DIY Marketing: I Made ChatGPT My “Librarian” for a Month
My takeaways on using ChatGPT as a marketer
ChatGPT is full of superstitions. I remember reading stories about how companies got rid of copywriters, editors, translators, etc. I didn’t know what to believe, so decided to put it to the test.
My goal: identify ChatGPT benefits for my business. I do marketing and business development for B2B.
But firstly: why librarian?
I think of ChatGPT as my assistant or librarian. It has immediate access to massive data clusters but can’t recall our previous conversation.
TL;DR: I can use ChatGPT for SWOT analysis, but I won’t fully rely on it for copywriting or keyword research.
Side notes:
- I used Open.ai free plan. I also tried Bing but still don’t like their Internet Explorer.
- ChatGPT does not have up-to-date topic data, so it is best to use it for something evergreen.
Market Research
It seems like the best fit for what I do. It helped me quickly identify key players — partners and competitors — in a new area for me, Australia.
I used it to find key market leaders in a specific niche. I next used the findings to find companies that were similar to the key players.
I want you to be a digital marketer experienced in the Australian market. Find me the 20 best Australian accelerators for startups.
I used similar prompts to dig a bit deeper:
I want you to be a digital marketer experienced in the Australian market. Find me a list of the biggest strategy consultancies in Melbourne.
And another one:
I want you to be a digital marketer experienced in the Australian market. Find me Melbourne consultancies similar to Accenture Strategy.
I got repetitive results at times, but I still managed to find over 50 key players faster than just googling it.
Then I double-checked each of them to ensure they matched the key partner persona I received from a client. ChatGPT can make things up, so I am responsible for proof checking and validation.
In the same way, I used ChatGPT to highlight the shortcomings of potential competitors.
I want you to be a business analyst experienced in the mobile analytics field. Find me 10 disadvantages of Splitmetrics as software.
It’s a good starting point, but again, ChatGPT can make things up. I’d have to double-check it for my SWOT analysis.
It wasn’t much help when I was looking for specific URLs because its responses are generated based on prior knowledge only until September 2021. 60% of URLs didn’t exist, so I ended up looking up company names.
Summarising
This has been useful, too. I asked ChatGPT to summarise what company X does to match the key partner persona. I also used it to get a summary of a company before applying for a job.
I know people use summarising for books or movies. I tried it as well, but in this case, it’s more difficult to proof check the information until you read or watch it yourself.
So I asked:
What does Splitmetrics do?
Nice. I hadn’t known about landing page creation.
Keyword Research
I used AIPRM for ChatGPT Chrome extension to brainstorm keyword ideas for an “Apple search ads” keyword.
The spreadsheet looked OK, but due to the fact that ChatGPT doesn’t have the most recent data, I would need to double-check search requests with an SEO tool.
I used another prompt to generate an article structure based on the keywords. Good enough to kick off, but I wouldn’t publish it as is.
While browsing the prompts, I came across one for content strategy creation. It can be helpful for B2C businesses like travel. Say, holidays in Mallorca don’t change much. My area is constantly changing, making it necessary for me to keep up with the news.
Even if I trusted ChatGPT to create a content strategy, it wouldn’t get very far unless I understood how my sales and marketing funnels worked and when content came into play.
Brainstorming and Naming
Next, I wanted ChatGPT to create a headline for one of my articles. I asked:
Imagine that you’re a popular travel blogger. As the blogger, suggest 5 topics for a blog post about Thai massage
I didn’t really like the suggestions:
After some tweaking, I still didn’t like the headlines, although it highlighted a couple of ideas I decided to include in my article.
I know people use it to generate story ideas, but I’m not sure what the actual results are.
Again, it’s not about ChatGPT doing something for you. It’s about generating larger clusters of data faster. And then it’s your responsibility to choose from it.
Slide Deck
I’ve been involved in accelerator research, so decided to use ChatGPT to help me create a slide deck. I used a pre-made prompt called “1-Click Presentation” and entered my topic — Business Model Canvas Benefits.
As I chose a very broad topic, I received very generic results:
Among those slides, I noticed something unusual: ChatGPT suggested real-world examples of Business Model Canvas implementation:
I was hooked and wanted more. So I asked:
Give me examples of companies not implementing Business Model Canvas
And
How does Netflix use Business Model Canvas?
As a result, I got a deep dive into how Netflix fared while Kodak, Blockbuster, and Nokia did not use Business Model Canvas. Now I’m working on creating a workshop on this topic.
Copywriting and Editing
It seems to be the main use case for everyone but me. I used it to create sample cover letters. Perhaps my request was not specific enough, but the results were generic and too long. I don’t write like this and prefer to maintain my natural tone. I tried tweaking the prompt some more, but it didn’t help.
I think it’s possible to create an almost ideal prompt to create an almost ideal cover letter. It will, however, take me the same amount of time as writing it myself.
I know some marketers use ChatGPT to generate titles and descriptions for ads and social media. It should work for B2C or something that doesn’t change too often. People, for example, have the same need to buy a house, or you need a simple description of a new blow dryer.
In my case, acceleration programmes or laws governing e-signatures change.
I can’t think of it as my editor. Mostly I edit it, not vice versa. Sometimes it works as my corrector. However, unlike a human editor, it does not advise me on how to improve the quality of my content.
I don’t believe ChatGPT will replace humans. Maybe very lazy ones. I could have probably done better with prompt creation. I used it in any way I could to get useful results. I will get better.
During the month, I realised that I would need even stronger strategic and management skills to implement ChatGPT in my business. Otherwise, I won’t understand what, how, or why I ask it to do something. I’ll keep using it in specific areas, such as market research, and will look into it further.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and talk marketing!
My next marketing experiment with ChatGPT: I made it do my mentee’s homework. Read more about our results:
My ChatGPT knowledge didn’t help me during my job interview:
