An Actual and Practical Guide to Using GenAI for Marketing Copywriters

The one thing that GenAI has done is to highlight the importance of the marketing copywriter and the creative team in creating successful campaigns. Yes, GenAI and other AI copywriting tools can speed up workflows (which you’ll see below) but the initial impetus and greater strategic thinking is still very much human-based and emotionally-driven, which no AI can do at scale yet. 

Image from the Public Domain Review on Flickr. 

So, how can you, the marketing copywriter, incorporate GenAI to accelerate the content creation process, while remaining sane enough to provide experienced strategic input? Steal how I use GenAI to get work done quicker with the following guide: 

AI-Assisted Research with Perplexity AI

Despite Perplexity’s issues with content theft, it remains one of the best search assistants on the market. 

Need to understand your target audience better? Perplexity’s summarisation of the search queries provides insights your client may not have even considered. 

Perplexed by your client’s descriptions of their service offerings? Perplexity can help break it down into simpler terms and highlight potential content gaps. 

Need statistics to use? Perplexity can (probably) dig up relevant stats, and more importantly, provide you with the actual link, so you can see if it’s actually applicable to your work. 

With focused use, Perplexity can help cut down hours of research and achieve deeper understanding of your client’s offerings to produce quality work quicker.

How I integrate Perplexity.AI into my workflow

• Start by researching the target market and product 
• Click on related links to understand issues and gather any additional stats or quotes I may be able to use 
• These related links can also be used to identify content gaps and opportunities for your client 
• Depending on the final asset, I may use Perplexity to generate a templated asset to be used in the campaign (like this sample here) 

Pro-tip: Like how it was Google in the early days, don’t assume that it’s both factual and truthful. Always do the extra work to verify its numbers and information you give. 

Figure out Different Voices with TextCortex

One of the best use cases for TextCortex is its ability to store different personas in the answer database. You guessed it - for Marketing Copywriters, this is an incredible tool. Use it to write as your intended target persona or even question it to figure out your target market’s issues. 

The other thing I really like using TextCortex for is its ability to enhance its own prompt before you actually press submit. This is available mainly in the browser window, and while it does use up some of your tokens I’ve found it invaluable when trying to clarify what it is I myself am trying to accomplish. 

The third use case I’ve found for it is when trying to come out with content plans - while trying to figure out what kind of content to focus on next, I’ve used TextCortex to come out with relevant ideas and initial points to jump off. 

How I integrate TextCortex into my workflows: 

• Ask TC to create a content plan or asset after adding the knowledge and relevant URLs from Perplexity
• Ask it to expand and refine specific suggestions while capturing the most appropriate ideas for my client 
• If I am working on a finalised asset, I may export it into a Word Doc, refine it there, and then jump back into TC for specific word/grammar/flow fixes. 

Pro-tip: Make use of the different LLM options that TC offers you to get different perspectives and ideas. 

Tweak That First Draft with Gemini 

With Gemini, I use it generally to identify gaps in my thinking and ways I can improve my content. This applies mainly to longer form content, such as EDMs, articles and more.

As you can guess, this is particularly useful when crafting SEO-compliant material, including landing pages and blog articles. 

How I use Gemini in my workflows: 

• Straightforward, I just copy paste my initial word draft and press Enter
• I’ll tweak my writing based on the suggestions 
• Note: Compared to my initial Gemini review, it’s improved by leaps and bounds since, which is amazing considering the previous timelines for other Google products (am I salty? What do you think?) 

Pro-tip: Make use of the drafts systems in Google Gemini to find tweaks and different tone of voices that may be more suitable for your products. 

Strengthening the Brand Voice with Claude 

The one thing that truly terrifies me about Claude is that it captures my writing tone and voice far better than Gemini or any of the other GenAI tools on this list have done. When I’m done with my second draft, I’ll usually copy it into Claude and get it to fix whatever I think is lacking.

Sometimes Claude will suggest additional information or angles, which is helpful when crafting a series of assets. For standalone refinement, I really hate and love using Claude. 

How I integrate Claude into my workflow 

• Copy the second draft into Claude 
• Adjust any sections highlighted by Claude 
• Sometimes I’ll get it to generate the entire draft, most times it’s just that particular section 
• Identify and add more keywords into the draft as needed 

Pro-tip: Claude works best when dealing with drafts you give it, rather than coming up with its own.

ChatGPT: Missing in Action

While a lot of people have used and recommended ChatGPT, I’ve found it sorely inadequate for my needs. And yes, this is after I’ve retested it and tried to find ways to integrate it into my workflows. 

I don’t use ChatGPT for two main reasons:

• TextCortex allows you to set ChatGPT as one of the LLMs to use, so I don’t really feel the need to use ChatGPT directly
• Even when ChatGPT is set, most times the options aren’t any better than either of the tools mentioned here. In some cases it’s even word for word, so I’ve found it easier and better to just not include it at all. 

The TL;DR Workflow 

Step by step, my workflow looks like this: 

• Research with Perplexity
• Test with TextCortext
• Refine SEO-compliant drafts with Gemini
• Finish with Claude

Of course, I still follow the individual steps in this particular prompt guide. The only difference is that I generally carry over the draft itself between platforms, always checking for understanding and brand guidelines.

What's your marketing copywriting workflow with GenAI?