the content writing process, there will always be a need for content or marketing strategists who can make it produce results. While there are programs that can create landing pages and marketing funnels, there will always be the need for creativity. Without a thorough understanding of the nuances of a product or service, a company’s unique brand, its business goals and its target audience, AI-generated websites can potentially be generic and bland at best and misleading at worst.

Authenticity will always stand out.

In a world that is completely saturated by content, what will really set your business apart is authenticity. Every day we are completely bombarded with influencers and advertisers vying for our attention. And our attention has become one of the most valuable resources we have. This is why, in most cases, quality will win out over quantity. It will pay off in the long term to focus on producing high-quality content that really connects with your audience—even if that means creating less of it. In my experience, people value authenticity and they will pay attention to it.

If you’re using AI to improve your business processes and output, great. It is a huge shift moving us into the future, and we need to keep up with those shifts. But, based on my experience using various AI softwares for the past 10 years, I highly recommend that you be even more strategic in your approach. Both you and your competitors will now be on even playing fields, utilizing these futuristic softwares. How will you make sure it reaches your customer base? What will you do to make sure yours is unique and overshadows your competitors?

Artificial intelligence is a tool and is only as good as the content you feed it, the people who manage it and the structures you have in place to support it.