Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If you don't have the right skills in this AI era, then you're already falling behind. In today's episode of Cracking Copy, Ella and Minnie are diving into the actual skills that copywriters or anyone that writes for their business need right now. And what we're talking about are the kind of skills separate great writing from the average AI fluff. So think about emotional punch strategy, brand voice, and how to use AI without losing your edge.
So if you want to stand out rather than churn out bland robotic blah, then this episode is a must. Listen to hone your skills.
Cracking Copy is a marketing and copywriting podcast where we lift the lid on writing for business and read between the lines of effective copy.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: This is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs and savvy business owners like you who understand the value that great copy can bring to their bottom line.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: We dive into a different aspect of writing for business in each episode.
Debunk the myths about how we should write, and explore the ways that writing can be fun, conversational and creative while also being high impact for serious results.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: So listen, laugh and learn with us, Ella hoyos and Minnie McBride as we share our words and wisdom in each snack sized episode.
Expect some light bulb moments, interesting guests, and practical takeaways as we crack the copy code together.
Welcome to another episode of Cracking Copy. Today we're going to be exploring the intersection of AI and copywriting.
I'm Ella.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And I'm Minnie. And today we are talking about the essential skills required to write great copy in an AI driven world.
Now this is the fourth episode of our AI mini series which I hope that you've been enjoying. But just to give you a little recap on our previous three episodes, in episode one, we explored the booming world of AI tools and we sought to unpack whether they are truly revolutionary or if they're just a gimmick. So, spoiler alert, they're here to stay. So how do we best work with them? And that's the episode where we investigate. And then in episode two, we looked at how AI can streamline your writing workflow without using Losing the Human Touch. And we've given you great tips on how to work with AI and not against it.
And then in the last episode, which was episode three in the series, we talked about how to use a strong brand voice and to keep your brand voice real. And then we had a little humorous look at AI output results versus authentic writing. So that's where we are.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: That's where we are. Yeah. But today we want to look a little bit more closely at the skills, not the tools that you need in this new AI era that we're in. And what, what do we mean by this? Well, despite all the jazz hands and excitement of AI, to get the most from this technology still requires a great deal of skill, especially when we're talking about crafting words which resonate and will convert readers and into customers and into long term fans.
So this surface level AI, but we want to go a bit deeper and actually get some proper results out of it. I think an interesting thing that I came across this week was from the World Economics Forum.
They've recently produced a chart. There's a quadrant of core skills and emerging skills that will be in most demand in the next five years up to sort of 2030.
It's changing rapidly, but going up, and this may come as a surprise to you, it may not, but going up, the core skills that matter now and are expected to increase in importance are things like AI and big data. No surprise there. Chat, GPT, Claude, etc taking over apps are integrating AI into, you know, everything that we use basically has got some, it's starting to get some AI elements. So no surprise with AI, but also going up. Tech literacy, technological literacy, creative thinking. This is going to be really important.
Curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience, flexibility, agility, analytical thinking going up and leadership and social influence going up now. You may think, yeah, yeah, of course they're important skills to have. They're transferable, you know, good skills that we should all work on. But what's really interesting, I think are the skills that are going down and these mean the out of focus skills that are less essential now, today and expected to be even less essential. Unless they're not going to increase, they're going to decrease in use. And they include programming. Wow. And also marketing and media, which is, you know, the area that Minnie and I work in.
Teaching and mentoring going down.
