Ah, Artificial Intelligence.
With the advent of ChatGPT in late 2022, it seems like everywhere you turn, there’s a new AI solution for everything you need in work and life.
Grocery ordering, animating family photos, making fancy profile pictures for social media — the list goes on and on.
Several AI tools launched recently that can also assist with your marketing efforts! There’s a digital solution for everything you could ever need, from drafting newsletters to creating social media captions to streamlining website copy.
Of course, this isn’t to say that AI replaces the human side of marketing. Our team has been leveraging a suite of AI tools for years — they just weren’t trendy until now!
In this blog post, I will go over which AI tools our team uses to amplify marketing efforts for ourselves and our clients and how you can use them.
First thing’s first — why AI?
Several advisors have asked me recently what I’m “going to do” about the recent surge in AI usage. My answer varies, but usually is something along the lines of —
Nothing.
We plan to keep doing what we’re doing now, but more efficiently and effectively as new tools are introduced.
Ultimately, AI tools are there to amplify your work- not entirely replace what you’re there to create and implement. From a marketing angle, there are so many amazing tools out there. Some are better than others, and some require some practice to get the hang of. Luckily, I’ve got your back. Let’s pull back the curtain on the top AI tools we use internally and for our clients when building and implementing top-notch marketing strategies.
Grammarly Pro
Did you know that Grammarly is an AI tool? That’s right. The little Chrome extension that you’ve likely had and used for years leverages AI technology to edit everything you write — from emails to your clients to Google Docs shared with your team.
The Perfectly Planned Content team uses Grammarly Pro to edit our content. I have the Chrome extension, as well, to:
- Make emails I’m sending to clients sound more confident and clear.
- Edit Google Doc blog submissions from our writing team.
- Copy and paste more extended ebook and blog projects into the Grammarly Pro interface to edit for a specific tone or goal (yes, you can ask it to edit a piece to be more professional or casual!).
- Spell-check myself 24/7. I’m even going to use it to edit this blog post!
Learn more about Grammarly here.
Otter.ai (and other transcript options)
For our clients who regularly record videos, we like Otter.ai to create seamless transcripts and to revise those transcripts into blog captions or more user-friendly notes.
Internally, we use the transcription feature within Google Meet.
Learn more about Otter.ai here.
Google Workspace
Our entire business operates on Google Workspace. We use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Forms, and Google Meet, leveraging every tool they offer. Recently, Google dropped new Generative AI tools within their suite to make work much easier and more efficient. You can learn more about their different AI-powered options here.
Convertkit & Askimet
Convertkit is our email marketing software of choice at Perfectly Planned Content. Our clients use almost every email marketing software under the sun, but this is our favorite for a few reasons!
- We love their plain-text vibe (it looks like a casual email straight from my email to the inbox of my clients, prospects, and friends).
- The automation builder is incredible and very user-friendly.
- No surprise costs or fees for increased #s of automation.
- Excellent list segmentation.
- One main audience “pool” gets segmented out without multiple list management.
- They use tools like Askimet and other AI technology to prevent spam and uplevel the experience!
Learn more about Convertkit here.
SmarterQueue
We use SmarterQueue internally for social media and have been recommending it to our clients. I love that SmarterQueue allows me to queue up evergreen posts in different post categories, and it will “recycle” them when my queue runs out. It saves this busy CEO and mom time — especially if I’m behind on loading new content! Plus, it helps me ensure that my content doesn’t “die on the vine” and gets reused repeatedly.
The best part?
SmarterQueue leverages AI to help you generate captions for posts or alternate captions for posts so that the text is changed up each time a post in your queue is recycled.
Learn more about SmarterQueue here.
ChatGPT
Let’s get to the AI tool you came here to learn about — ChatGPT. The truth is that my team and I absolutely leverage ChatGPT, just not in the way you might think. I’ve compiled a list of ways we’ve used ChatGPT this year to help inspire you to work smarter, not harder:
- Research! We use ChatGPT to research everything from local information to explore areas of the country we haven’t been to (to help clients with SEO-rich locally-focused content), to learning more about technical, financial topics, to looking up information about core topics a specific niche might be looking up (to help with content calendar development).
- Blog titles. Although rarely perfect, ChatGPT can get the creative train rolling by helping us devise creative ways to phrase blog or topic titles.
- Editing. If we have a draft that’s missing some “jazziness,” we can request that ChatGPT edit it with a specific goal or tone in mind (for example: edit this bio to be more personal and showcase that they care about their clients). Warning: the cheesiness factor can be high when using ChatGPT in this way, but we can strike a good balance with a human editor on the other end.
- Outlines. If we have a set list of topics, and we know loosely what we want to include in a content piece or blog post, we can ask ChatGPT to write a detailed outline. This helps us generate additional key point ideas, pull outside sources and research, and give our writing team clear guidelines. Again — it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it activity! It still requires our team of experts to look over the outlines to make sure they include what we need, cut the fluff, and adjust to include personalized notes from our clients or our internal marketing team.
- Drafting emails. Do you dread cleaning out your inbox? Using ChatGPT, we’ve created email templates for common questions from clients and prospects or sent out specific emails in our client service and sales process (follow-ups, scheduling routine meetings, etc.). We have also used ChatGPT to draft uncomfortable emails, like canceling tech services.
These are just a few ways we’ve used ChatGPT at Perfectly Planned Content, and we’re always discovering more!
Keep in mind: if you plan to use ChatGPT, we recommend using it for non-confidential business items. Content creation, email drafting, etc. are all great places to start. Using it to solve client financial questions, etc. should be off the table until the platform further develops. As always, check with your compliance officer prior to leveraging any new Open AI tool.
Learn more about ChatGPT here.
Amplify Your Work
In general, I view AI as a way to amplify the work we’re already doing. It allows us to research more deeply, up-level our content, and expand our creative pursuits by freeing time and energy up to focus on big-picture strategy and unique ways to help our clients (and ourselves) move the needle in business and life.
