With the proliferation of cheap/free ways to generate content these days, why would anyone pay a professional content marketer to generate their content for them?
Unfortunately, this is a question we’re hearing a lot more recently from not only leads but also business colleagues. Of course, it doesn’t really matter why someone else would use a digital marketing company to write their content, but it certainly matters why you should.
If you’re weighing the cost of hiring a digital marketer for your business, here’s what you need to know about the benefits of hiring someone to write your content for you:
Unfortunately, this is a question we’re hearing a lot more recently from not only leads but also business colleagues. Of course, it doesn’t really matter why someone else would use a digital marketing company to write their content, but it certainly matters why you should.
If you’re weighing the cost of hiring a digital marketer for your business, here’s what you need to know about the benefits of hiring someone to write your content for you:
Quality
While the idea of typing a prompt into ChatGPT or Grok and then sipping your coffee for a few seconds while it spits an article out for you is certainly alluring, it’s also an awful way to handle content creation. Don’t fool yourself! The low-quality output will not impress your audience. In fact, it can be a real turn off–causing your audience to lose trust in your company and choose a competitor instead.
Similarly, hiring an overseas “content writer” for a few bucks per article is sure to get you lots of content fast. However, that content will also be very low quality–likely because they’re just letting AI tools write the content for them and then just charging you a nominal fee for what you could have just done yourself.
Hiring a reputable content marketer to write your content ensures that you’ll have someone with significant writing experience on your team. The result is vastly better quality! The writing will be better, and it will be written for your specific audience. Professional content marketers will shape their writing to match your audience’s reading level and use the right tone to reach them.
Professional content writers also understand the nuance of how much length is enough to achieve your business goals, and how much is too much. This is one area where AI really struggles–finding a balance between research paper-level depth (which is too long for visitors to want to read) and summary explanation (which is too short to meaningfully engage visitors). Content marketers keep a constant eye on current trends, so they know what types of content are performing best in which places and how to best leverage different forms of content. This level of expertise cannot be replicated by AI tools and trying to impose this knowledge overtop of prompt-driven content is tedious and time-consuming.
Good content marketers will also understand how to balance written content with visual content like images, charts, graphs, and videos in a way that AI simply cannot. When additional forms of content are needed, they can often help source or produce them. The result is a far more well-rounded content strategy that meets your audience where they are with the content they need when they need it.
Professionalism
Entering an article prompt into an AI tool will give you something. What happens from there is entirely up to you. If you need it shortened to fit a specific use or lengthened to offer additional context, you need to refine the prompt. If the content is technically correct but largely uncompelling, you need to refine the prompt. If the tone is wrong for the subject matter, you need to refine the prompt. If it doesn’t sound at all like something that would come from your company, you need to refine the prompt. If it includes inaccuracies due to the infamous AI hallucination problem, you need to find and fix them yourself. This all takes time and can be extremely irritating!
In fact, some of our colleagues who have experienced the difference between human-generated content and AI-generated content have told us that they have spent hours refining prompts for content that they want generated before finally arriving at something that they would feel comfortable using for their businesses. At that rate, you’re not saving any time–or money–using AI instead of a human to write your content.
When you use a content writer to develop content for you, and you run into any of these issues, you can explain them like a person talking to a person (because you are a person talking to a person) and they will go back and revise the content and get it back to you. This natural back and forth on drafts is a key part of creating something valuable for your audience. It also helps to avoid a whole lot of frustration!
Purpose
In the same way that AI struggles with determining how much is enough and how much is too much, it can’t effectively create content with a purpose. ChatGPT and Grok can create informational content (which doesn’t sell) or sales content (which doesn’t inform and educate to add value). But it can’t do both together in a way that feels organic.
Content marketers, on the other hand, understand that the aim of digital marketing is to offer something of value before asking for anything in return, but then they’re capable of making the ask in a way that’s natural instead of making it feel forced or awkward. They are masters of the pull/push approach–both pulling people in with content and recommending offerings as options that fit with their audience’s needs and desires. Yet again, the human touch is key to grasping the nuance needed here to be successful.
This is especially critical for content that’s meant to build on other existing content (like sales funnel resources, a blog article series, or multi-step support guide) or engage a specific audience segment. When the purpose is more complicated, an experienced content marketer will have the writing prowess needed to deliver effective content without having to enter prompt after prompt ad nauseum to try to get to a desired result.
Branding
AI tools are getting better at replicating a company’s brand voice, but they’ll likely never reach the point where they can sound as much like a company as the company itself. The reason for this is because AI tools can only copy what they already have access to, not generate something new for a new scenario.
For instance, ChatGPT or Grok can copy the tone from an existing company press release or a previous blog article, but neither can superbly generate content around a new product launch or entry into a new market because they can’t truly predict what a company’s tone would be in this kind of new situation. Similarly, they can’t be used to generate an apology statement or do public damage control after an incident has occurred in the same way that a human who understands the brand’s tone can if and when the need arises.
Experienced content writers are adept at taking on a brand’s voice and producing content that fits that tone to achieve alignment across all communications. The best content writers can sound like a company, the company’s leader, or a specific team within the company to portray the brand well and meet its audience’s expectations flawlessly regardless of the circumstance. Whether it’s a positive or a negative situation, a professional content writer’s experience with a brand’s tone can be leveraged to find the right words at the right moment.