Even sensory processing abilities and manual dexterity, endurance and precision, there's going to be less need for this sort of thing. The World Economics Forum also say multilingualism, so lots of language learning not required anymore. There are tools that can replace that. And similarly unshockingly in a way to the education system, Reading, writing and mathematics all expected to decrease in youth.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: God hurrah for Generation Alpha then. They haven't got to do that.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, how's the school system going to change? I'm really, you know, curious.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: That's fascinating. But will it, or will it, I.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Don'T know, will it be lagging? You know, will there be a lag? Or do we need to teach ourselves all these things? Do we need to actually take action into our own hands? And in a sense, Minnie, that's what we're doing with this podcast. We're starting from a place of curiosity. We, we're starting, you know, we are lifelong learners, you and I, and, and we're creative thinkers. So I feel like even though marketing and media are going down, we've got, in spadefuls, we've got some of those other skills that are going up. So it's about.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: But those are the skills that you need for marketing and media. So actually what you're saying is it's not maybe, you know, all. If you look at all the skills that are there, AI, big data, tech literacy, creative thinking that we're talking about, analytical thinking. I mean, these are all skills that good marketers have.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: So about, it's, it's about the application of these skills. Will applying, be applying them in different ways? So where traditionally we may have written long blog articles by hand and, you know, we've done that sort of media work, getting press releases out to the newspapers and getting our stories, we'll just be using similar creative thinking, similar creative skills, but applying them in a completely different way. Probably using AI tools to get the work done, rather than the traditional methods that we've been used to in the past.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Are we going to be able to link this?
[00:07:16] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. I'll try. What we'll do is in the show notes, I'll find a link to where this exists on the Internet and get this chart so you can have a look for yourself. It's quite interesting to see it on the quadrant because it shows.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Really interesting.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: So. So I think so. That's kind of our introduction of this episode, but I think it would actually be great to continue this episode, perhaps talking about some assumptions about where we are right now with writing words for business to set the scene, I think for highlighting the high value of the skill sets required to write the very best copy with AI to assist in 2025. So let's go. Um, assumption number one.
So AI tools have arrived, you know, can't do anything about that. And they are shaking up so many industries right now. Literally everyone I speak to, it's like, oh, God, it's really affecting, you know, our industry.
So I think we have to assume that they're here to stay.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, safe assumption. They're here to stay.
Assumption number two, many AI tools are free now, but I don't think it will be long before the really good tools won't be free in the near future. So, so play now, experiment now where you've got free reign. Most things have a free version because, yeah, they may become paid for as we move forward.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think there still probably will always be free versions, but I just think the good tools won't be.
So I think you're right. Now, assumption number three, there are and there always will be inaccuracies.
There will also be copyright infringements.
I mean, we're seeing in the press already creatives, you know, kicking up a bit of a storm over, over this copyright infringement business.
There will also be natural flaws that come with flawed human beings who have crafted a tool that is intended to learn, like a brain. But you know, let's, let's really ask ourselves. Scientists don't really know everything about the human brain anyway, so I think we can safely assume that generative AI tools don't and won't have all the answers either.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a hypothesis, you know, you can test it. Is it true or false? Is it accurate or inaccurate? And then you iterate on that. Don't you get the result and you try and improve it for next time. So I guess things are improving all the time. Assumption number four.
It's actually pretty easy, I think, having read a lot, to spot AI generated content online now.
Do you agree, Minnie?
[00:09:49] Speaker A: I absolutely agree. Yeah.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: To see the signs. AI copy is kind of average at best. It lacks flavor, don't get me wrong, because you can ask AI tools to make the copy more colorful. You can ask it to sound punchy or friendly or hyped or warm. You can ask those things and it will generate new copy. But the flavor that comes from this AI copy that we're seeing all over the Internet, all over social media, all over web is artificial. It feels like sweetener, like artificial sweetener. There's no great emotional depth to it. And also AI copy can come off as too polished or too engineered. And I think it's becoming more obvious.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think most people can now. And interestingly, people, I mean, I was talking to, just quick, very quickly, I was talking to a friend yesterday whose daughter has just come back from traveling and she's looking for a job. And the job applications are saying, please do not use AI for your answer.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Right, Interesting. I think, yeah, they're probably bored, fed up a bit. Fed up a bit. Because how can they differentiate between the quality of candidates? So I think we're all starting to spot the Patterns. Now, the buzzwords that it churns out and the rhythm to AI copy.
