AI has been sold as the solution to all productivity issues. It can help a one-man-band achieve the same level of output as a full creative team. You no longer need to hire that accountant/designer/writer/strategist/marketing team… because AI can do it all and more.
I have a few issues with this stance. And it’s something that affects my ideal target client more than anyone else. I typically work with small businesses doing a lot with a small budget. So the arrival of AI is surely a good thing for these folks.
For so long they’ve had to make difficult calls about where to put their marketing spend, and then either cobble together their own attempt or make do without. When business is more buoyant, they might hire me for a day per month to help get through their ever-growing list of things to do.
And then AI arrived, and promised it could do all of that and more. The issue with relying on AI to manage marketing tasks and reduce reliance on external contractors is that you still need to find the time to do the work.
The productivity myth
Clients usually hire me because they don’t have the time to do everything they want to do to help drive their businesses forward. So an AI tool promising to make these tasks quicker doesn’t really help when their time allocation for this task is already zero.
I have seen clients making the difficult decision to try to bring content production back in-house, because they see this as a cost-saving measure. And trust me, I get it.
Why would anyone want to pay to outsource a task they can do for themselves. The issue that I see with this approach is that clients choose not to outsource, but then don’t manage to find the time to use AI to create the content.
In the past, clients often didn’t have the time or skills to devote to content projects so they would outsource it to me. Now, AI levels the playing field and makes it possible for anyone to produce passable content. But they still don’t have the time.
AI might be able to quickly generate content, but it still needs to be researched, prompted, refined, fact-checked and then uploaded. If you didn’t have the time for this before, a tool that will speed up the process is unlikely to be helpful.
A common theme I see from clients at the moment is when they decide to bring things in house to help save money, but then never actually find the time to get to their projects. So that marketing to-do list gets longer and longer while productivity plummets.
What can you do to move past this roadblock?
If you’re thinking about parting ways with your content writer to bring things in house, be aware that you’ll still need to find the time to do all of the work you hoped to get through. Publishing raw content directly from your generative AI chatbot is never going to be a good idea – it needs refinement, editing and polishing to make it fit your brand.
Re-defining the scope of your content writer’s work would be a better place to start. This could mean scaling back their time and asking them to use AI tools to keep up with content output. You can expect pushback from some copywriters for this approach. But someone with your business interests in mind won’t care how the work gets done, just that it gets done.
You should also scale back your expectations for what can be achieved. The majority of copywriters will tell you the same thing: editing AI generated copy takes longer than simply writing it from scratch, unless you’re willing to compromise on the quality. So if you’re planning to give your writer less time to work their magic, then expect to see a little less dazzle and sparkle.
Stop thinking in terms of AI versus…
Perhaps the main takeaway that I want past, present and potential clients to take away from this is that I don’t position myself as an alternative to AI. It’s not me versus AI, and you don’t have to choose one or the other. If you’re limited in budget and want to maximise your marketing efforts, I absolutely think you should be working with AI.
But if your main constraint is time, or the lack thereof, then you absolutely should be working with me too. I bring more than just content output. I bring curiosity, creativity, emotional intelligence, insight, strategy and so much more. So think of me before you decide to put all of your trust in an AI chatbot…