When you need quality content that achieves your business goals, reach out to us! Our team writes for some of today’s fastest growing brands and nonprofits. We take the time to understand your audience and your objectives to craft the kind of content that moves the needle. Whether it’s generating more leads, converting more leads into sales, or getting more support for your cause, we have the experience needed to generate content that supports your goals. Ready to elevate your organization and accelerate your growth? Reach out to us today for more information!
While the idea of typing a prompt into ChatGPT or Grok and then sipping your coffee for a few seconds while it spits an article out for you is certainly alluring, it’s also an awful way to handle content creation. Don’t fool yourself! The low-quality output will not impress your audience. In fact, it can be a real turn off–causing your audience to lose trust in your company and choose a competitor instead.
Similarly, hiring an overseas “content writer” for a few bucks per article is sure to get you lots of content fast. However, that content will also be very low quality–likely because they’re just letting AI tools write the content for them and then just charging you a nominal fee for what you could have just done yourself.
Hiring a reputable content marketer to write your content ensures that you’ll have someone with significant writing experience on your team. The result is vastly better quality! The writing will be better, and it will be written for your specific audience. Professional content marketers will shape their writing to match your audience’s reading level and use the right tone to reach them.
Professional content writers also understand the nuance of how much length is enough to achieve your business goals, and how much is too much. This is one area where AI really struggles–finding a balance between research paper-level depth (which is too long for visitors to want to read) and summary explanation (which is too short to meaningfully engage visitors). Content marketers keep a constant eye on current trends, so they know what types of content are performing best in which places and how to best leverage different forms of content. This level of expertise cannot be replicated by AI tools and trying to impose this knowledge overtop of prompt-driven content is tedious and time-consuming.
Good content marketers will also understand how to balance written content with visual content like images, charts, graphs, and videos in a way that AI simply cannot. When additional forms of content are needed, they can often help source or produce them. The result is a far more well-rounded content strategy that meets your audience where they are with the content they need when they need it.
- Key Takeaway: Professional writers are objectively better at writing than machines and can shape their craft to target specific audiences, requirements, and use cases.
Professionalism
Entering an article prompt into an AI tool will give you something. What happens from there is entirely up to you. If you need it shortened to fit a specific use or lengthened to offer additional context, you need to refine the prompt. If the content is technically correct but largely uncompelling, you need to refine the prompt. If the tone is wrong for the subject matter, you need to refine the prompt. If it doesn’t sound at all like something that would come from your company, you need to refine the prompt. If it includes inaccuracies due to the infamous AI hallucination problem, you need to find and fix them yourself. This all takes time and can be extremely irritating!
In fact, some of our colleagues who have experienced the difference between human-generated content and AI-generated content have told us that they have spent hours refining prompts for content that they want generated before finally arriving at something that they would feel comfortable using for their businesses. At that rate, you’re not saving any time–or money–using AI instead of a human to write your content.
When you use a content writer to develop content for you, and you run into any of these issues, you can explain them like a person talking to a person (because you are a person talking to a person) and they will go back and revise the content and get it back to you. This natural back and forth on drafts is a key part of creating something valuable for your audience. It also helps to avoid a whole lot of frustration!
- Key Takeaway: It’s easier to talk to a person than a machine because a person can talk back.
Purpose
In the same way that AI struggles with determining how much is enough and how much is too much, it can’t effectively create content with a purpose. ChatGPT and Grok can create informational content (which doesn’t sell) or sales content (which doesn’t inform and educate to add value). But it can’t do both together in a way that feels organic.
Content marketers, on the other hand, understand that the aim of digital marketing is to offer something of value before asking for anything in return, but then they’re capable of making the ask in a way that’s natural instead of making it feel forced or awkward. They are masters of the pull/push approach–both pulling people in with content and recommending offerings as options that fit with their audience’s needs and desires. Yet again, the human touch is key to grasping the nuance needed here to be successful.
This is especially critical for content that’s meant to build on other existing content (like sales funnel resources, a blog article series, or multi-step support guide) or engage a specific audience segment. When the purpose is more complicated, an experienced content marketer will have the writing prowess needed to deliver effective content without having to enter prompt after prompt ad nauseum to try to get to a desired result.
- Key Takeaway: Professional writers create content that actually does something beneficial.
Branding
AI tools are getting better at replicating a company’s brand voice, but they’ll likely never reach the point where they can sound as much like a company as the company itself. The reason for this is because AI tools can only copy what they already have access to, not generate something new for a new scenario.
For instance, ChatGPT or Grok can copy the tone from an existing company press release or a previous blog article, but neither can superbly generate content around a new product launch or entry into a new market because they can’t truly predict what a company’s tone would be in this kind of new situation. Similarly, they can’t be used to generate an apology statement or do public damage control after an incident has occurred in the same way that a human who understands the brand’s tone can if and when the need arises.
Experienced content writers are adept at taking on a brand’s voice and producing content that fits that tone to achieve alignment across all communications. The best content writers can sound like a company, the company’s leader, or a specific team within the company to portray the brand well and meet its audience’s expectations flawlessly regardless of the circumstance. Whether it’s a positive or a negative situation, a professional content writer’s experience with a brand’s tone can be leveraged to find the right words at the right moment.
- Key Takeaway: People sound more like people than machines do.
When you need quality content that achieves your business goals, reach out to us! Our team writes for some of today’s fastest growing brands and nonprofits. We take the time to understand your audience and your objectives to craft the kind of content that moves the needle. Whether it’s generating more leads, converting more leads into sales, or getting more support for your cause, we have the experience needed to generate content that supports your goals. Ready to elevate your organization and accelerate your growth? Reach out to us today for more information!
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