You can read four different, I don't know, cover letters from four different candidates for a job and they all sort of have a certain sameness to them. They'll all be very robotic in how they reply to the job application and tick all the boxes that are being of them. I think most AI generated copy is lacking punch and motion and humanness and we need to put that back in. It's almost like, you know, forget prompt engineering for a minute. I know this is the, this is a buzzword for the industry, but we need human copywriters to inject a little bit more emotional engineering into our copy. A bit more human engineering. Props to Bushra Bushra Azra for coining that term emotional engineering.
I think we do need a little bit more of that moving in.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: We do, yeah. So just following on from the fact that it's easy to spot, I do think so. An assumption number five. I think we can safely say that there are currently chief marketing officers and business owners who think that they can outsource a chunk of their workload to ChatGPT. But I do think it would be wise to assume that eventually for some of them it's, it will become clear that sourcing your copy from a robot only works for low value stuff. So we can also assume that some people are happy with this. Some business owners might just say, oh yeah, it sounds great, I'm just going to use it. But yeah, let's repeat this. Some people are happy to produce robotic shite because the job's done. You know, that's code, it's okay, let's move on. But, but I think that's not good marketing and it's not good business.
No more.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Fool them, really. I mean everybody, I suppose you, you know, it's, it's probably obvious that, that already people are being dropped, specialists, copywriters are being dropped from, you know, in favor of, well, let's just get AI to do it. There's going to be this sort of period of change, but I think there'll also be a period of correction where, where the realization is this copy is not doing anything for our business. These words are just word vomit. They're not really getting people to take action. They're not getting us the results.
So.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: I like that. Word vomit. I like that.
Yeah, it's better than word salad. It kind of. Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: It's just words, isn't it? It's just words, words, words. And we've all had enough of.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I know. And actually, just. Just to say we are going to be talking about kind of the ethics and also how companies can spot, you know, and use tools to spot AI generated content. And that's coming up in our next episode. So, yeah, got a very good interview.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: There with the founder of Originality AI about how his tool can spot, can sniff out AI copy a mile off and also plagiarism. So that'll be. That's a really interesting episode coming next.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So this is the thing. AI can generate content, but there's still something missing, is lacking something. And that's why we as copywriters have to level up our skills and learn to work with it, not against it. Because our industry is changing. We are, we know we are walking on shifting sands at the moment. So get with the program. And that's what we're doing in this episode, definitely.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: So now we've made these assumptions, let's look at the key skills. So in this AI world, what are the skills that we need? And I think let's start off with AI literacy, which actually came up in your Economic forum report. So basically, if you don't learn how to use AI tools, then you are going to be behind the curve.
And I think that most jobs are going to require their employees to be able to use AI tools effectively for their job. So whether you're writing your own business copy or using a freelance copywriter like ourselves, you absolutely, absolutely need to get with the program with this. You absolutely need to, you know, get yourself educated and literate with AI.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah. As I heard Gemma Bonham Carter say recently when she's promoting her new AI Summit at the moment. But AI isn't hype. It's the new baseline for how smart businesses operate. I think she's done it really well.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And ones who do master it now, then they're the ones that are going to dominate the next decade.
Yeah, we can assume another assumption.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Well, let's. Let's watch it play out, because I think that is how it's playing out already.
So how to do copywriting really well? Well, first and foremost, I think we need to know how to do our job better, our job as a really, really good copywriter.
And to get the best output, we need to actively start thinking about how we think, how we use our brains.
And I think it's fair to say we should never outsource our strategic thinking, our human brain, to AI. Don't let AI do that job for us. That is our uniqueness, our humanness is our point of difference.
So skill number one is that you need to know how to do your job. Your job in your industry or our job in our industry. And so that we can coach AI, we are the boss, that is the assistant, and we coach our AI tools to do the crappy parts of our job, the monotonous, repetitive bits that we can, but not the smart, clever brain stuff that comes from us. Keep that and just outsource the pants parts of the job.
