Stacy Braga: If you have gone down the AI rabbit hole you are not seeing the same results that you used to, then this episode is for you. We're going to talk about why your AI content sounds fine, but isn't getting the results that you want. So Let's dive in. I think it's so funny now that I've been spending more time on LinkedIn because I follow so many copywriters, the topic of AI is everywhere. And funniest to me are the ones where people are talking about not using AI, but it's super clearly written by AI. And I'm like, are just trolling people? Like, are you doing this on purpose to see if anybody will call you out? ⁓ so you see the posts that are like, hey, these are the telltale signs of AI, which is, you know, the ⁓ dash, the short choppy sentences, the bullet points. I saw a post yesterday about people making mistakes on purpose because AI makes things too polished and so you want to make some grammatical mistakes so people know that you are actually human. You don't have to do that. And I think it's kind of funny how with this big push to use AI, a lot of businesses, right, you're seeing it everywhere. We're now seeing it in schools where there's a big push in AI in schools and there's not a lot of guidance around how students should be using this and how teachers should be using this. It's kind of the same thing. And as a small business owner, you really have to think about what is the role of AI in my business and how do I actually use it? And for me, I feel like I went down the AI rabbit hole a little bit and not to say like I'm copying and pasting things out of AI, but it does make things a lot faster, right? And if I'm saying like, hey, I need to write an email and I know what the goal is and this is the messaging behind it, it's super easy to be like, okay. boom, paste it in. what I found is even when I do that, I end up spending more time being like, actually, this isn't quite right. This doesn't sound right. This isn't the exact nuanced position that I want to take. And so I spend a lot of time editing. And editing is really taking the joy out of writing for me. And maybe you're like, I hate writing and this doesn't track at all. But there's joyful about being like, I have an idea and getting clarity on that idea and then sitting down and writing it and then putting it out into the world versus putting it into a robot that's going to make it seem more robot-like then putting it out into the world. I think that's really where your people notice it because they can feel it, right? They can feel if your personality is in something, they can feel if your voice is in something, they can feel if you've really put thought into something, but it's really hard when you're like on this treadmill of business and you feel like you have to keep running, running, running and keep up after people. to not use the tools that are available to you. And I'm not saying be anti-AI, like truthfully, don't think it's going anywhere. I think it's smart to understand how to use it. But I also think that there's a lot of limitations that people don't really realize yet what they are. And a of the times where you're using it, get something done that would have taken an hour in like eight minutes. The quality of it, maybe it's not as good as it would be, but sometimes you don't have the capacity for a really good quality and What is the quote? anything done imperfectly is worth doing, right? You don't have to do everything perfectly. what I've noticed and as somebody that reviews copy for a lot of different people inside copy classroom is when you are using it makes your writing bland. And one of the that really appreciate about LLM models in AI is it you a structure. It really good at giving structure because it has taken all of the structure off of the internet. We'll talk more about this week. And give you a structure for your emails or for your website. And if you don't know copywriting or like the way that things should flow on a page or the order that things should flow on, it can actually be a very good ⁓ starting because you're not starting from zero. You're getting an idea about what that structure is. But I think the other side of that is because it's giving everybody the same structure, that structure is now putting you in a box. It's kind of like this thing of ⁓ where ⁓ you have to know the writing rules so that you can break the rules. And I think that when you're just using AI, it's giving you the rules, if you don't know what those rules are and they're there, then you're not seeing what are the ways that I can break these rules and insert my voice and personality and have some fun with it. ⁓ Because part of marketing is people's attention, right? And part of keeping people's attention is sometimes doing something a little bit unexpected. or peaking their curiosity. when you end up using that same structure, even if the words are different, even if the messaging is different, can really hinder people's experience. So one tip think about is really your cadence. And AI a really good job of giving you short choppy sentences and bullet points. And when you're about your cadence, you want it to vary. You don't want a bunch of... really short sentences over and over and over again because it's gonna get really boring for the people who are reading it, right? But you also don't want paragraphs long things. You wanna figure out what is the happy medium? How can you intersperse one with the other? Really thinking about how would you talk? What would it sound like? one. really important piece of advice if you are choosing to use AI for your marketing materials, it out loud. Would you say those words? Because AI is so good at sounding really fancy, but saying nothing like words without any actual meaning behind them. So ⁓ it out loud. Would you actually say that out loud? If you were having a conversation with somebody about your business, would you say words? would they actually come out of your mouth? And if they would not come out of your mouth, delete them. They do not belong inside your marketing materials. another thing think about if you are choosing not to use AI, what copywriters do is create a swipe file of really great copy. So whenever I see some really great emails, ⁓ there's also websites that have swipe that you can just tap into. If you are stuck, you can look back at those swipe files. I do this all of the time when I'm writing copy for a client and I'm feeling stuck. I will go back and be like, wait, what did I do? How did I do this on another client's website? how can I maybe replicate the structure or take pieces that really worked on this website and add them to this new website that I'm working on. And not to say that, hey, now these two websites are gonna have the exact same structure, but going back to that thing where like you to know what the rules are so that you can break the rules. And that's the problem with AI. You don't understand why structuring things in that way. And so everything is being structured the exact same way. But going back to swipe files. ⁓ If I were writing a new client website, I wouldn't start by looking at an old client website. I would start with my strategy. I would start with my positioning, my messaging, and then I would brainstorm and write it out. And finally, ⁓ I would then look to see what am I missing? Are there any pieces that I forgot? Is there something that I can do differently structurally that's gonna improve the flow, that's gonna improve? how people look at this and keep people on the page for longer. So all of this being said is why you might not be getting conversions from your AI content is because AI makes things sound really good, it's not actually very good at strategy or messaging or positioning yourself as the go-to choice for your ideal And this is something that I'm gonna tap into. next week's podcast episode is really the difference between how AI models work and how to actually position yourself because there's a gap there that AI cannot do the thinking for you. You have to do the thinking. So if your content is not converting, think about Where can you add some more of you in this? Where can you break some of the rules? And really pause and ask yourself, do I have a strategy behind this? I very clear on my messaging and my positioning? And then after know those pieces, it becomes much more effective to use AI if you choose to do so. So with all this being said, this month's clarity call, if you don't know what a clarity call is, they are. ⁓ monthly mastermind style sessions where you hear what other business owners are doing, what's working and what isn't. This month's clarity call is on AI. We're gonna be talking about the limitations of AI, the pros and cons of using it and where it actually fits in your business. to get the invite, all you have to do is join my email list and will get the invite to this one and any future monthly clarity call. ⁓ Thank you so much for listening. If this was helpful, leave a review, share with a business friend, stay Until next time.