Nearly a year ago, generative artificial intelligence (AI) suddenly became a thing when ChatGPT burst into the world. It’s always been around, but it hasn’t been in our faces like it is now. Everyone is eager to use it for everything and the pressure to use it for all aspects of life has never been greater.
Because I am a marketer, it has been all over my feed for the last 12 months. As hesitant as I am to admit this, it annoyed the crap out of me for a really long time because this was all I would see in my feed. As a result, I avoided using AI for work for much of 2023. I was tired of hearing about it and feeling pressured to use it for my work and personal life.
AI Completely Changed my Writing Process
As I began to write on this blog consistently, my perspective changed. I knew from the get-go that AI was here to stay and that eventually, I would have to use it, so why not try using it for writing?
Before using AI, I had typical writing challenges marketers face including writer’s block, content formatting, difficulty writing for the target audience, and brainstorming relevant topic ideas. I learned that I could use generative AI to address these problems and that’s when it changed my writing process. Problems I had before went away entirely and now I produce content faster and create content that resonates better with my audiences. While I still do a lot of the work on my own, this is the sidekick I never realized I needed until I tried it.
If you’re looking to reinvigorate your writing process for B2B content, AI might be exactly what you need.
How AI Helps with Writing B2B Content
Topic Ideas
The biggest challenge I face when I write blogs for clients is finding ideas. I wish I could say that content marketers have an easy time brainstorming content, but we don’t. We are normally left to figure out what to write for an audience, and depending on the industry and the company’s goals, it is hard to determine what to write about and fill in content gaps.
This particular problem pushed me to use a generative AI platform (Gemini is my go-to) to help me generate ideas, like industry challenges and challenges for specific companies.
Keywords
There are so many AI writing tools out there and it doesn’t stop at keywords. Keyword Insights and Surfer SEO will optimize your content every step of the process and include other writing assistant tools to create efficiencies.
Copy
Writer’s block is one hurdle I face when starting on the copy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a social post, blog, webpage, or email, or how long the copy is. If I’m stuck on how to get started, it’s hard to move forward.
AI is a great option for restarting my brain and figuring out how to draft the copy in a specific direction. These are a few ways I use it:
- Start Blog, Email, or Web Page Copy: I’ll ask AI how to start the copy or provide a summary of a topic I want to cover.
- Create Titles, Headings, and Calls to Action: If your titles, headings, and calls to action (CTAs) start to sound the same after a while, use AI to mix it up. This can also work for subject lines, preview text, meta descriptions, social posts, and more.
- Fix Grammar: Auto-correct has been a part of our lives for a while, but writers like to take it to another level with platforms like Grammarly. Does it drive me nuts sometimes? Yes, but it does help.
One thing to watch out for with AI is condensing too much of your text. You don’t want to ramble, but it can come across as robotic if you aren’t careful. AI is a writing companion and not the writer itself.
Outlines
If I have an idea for what I want to write, but can’t figure out how to structure the copy, I use AI to help me create an outline. This allows me to save a ton of time on brainstorming and create a format and cadence that works for the piece.
Research
Research can take a lot of time when creating content, but you can cut it down drastically with the help of generative AI tools.
Can’t understand a difficult concept? Ask AI to explain it. Need help summarizing an article? It can do that too.
Writer’s Block
Whenever I am stuck at any point in my writing, but don’t have the time to take a break, AI helps. I’ll type in my thoughts on a topic or questions about how to phrase a line and the results help me rethink what I’m trying to write.
It’s a great option to relax my brain and stay on task when I don’t have time to take a walk outside like I normally would. Sometimes, a walk helps and other times, it unintentionally gets me out of my working flow. If I’m deep in my writing and stuck, I’d prefer to keep trying so I don’t lose focus.
I hope you found these writing insights helpful as you begin to use AI for your writing. If you did, subscribe to the AFJ Digital blog.
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