For example, it'll take you a nanosecond to realize that you can't just ask ChatGPT to write you a whole website homepage. Well, you can, but there'll be. It will be nothing good. You have to start by asking it to write a headline or to write the value proposition. And you can't even do that before you've really briefed it and trained it and honed it, given it all the data about who your audience is, what motivates them, what drives them, what your products are. You know, you've got to really brief it well.
And you know, when you ask it to write a headline, what sort of headline are you talking about? It could give you, it could spit out a headline, but is it going to be a headline that works? So where do you even begin?
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's the sort of question that can be hard to answer if you've been a little bit winging it as a copywriter or as a small business owner, thinking that generative AI can do it all for, you know, can do it all for you.
And I think that means that you literally can't afford to be unconsidered in your approach.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
So a professional copywriter will know all the headline writing formulas that are proven to work. A professional will understand the nuance of their audience. They'll know what emotional triggers are required to pull in the reader and beyond the headline. Because we all know the job of the headline is to get people to read the subheading and the next. And the first paragraph, the first sentence, you know, it's got to get people beyond that. So an AI robot, unless it's been exceptionally well programmed and briefed, doesn't know how to do that, doesn't know how to get the action. And what are the skills that you need to know? Well, it's how to feed the right inputs into ChatGPT and it's how to improve the outputs of ChatGPT.
Not just to take what's given and think, yeah, that passes, you know, but actually to go through that with a fine tooth comb and make sure it's good.
These are the skills that you need to be a master of research, master of planning and editing. And plus, you need to know that, you know, you need that knowledge. We need this knowledge in our world of the art of conversion, the psychology behind what gets somebody to take action. And these are not amateur skills and they're not robot skills.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: No, they're human skills and they're also professional copywriter skills.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
So just coming on to another skill, strategic thinking and creativity. We've touched on this. You know, AI can generate content, but it does struggle with original thinking.
It brings to the party combined thinking or mushed up thinking or thinking on Internet thinking on everything that was ever published. And I've already said don't outsource your strategic thinking, human brain to AI.
The skill here is on focusing, focus. Put your focus on crafting strategic, unique narratives, the brand storytelling and creative angles. Use your creative thinking that AI can't replicate and bring this strategy and thought and creativity to produce the best prompts, the best instructions for your AI tool. And then what we need to do is take it, edit it and manipulate it, manipulate and change the copy, the output that Gen AI has given us if we want the very best results.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So actually following on from that, I think the skill, another skill is to understand brand voice and tone mastery. So we've said this in previous episodes, not just of this AI series, but obviously if you go back, we talk about this a lot, but you know, businesses need copy that reflect their unique personality and brands know this. And so whilst, you know, companies love AI for speed, you know, they still need human writers to fine tune this messaging. You know, AI produces drafts and humans perfect them. And I think that's where our skill set comes in.
So again, you know, we're professionals who know how to perfect words for the best outcome.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
I've learned again recently about the different kinds of prompting. So you can have a simple prompt where you just ask the question of ChatGPT. You can use a keyword prompt where you put in, you know, you must use these specific keywords to generate and you can use a modeled prompt. So you can ask ChatGPT write this thing in the style of. And you can literally rip off somebody else's style or whatever. You can use your bra. People are using these different types of prompts. But we again, what we need to move away from is just prompting, prompting, prompting, copying and move into like really thinking about emotion, how the emotional prompting and the emotional engineering that we can do for the best outcome.
So it's not enough just to make it sound good, is what I'm saying of all this brand voice stuff. Yes, we can make AI talk in a style that we like the sound of or that we, you know, mimic somebody else, but there's more to it than that.
And that brings me on to the sort of next skill which is this real in depth understanding of human psychology and persuasion. We know AI can generate words, but it doesn't deeply understand these emotions or human behavior. What we can do as copywriters is master these psychological triggers, the emotional storytelling, the persuasive techniques to make your copy more compelling. And that's what we're trained to do as copywriters. So you know, how we are using AI is with AI assisted writing and prompt engineering. But what we really need now, what the key is to use AI tools like ChatGPT, like Jasper, like copy AI is let's use them to speed up research, let's use them for idea generation and first draft. But what's absolutely paramount to craft better AI prompts, better than the simple prompts, better than the modeled prompt to really get more useful outputs.
