Review: TextCortex for Marketing Copywriters
So, making some changes to the way I conduct my reviews as I jump ever deeper into this rabbit hole. In general, what you’ll find in this review (and future ones until further notice) are:
If you just want to know what I think about it, jump straight to the conclusion.
What *is* TextCortex?
TextCortex (TC) calls itself an “AI Copilot” that can be personalised to suit your custom needs. Like quite a few others, it learns your writing style over time and uses its knowledge to generate outputs that would sound like something you might have written yourself. At least one Youtuber (Shu Omi, I believe) actually uses it to generate email replies which sound almost like him - so like having a personal assistant who is your virtual self, I suppose.
All this is driven by TextCortex’s chatbot Zeno. Described as an AI companion that can be personalised with your own input and submitted knowledge, ZenoChat is how you would interact with TextCortex, even if you use the browser and desktop apps.
The idea is that over time, Zeno would sound like you, and so you can then use Zeno to generate outputs when your brain doesn’t want to write or even word properly.
One of the more important features of Zeno is that you can use it to find extremely tiny details in materials you have uploaded, so this is great when you’re doing research or trying to recall items.
Some people use TextCortex as a knowledge management system - and unlike generalists like ChatGPT and Gemini, I can see how a specialised AI like TextCortex would be both more useful and potentially a lot more ethical.
How does TextCortex work?
Here we come to the meat of it. As I mentioned, you interact with TC (I got too lazy to type out the full name) through ZenoChat, aka their chatbot. You can use it several ways - desktop app, in browser, and with a browser extension. It really depends on what you find most useful. In my case, I have it opened as a permanent tab on my Chrome on the iPad.
Personas: Different voices for different use cases
What I really like about Zeno is that I can use different personas for different items. So for AAC I have a specific persona set up, while for work, I use a different persona who has a writing style closer to the client’s.
And the outputs *are* different, which I was pleasantly surprised by. When given clear instructions, Zeno gives me options that are almost comparable to Claude (which is fast becoming my primary AI writing assistant).
TC gives you 12 default personas to use, from Zeno, the generalist to Hemingwai, the marketing copywriter, Theresa the therapist, Phil the product manager, and even Lisa, a sales manager. They also have 3 coach personas - a motivational, relationship, and even an interview coach. If you’re wondering, no, I haven’t used Hemingwai (yes, I saw what you did that, TC) as I prefer to set up my own persona.
On the Free tier, you can create up to 3 custom personas for yourself. I suspect though, that if you have a lot of clients with very different voices, these may not be enough, which is where I think TC’s pricing comes into play.
Pricing: Start ’em free, charge ’em dollars
Like most other Generative AI Tools, TextCortex is freemium. It has a free tier before scaling up to the Premium and Enterprise tiers.
Critically in the free tier, you get all of the same functionality as someone in the Premium or Enterprise tiers - the only difference being that you have a very small amount of “Creations” daily and have a limited number of chat histories. Oh, and you don’t get image generation on the Free Tier.
Their “Creations” is basically their “token” currency. For every 125 words TC generates, you’re charged 1 creation. This calculation gets more complicated when you use more “advanced” models such as GPT 4 and Claude Opus among others.
Summary is if you are on the Free tier, asking TC to generate a long blog post based on a specific topic and using the ChatGPT 4 engine, can eat up a lot of your tokens in one go (and no, this isn’t persona dependent).
You can however, earn permanent additional tokens in their Reward Center, which is basically set up to encourage people to both learn how to use TC in the first place, and word-of-mouth referrals.
For their Premium plan, they focus on selling you minimum Creations a month. Like many others, TC charges you less if you pay annually instead of monthly.
They also give you a rough idea of how many words you can generate with each Premium tier, which I thought was great, as it can give you an idea into how many words you may actually use throughout the month.
Plans start from USD $5.99 per month (paid annually) and $6.99 (paid monthly) to $83.99 monthly for unlimited tokens. They offer fairly hefty discounts for students, non-profits, and neurodiverse peeps ranging from 15% to 75%.
Sample generated prompt
For this one I used the same prompt as I did for my previous reviews. This prompt is:
Write me a brief review about using textcortext for marketing copywriters. It should follow the following format, with a focus on how marketing copywriters in the B2C and B2B space can use Zeno to speed up workflows. Use a positive, conciliatory tone.
- Name of AI
- Model last updated until when
- Pricing tiers available
- Best used for what types of marketing collateral
- Who might best utilize it
Review of TextCortex for Marketing Copywriters
TextCortex's AI assistant, Zeno, offers a powerful tool for marketing copywriters in both B2C and B2B sectors. With its innovative capabilities, Zeno can significantly enhance and expedite the copywriting process, translating to improved efficiency and impactful content creation.
Key Information:Zeno's natural language proficiency empowers copywriters to swiftly generate ideas, refine messaging, and maintain brand consistency, all while saving valuable time. This makes Zeno particularly well-suited for crafting engaging website content, social media posts that resonate, and persuasive email sequences that drive conversions.
- Name of AI: Zeno
- Model last updated until: September 2023
- Pricing Tiers Available: Free Starter Plan, Pro Plan (£39/month) Enterprise Plan (custom pricing)
- Best Used For: Ideation and brainstorming for marketing campaigns, drafting copy for websites, social media, email, ads, and other B2C/B2B marketing collateral, optimizing and fine-tuning existing marketing copy, accelerating research and content generation processes
- Ideal Users: Marketing copywriters seeking to streamline their workflows, boost productivity, and generate compelling content efficiently.
In conclusion, TextCortex's Zeno serves as a reliable AI copilot for marketing copywriters, offering a versatile and efficient solution for accelerating content creation, enhancing creativity, and delivering impactful marketing collateral in both B2C and B2B contexts.
This is actually quite ok, but I think the persona I used was Zeno and not Hemingwai. It’ll probably be updated soon as I burnt through my credits researching something else while writing this review.
Updated 21 July, 2024: So I changed the parameters to using Hemingwai, their recommended persona for marketing copywriting and the engine to Sophos, which they recommend for shorter copy. This is... an interesting result.
Should you bother with TextCortex?
For marketing copywriters, TextCortex can potentially be a powerful tool if you deal with a lot of complex client documentation and research. As TC operates out of the EU, it’s governed by EU data protection. Enterprise plan users will get the reassurance that their data is never used nor collected.
TC makes it easy to switch between different models, though I find myself defaulting most times to ChatGPT as I don’t want to bother with the hassle of using ChatGPT’s default interface. I may try the Sophos and Mixtral models soon though, when my creation count refreshes for the day.
I suspect that if you really need a custom AI companion, then it may be worth it to check out the 14 day free premium trial and see if it works for you. I haven’t even tried using TC as a conversation partner for brainstorming, so that is something I may explore later.
Conclusion aka TL;DR
TC is a half-half recommendation for me. I think it would be best suited to marketing copywriters who need someone to both bounce ideas off and to handle complicated research and understanding in the early stages of the writing process.
TC’s rewriting capabilities aren’t something I can take to the client and pass it off as my work, but it’s great for prompting different ideas and ways to look at the same collateral. I find it works best when you have a clear idea of the asset you want (such as alternate EDM subject lines, social post ideas, etc).
Photo by That's Her Business on Unsplash.
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