AI doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, it’s only becoming more and more common in various areas of our daily lives. It’s a growing movement in the art world with generative design, and it has made its way into the world of copywriting with GPT-3.
Created by Elon Musk’s research company OpenAI, it’s not surprising GPT-3 is generating a lot of excitement.
The technology creates content with an identifiable language structure, whether it is machine or human. It is advertised as the most comprehensive AI technology, but that doesn’t explain what it can and can’t do.
You don’t have to be a tech genius to use GPT-3, but it helps understand the basic principles.
We’ll cover its uses, downsides, and why the technology may or may not break through its advertising claims.
What is GPT-3?
GPT-3 is the acronym for the third generation Generative Pre-trained Transformer. In simple terms, it is a neural network that is several steps above basic machine learning algorithms.
A neural network mimics brain functions that work to recognize relationships between supplied data. It allows the GPT-3 technology to produce paragraphs of relevant text using an opening sentence.
As of 2021, GPT-3 is the largest neural network using over 175 billion machine learning parameters. By entering prompts, the AI technology creates text with the tone and nuances of human speech patterns.
Working with OpenAI, over 300 applications are creating GPT-3 driven speech, text, and conversational AI content with the company’s licensing agreement.
What Text Is Possible With GPT-3?
GPT-3 studies patterns in text collected from the internet and digital books. With close to a trillion words at the program’s disposal, it creates impressive, human-sounding text. GPT-3 memorizes content from various situations and genres to learn the speech patterns.
Do you need a headline generated for an article? GPT-3 will create a unique one.
It can write functioning code with a simple prompt. The AI program only needs the parameters of the app to write it. GPT-3 also creates poems, tweets, memes, and even guitar tabs.
It is a beneficial technology for musicians, writers, and start-up businesses with limited operating budgets who cannot afford to pay programmers or other professionals in their industry.
As impressive as the AI technology is at creating text, it does have some limitations. You don’t want to depend on the software to create an entire article.
You will run into problems creating the article as a whole since GPT-3 only generates text it is familiar with. Your articles may have issues with plagiarism or are too similar to other published works, resulting in lower search engine ranking scores.
Formatting is another issue, along with the content’s tone. The AI software follows the examples it has learned scanning the web.
If most of the published content is in list form, you should expect to get the same from the software. It also follows the same tone as previously published works. If the learned text is humorous, you will get the same in the created content, even if you need a more serious tone.
One application the AI software works almost seamlessly with is rephrasing comments.
- The technology can turn rude or negative statements into positive ones
- It can also do the reverse
While most businesses prefer to keep their comment sections accurate, even the negative ones, it is a useful tool to have.
Don’t Try To Use GPT-3 For This
GPT-3 is impressive in multiple applications, from generating headlines to functioning lines of code, but it is not great at creating large chunks of text. It can be entertaining, but the content is generally unusable.
One example is creating literary content using Harry Potter as the prompt. The software may blend Jane Austen’s and Ernest Hemingway’s writing styles with the content reading that a broken Harry needs a book before it mentions sending the young magician to a bookstore in Diagon Alley.
Everyone knows, according to the software, that a book always makes magical defeat a little better.
Combining various authors’ writing styles is entertaining, but it isn’t usable content. Having GPT-3 create longer content also results in the software going off-script. It is grammatically correct, but the software will wander off-topic.
It uses statistics to put words together into sentences instead of understanding the intent of the content. Your heading may be about polar bears and melting Arctic ice, but the software can insert paragraphs about ice cubes watering down beverages.
Even though GPT-3 isn’t perfect at generating longer batches of content, it improves the previous addition GPT-2. Along with wandering off-topic, GPT-2 has difficulty stringing words together in a meaningful sentence.
Using GPT-2 to create an article on the national park system in India, one line of text mentions not disturbing the animals during odd hours while still assuring the reader they will have the chance to see wild beings if they dwell with them wearing neutral colors.
The general gist of the sentence is there without making a lot of sense.
The updated version uses 100 times more parameters resulting in more accurate and helpful content. It still needs plenty of work before GPT-3 generates full-length articles, but it is getting closer.
GPT-3’s Supported Marketing Frameworks
Persuasive marketing is a tool often used in commercials and other types of advertising. PAS and AIDA are two popular frameworks marketers use for copywriting.
The goal of the framework is to create a persuasive message that resonates with the audience. The tone and words are market-centric, designed to appeal to your specific customers.
What is PAS?
PAS or Problem-Agitate-Solution forces the user to think from the consumer’s perspective. It uses three steps to create relevant marketing.
- The software identifies the consumer’s problem, so you know what your product or market is attempting to solve. It’s a step towards establishing product market fit.
- The next step is to be specific about the problem now that it’s identified. In essence, the copywriter is agitating the situation or bringing it to consumers’ attention.
- Now that consumers know what the problem is, the final step is to provide a solution. Your solution should be the most obvious one to consumers.