And yes, we can create our own GPTs, our own software to help us with this, but really it's about sort of programming and teaching these AI tools to process this information.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: But if you think about this, Ella, okay, so by the time somebody, you know, somebody has gone into, let's say you're writing for your own business and you've spent a lot of time telling, telling your, your, your GPT, all of this stuff and, and you know, engineering the prompts and learning and learning how to do this. To be honest, it's probably, if you think about your time, you're probably quicker to brief a copywriter and get them to do it.
Not being funny, but because, because the copywriter will know how to, how to do the draft and how to.
Is that not. It seems to me a lot, it's a lot of work for somebody to do it properly. Yeah, it's a lot of, it's a big learning curve for somebody to be able to do it properly.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Well, if you're having these conversational prompts where you're toing and fro in the simple prompting where you ask it to do something, you see what it reproduces, you think, oh, that's not quite right, so you go back in, ask it again, you can spend a long time actually to ing and fro, tussling with it.
And I suppose the custom GPT is designing a little engine, a little bot to do that job on a repeated basis. Yes, there is a time investment in the beginning, but it's meant to, once you've got it programmed, it should be able to help you moving forward. But yeah, all that said and done, sometimes it would just be quicker.
I think we're going to learn this. It's going to flesh out, you know.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be interesting because it was still quite early days, aren't we? It's going to be really interesting to see how it, it pans out. And I think you're right. I think there will be a bit of a reset. I think, you know, when, you know, when people realize that you can't just regurgitate the same old stuff through a robot. So it is the, you know, this understanding human psychology and persuasion.
You know, as I said, we're saying this is just one skill out of many that we're talking about in this episode.
So anyway, let's move on. So there's also the vital skill of great SEO and data driven writing.
So I think AI is making SEO search engine optimization more sophisticated, but human insight is needed to apply it strategically. And I think this is a whole other episode and we are looking to do an SEO series in the future.
So I think, you know, that's something that if you are listening to this and you can, you'd like to come on and you're an SEO expert, then please do get in touch.
But I think the key skill for copywriters is to understand search intent.
So when somebody is searching, what is it that they are looking for? Yeah, and things like optimizing for featured snippets and writing user friendly content, these are all really key. So in your blog posts, just to put up a, you know, a robot generated blog post is just not going to cut it.
So it's also about what do you.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Mean by optimizing for featured snippets?
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Okay, so you know, when you go into Google, it is the paragraph that comes up and gives a summary of the, of your, of your question. Yeah, I don't know what it might be like, what's the best, so what's the best tool, you know, for, for removing varnish from a piece of furniture?
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: And it'll come up and, and it'll be a featured snippet. So that will have come off somebody's website somewhere.
And so there are ways that you can sort of write your copy and structure it in order for Google to, to see that this is a perfect answer if you like.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Is it like the metadata meta tags? You know, it's like that.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: No, I don't think it is. Well, well, we'll have to ask the SEO expert. I think it's when it's trawling through, it's the way that you are giving an answer to a question within a blog post or on your website.
So if you're somebody Google serving up.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: This snippet, it's a way of just mirroring back to you. Is this what you're looking for sort of thing?
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but the snippet will have come from somewhere. So if, if, if you want to be seen as a expert in the field of removing varnish from furniture, maybe you make carbide scrapers or something, you know, in a blog post somewhere, you'll be able to provide a perfect answer that Google can then take and use as a featured stuff snippet.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Right, okay, thanks for clarifying that.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Sorry, that wasn't very concise.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Everyone.
This is why we, we're looking for SEO experts, isn't it? To come in there?
