By now, you’ve probably heard all about the idea of using AI to write your marketing copy, both the good and the bad. Some will say that it’s sloppy and unethical, while others will praise the cost and time-saving efforts of using AI writing tools. When you don’t have the time or skills to write your own blog posts, ads, or product descriptions, the idea of using AI can seem appealing. But is it worth it? Let’s break down some of the pros and cons.

The Pros of Using AI For Marketing Copy

AI can be used for a number of different kinds of marketing copy — from blog posts to email campaigns and more. Those who use AI for marketing copy and stand by it enjoy the benefits of it, including:

More Efficient Workflow

Once it’s trained, it takes much less time for AI to generate your marketing copy than it takes for a human author to write the copy. You can churn out marketing copy in seconds, which means you’ll have more time for other elements of your business or marketing. Regarding things like emails, the AI drafted emails can even be sent out automatically.

Cost Savings

You will likely have to pay some kind of subscription fee for the AI software or program that creates your marketing copy. However, this is typically less expensive than paying a human author per piece. It can also be less expensive than writing the copy yourself, as this can take hours out of your valuable time and time is money.

More Personalization

AI is often used to personalize email campaigns, adding the name of the recipient as well as offering custom discounts and special offers. You can even train AI to send out certain emails after certain user actions are taken. This takes personalization to a new level and can make your marketing and sales more impactful.

The Cons of Using AI For Marketing Copy

However, while there are benefits to using AI for marketing copy, there are also some disadvantages and real concerns. Those include:

Potential For Errors

AI software has improved over the years, and AI copy tends to be cleaner than it was when it was first introduced to the marketing sphere. However, there are still plenty of instances of choppy, stilted sentences or “statements of fact” that are easily disproved. There is also a chance for bias in the content based on how the AI has been trained.

If the AI is trained on a faulty source, the content can be faulty. You will always need to quality check your AI written content, though this can be true of human content, as well.

Data Privacy Issues

AI works by collecting large amounts of data from your customers and from other sources. Your customers may have concerns about this. You will need to be upfront with them about the way their data is collected and used, and it will be their choice whether to continue to work with you or not.

Unimaginative Content

AI does what it is trained to do. If you ask AI to write a blog about the benefits of energy-efficient windows, it will find sources on energy-efficient windows and draft a piece that is more or less exactly what you asked for. But it will not have the creative, imaginative take that a professional writer will be able to offer. A freelance writer can consider the angles usually taken in these blogs and look for something that is not often covered but that will be relevant to your customers. That kind of thing can be difficult to replicate.

Concerns of Plagiarism

Generative AI is trained on other pieces of writing to learn how to write essentially. The goal is for it to take those forms and general concepts and learn to string together sentences and paragraphs all its own. Unfortunately, sometimes what comes out is a little too close to the content that it was trained on.

ChatGPT, for instance, a popular AI tool, is frequently under scrutiny for potential plagiarism and has even been brought to court over copyright issues. If you accidentally post plagiarized marketing copy, you could lose some of your credibility, and you could even be straddled with copyright infringement action. This causes many marketers to avoid AI marketing copy for safety reasons.

While some marketers swear by AI for marketing copy and others insist that it should never be used, others take a middle-ground stance: AI marketing copy may be a good option one day, but with our current options, it’s not quite ready.