The framework is designed to increase clicks, increase conversions, and engage consumers. It is something copywriters can do, but the framework shortens the time it takes to generate the lead-driving content.
It also catches wording copywriters may miss, improving your chances of connecting with your desired audience.
What is AIDA?
Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA) is a marketing model that helps businesses connect with consumers. The framework is similar to PAS and helps companies create a successful marketing campaign, from cold emails to landing page copy.
- Awareness focuses on the business’s outreach strategy and the message they want to impart to consumers.
- Interest deals with the content strategy and where to make the information available through commercials, websites, online videos, etc.
- Desire is why the service or products are desirable to consumers and how to make an emotional connection with buyers.
- Action concentrates on what the call to action is and where to place them for easy access by consumers.
The framework also looks at consumer retention or how to keep buyers engaged on and offline.
Marketing Frameworks and GPT-3
PAS, AIDA, and other similar frameworks work great at creating successful marketing campaigns, but there’s an occasional downside.
The framework is filled in by human copywriters who may not successfully agitate consumers’ problems or craft a compelling call to action.
This is where GPT-3 technology comes in.
The framework provides the software with the prompts it needs to create content that gets and keeps consumers’ attention. It will draw attention to the consumer’s problem and make it seem like you have the most apparent answer with your product or service.
IN SECONDS, the AI software can do what it takes a copywriter a few hours to complete to their client’s satisfaction. When it comes to marketing, speed is often essential. The longer it takes to release your marketing message, the more profits you can lose.
What Emotions Are You Portraying?
Emotions are crucial in all types of content.
It is how you connect with readers. Most human writers are skilled at crafting sentences that resonate with consumers’ emotions, but it is slightly different with AI technology.
As creative as the software is at stringing words together into grammatically correct sentences, it still is artificial intelligence. It cannot understand or express a range of emotions in tone or text.
Whether it is a marketing campaign or a short piece of content, the tone is crucial for getting your message across.
Since the software cannot accurately detect or express emotion, you will need to add some prompts.
Prompts are helpful tools that guide the software. Inserted correctly, you can get the right emotion in the right places.
Creating prompts for the AI language-writing software is more straightforward than many may think. GPT-3 is user-friendly, even for beginners just learning about artificial intelligence. It is one of the advantages the software has over some competitors and its earlier versions.
Creating content starts with giving the software parameters. It includes:
- Word count
- Topic
- Writing style
Most content uses concise and straightforward language. This prompt helps keep the software on topic and limits wordy, run-on sentences.
To further build on the prompt, completing the introductory paragraph gives the AI software a better idea of the tone and emotion you want in the content.
Where You Can Get Started With GPT-3
AI software isn’t going away, and it shouldn’t. It’s not here to replace human writers, only make it easier for marketers to get their messages out to consumers.
The GPT-3 software is relatively new, but there are several applications in use today.
There is a fee to use GPT-3, and it’s not the same with every application. When you are ready to take your marketing campaigns to the next level, here’s what you should know about the available applications.
COPY.ai
You get a seven-day free trial period to see if the software is a good fit for your sales campaign. Signing up is easy; just use your Google account and email address.
With the software, you can create websites, eCommerce, digital ads, and sales copy, along with a blog and social media content.
Choose the type of copy needed, describe the product or service in a couple of sentences, and wait a few minutes for your results. You get ten results at a time you can choose or edit. If you aren’t satisfied with the supplied results, rerun the tool until you can use one.
Conversation.ai
The software introduces you to Jarvis, the artificial intelligence that takes over converting copy. It generates ideas for content and headlines, along with adjusting the tone to match your brand.
Jarvis pledges to create original content without plagiarism issues and translate it into over 25 languages for easy distribution worldwide.
The software also works with AIDA and PAS framework, a bonus for anyone marketing a product or service.
RYTR
For $29 a month, you can use AI software to generate content and marketing campaigns. It comes with templates to help you get started using the tone or format you select with the prompts.
Choose the type of content you need and insert a few lines to give the software context. Within a few seconds, the text is displayed on your laptop or mobile device.
It works best for emails and marketing campaigns, though the software can also generate short blocks of usable content.
Shortlyai.com
Part of Conversion.ai, Shortly is also a GPT- 3 software designed to generate sales campaigns, marketing content, and blogs. It does come with a monthly fee and is similar to Conversion with a few differences.
You start with a blank field and start adding the prompts. Let the AI software know what type of content you need, the word count, and tone. What sets the software apart is it does not write it without input from you.
While it can generate short paragraphs, the software isn’t afraid to admit it requires human help to stay on topic for longer articles. You write side-by-side with the software.
Conclusion
GPT-3 is a big step forward in AI software used for sales call scripting. It also shows the future of creating marketing campaigns.
Humans are still necessary, but the technology can generate valuable content faster with fewer mistakes.
Problems still exist with AI technology. It’s not at the point where it can generate longer articles, but if you want to reach audiences and show them you have the product or service they need, it is a marketing tool you want to invest in.
Originally published Aug 31, 2021, updated Jan 17, 2023