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Yes. So, yeah, so it's, it's also, also about using AI strategically. So for instance, surfer SEO will help to optimize content for search engines, but it won't automatically make the copy engaging. And I think that's where we, the professionals come in. And also, can I just say it will be really interesting to talk to some SEO experts about these tools and whether by using these SEO tools, whether again you can get discriminated against because you are using artificial intelligence, it's going to be, I think the, this an SEO series will be really interesting actually.
But anyway, good.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Right, call out. We put that out into the universe. Let's make it happen.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Yes. Well, I've got somebody, I've got somebody in mind and I'm, you know, so please, anyway, get in touch if you can recommend somebody. That'd be great.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: So yeah, let's move on with the skills.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Okay, let's think. Professional editing and refinement.
Because AI generated content often needs a human touch.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Always needs a human touch.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Always needs a human touch. Yeah, you're right, it always does.
Strong editing skills, they ensure clarity, they ensure personality, they put accuracy back into the copy. You can fact check means that you've given your copy a fine, you know, you've gone through it with a fine tooth comb and what you're putting out there into the world, you can be confident that that is the best produced thing. So AI is great for final checks in terms of spelling and grammar. It can pick that up better than the human eye, I think. But if you're not skilled in editing and refinement, then you won't get the results you're looking for. And we're not just talking about the spell check here. We're talking about sweeping through the copy. We did an episode with Linda Malone on the seven sweeps that you can do with your copy to make sure you're putting into it the flavor, the punch, the emotion. You know, you're sweeping it to find out has it got all these things, has it got the triggers that are going to help convert and people to take action or whatever. If it's a conversion copywriting objective in there. So you need to sweep through the copy you're given. You need to optimize it for emotion, you need to optimize it for conversion and optimize it for anything else that you know that fits your goal of that piece of content or copy.
You're looking for the triggers that will get the reader to take action. And if those cues are not there, or if they are weak or if they are misaligned, then you are human needs to fix them. AI will give you something to work with. It will get you off the blank page. But please don't just take that and run with it. You know, put your own thought into it before publishing.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so actually that, that sort of follows on. My next skill follows on very well, which is the skill of conversion optimization. So you're talking about the suite, but that's actually part of the sweep.
So knowing how to write for sales and engagement, so a skill that we have as copywriters before AI is a skill that we're still going to be really, really valuable. So you need to know how to write landing pages, email sequences and ad copy. And that kind of skill of this conversion optimization is always, always going to be valuable because if you can understand that, which obviously these skills are sort of merging into, into one almost, you know, the professional editing, you know, we've talked about psychology. All this conversion optimization skills, if you like, are going to be invaluable. Also, things like a B testing and data analysis skills can give you. And you can use, I think you can use AI to help with this or you could certainly say, oh, I want to do an A, A B test, but it's still going to require a skilled professional to implement this in the most effective way.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. You can ask AI to generate two versions of the same piece of content so that you can test them, but.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah, you're going to do that. I mean, why would you do that? Unless you've got a strategy behind why you might want to do the A B.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: What are you testing for? What are you optimizing for? It all comes down to having a really clear goal at the outset, what you want the thing to do, and it comes down to really understanding your audience so that you can get that result that you're after. But yes, AB tests are open to us and that is a very useful tool.
So, yeah, finally, another skill I think is understanding the ability, the ability to produce ethical and authentic storytelling AI generated content as it floods the Internet, which is doing right now.
Authenticity and humanness becomes the differentiator.
We're talking about ethics of AI in our next episode in this podcast series. But in short, ethical copywriting. And by that I mean the transparency about using AI to create your content is going to be crucial for trust building. We want to develop real relationships with real people still. And so we need to, we need their trust if we want them to work with us. And in this world of regurgitated robotic words, this authenticity and ethically sounding copy will be the golden arrow to success. I really think that.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: And not only, you know, not only that, but human flaws are to be celebrated. It's these quirks and our colloquialisms. If we're from a certain place or the, you know, the personality infused turns of phrase that we use in our language, that's what makes us stand out. The flaws make us relatable. Um, and I think that is a good thing. I think we are starting to appreciate that more as we sort of get flooded by this polished, perfect copy that's coming out of ChatGPT.
So an example of this, a recent Instagram reel I posted this week, it went wrong. When I was filming it, I was trying not to do all the things that you're supposed to do on an Instagram reel. And I was hanging out some washing but I couldn't get the washing line up and that didn't work. And then I forgot on the pegs and I decided like when I was thinking, oh God, this was supposed to be easy and now it's turning into a nightmare. But I decided when I edited that clip and put it out there that I was going to leave in all the mistakes that all the bodied and I put a caption over it to say, you know, this happened and oh, now that. But that really related with people because everybody's been in that situation where they've tried to do something quick and easy and it's turned into a blinking nightmare. But that was humorous, that was funny and it made people smile and also it really connected with people. So I got loads of engagement on that post and lots of comments and lots of sort of. Me too. Because, you know, people have been there, they can relate to it and it just really brought it home that the flaws, the mistakes, the quirks, that's all part of. That's all good stuff. Let's keep that, let's not edit out every and ah. In our podcast episode. Let's. Let's keep some of it in because that's what makes us real.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And the other thing that's. But isn't that just. What we're saying is it's the fact that you, you put, you put that out there. But it's very much. It's very real, it's authentic. You know, it wasn't scripted. It was.
And then I think in a world of very polished. So for example, if you, if it was a real, you would. That's on Instagram, presumably. I mean, you've only got to go onto Instagram and see this kind of perfect, perfectly, you know, produced reels or, you know, very quaffed people. Sound. Yeah. Sounding. Sounding off. And that's, you know, after a while you scroll through, boring, boring, boring. But actually, you know, Ella having a bit of a Mr. Bean moment. Hooray.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Brilliant.
Yeah, yeah. When I keep seeing video content because we're all told that, you know, video is king, video is green, whatever you want to say. And it is, you know, people like watching short clip videos, short form videos. But so much of it now is sort of stock imagery edited in with a bit of a voiceover. And it's just so flat. And that isn't resonating with people.
That is just getting glossed over because it's like, oh, yeah, okay. So you've used an AI tool and you've used a load of stock imagery and you're trying to say something profound here, but it just doesn't land in the same way at all.
And it's the same with story writing, content writing and copywriting.
It's either robotic or it's real.
Lean into making it real because that will get better results.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Definitely. Right. One more skill. Time for one more skill. Which actually again, came up very. As one of the World Economic Forum skills, which these skills of adaptability and continuous learning.
And I think this is God. Well, as kids of the technology revolution, you know, AI and marketing trends change fast. I mean, technology has moved so fast over the last 30 years and I think this is going to continue and I think we need to remain at the forefront of this technology, AI technology, and also just be really aware of the effects on consumers and how to learn to differentiate yourself from your competitors. And I think that what we're saying is staying ahead means keeping up with new tools, you know, new trends and best practices and to know what they are and how to use them. And so listen to podcasts, you know, follow on social media, people who are, you know, using these two tools so that you can continue to understand yourself. Best practice, because you might just have heard the buzz about chat GPT you and then think, oh great, okay, well I'll use that for my business. But actually, you know, that's kind of like very 2023.
You know, it's, it's changing all the time. And what we're saying is you can't, you just can't just do that.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: You can't happen to you.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: To say that in a way, sort of for anyone who's not really dabbled in it yet, you know, that's not to be overwhelming, but just view it with a sense of playfulness, a sense of curiosity. Again, one of the skills the World Economic Forum is saying is in big demand.
Going with an open mind and a sense of curiosity and just see, they're actually really easy to get started with. They're free. The barriers to entry are super low. So yeah, it's worth, it's worth just dabbling and you'll soon get hooked. Don't worry, that's what happens easily.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah, and spend a fortune on them. No, don't do that. No, don't. Okay, so let's just. Should we just wrap up and just be. I mean we've obviously gone through a lot today.
So if we were doing a Google snippet, what are the four essential.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Sorry, a rapid fire round. Come on, rapid fire.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: So in short, then what, after what we've been discussing, what do we think the four essential skills copywriters need or business owners need? So I'm going to start off, I think AI literacy. So if you don't understand how AI works, you're to dispute advantage. Prompt engineering is a game changer. And so we, as we've been discussing, you know, it might input can make all the difference to the output quality but obviously then you're going to have to use your editing skills. So that's, that's my first one.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: I'm going to go with data analytics and SEO. Okay.
AI, it can suggest the keywords, but I think it's going to take an SEO person or a human insight at least to make the content natural and persuasive. I think there are tools you mentioned surfer SEO. I think there's one called Clear Scope. They're great tools, but they do again, need copywriter's touch or an SEO manager.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Brilliant. Number three, I think, I think brand voice essential skills is to understanding the brand voice. So AI often writes in a bland one size fits all way. And so I think the big skill here is to make sure that the content sounds like the brand and not like a robot.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah, true.
And fact checking, let's say this is a biggie. AI is notorious for making things up, hallucinating. You don't want to be that person who lets that AI generated mistake slip through the cracks because it'll be on your head. So I think fact checking is important and also ethical responsibility, owning up. You know, if you're using AI, then be, just be clear and transparent about that. It's not a problem, but you need to declare it.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: So if you're looking to better your skills, AI skills and adapt, let's just quickly just go through that. We were talking about obviously listening to podcasts like this. This is how you can learn what the tools are out there. Follow people at Ella and I on social media and other people in their field. So SEO experts, et cetera. So it is continuous learning. There are free courses, I think Google Digital Garage do them and HubSpot. If you Google them, I think they've got some free courses that you can understand and get a little bit more aware and then you know, that comes on to the next one which is.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely hands on practice.
Yeah, your sort of AI sandbox, if you like, dedicated time to just experiment with these tools without pressure of, you know, having to do it for a client job or something. Just do it on your own time. Do it with something that you're really interested in. It's a hobby that you're passionate about. Try different tools, test their limits and see, see where you could add value, where the human expertise is still required.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think sort of finally community networking, you know, AI is evolving fast. And if you are a copywriter, then obviously talk to other copywriters, you know, join AI focused forum summits. But just stay updated, just stay aware, you know, read stuff, practice stuff. Just, you know, it's going to be really vital to stay ahead of the curve here.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: I mean just the fact that you're here, listening to this podcast now means that you're already, you know, ahead of the curve in a sense, because we're just at the beginning of this. We're just at the beginning really. So, you know, get into it now.
Let's wrap up. Key takeaways I think the skills for copywriters in the AI era, like we've mentioned, AI literacy, SEO data analytics, brand voice mastery, fact checking, creativity is a big one. And strategic thinking.
[00:42:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And so the best way to future proof your career, whichever one that happens to be in, I know all sorts of careers are affected with it. It's just to keep learning, experiment with the AI tools, become an expert, stay connected to the industry that you're in. AI is not replacing us. It will replace some jobs, but it's actually giving us more tools to work with. And it'll be those people who can work with them who will succeed.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So I for one, figuring out this new path, working with it. What, what can we do to make to future proof our careers using AI? Remember, AI can generate words, but it's us humans that give them meaning. We bring the nuance, the wit, the strategy.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So I think that's a wrap.
Thank you for tuning in. Next time, we are diving into the ethics of AI copywriting, which is going to be fab. So that'll be out in a couple of weeks.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: So we'll see John John Gillum on the show next week. So next time. So yeah, tune in and see you soon.
You have been listening to the Cracking Copy podcast with Ella Hoyoff and Minnie McBride.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Don't miss out on future episodes by making sure you hit subscribe down below to keep up with all our podcasts.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: And more details and resources are in our show notes.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: So we'll see you next time.
Sam.
