6 Questions All Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs Should Ask Themselves Before Seeking Copywriting Support, Human or AI

Creating marketing copy to build awareness for your thought leadership, your brand, and any new offerings you want to share with the world is one of the most important promotional tools you can do for your business. Why? No one will know who you are and how they can work with you if you don’t share that information somewhere, ideally across your website, social media posts, and newsletter, among other platforms.

Creating effective marketing copy is essential across every digital touchpoint, but copywriting is also one of the most time-consuming tasks for any business owner. That’s why getting the support you need - whether it’s in the form of a professional human copywriter or generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Writesonic, or Headlime - is a great way to help you accomplish all of your marketing copy needs as efficiently as possible. 

But efficient doesn’t mean effective, which is where this blog post comes in.

As an expert copywriter, and brand, marketing, and content strategist, the biggest problem that I see with my clients is this: business leaders and entrepreneurs don’t think through important questions about their brand or business before hiring a copywriter or writing a prompt in ChatGPT. These questions make the difference between well-written copy that actually reaches your goals and works toward your return on investment (ROI) vs. copy that reads well and gets written at lightning speed but might as well be considered mere decoration for your digital platforms.

Here are 6 questions to ask yourself before seeking copywriting support:

1. What is your goal? 
   This is a question that would benefit any business owner whether they need copywriting support or not. Your goal is your North Star, the guiding light that helps your copywriter (and your entire team) understand what your end game is so they can work their magic to help you reach it. Are you hoping to expand your thought leadership? Do you have a product or project you want to promote? And if you’re promoting multiple offerings or projects at once, which is the priority? 

   Pro tip: be careful when promoting multiple offerings at once! This can get really confusing for the consumer because they won’t know where or how to take action first, and it will likely lead to no action at all. Thinking through your goal and how you want your audience to take action will go a long way when working with a copywriter.

2. What is your tone and voice? 
   Copywriting is more than just creative writing. It requires speaking in the tone and voice of the person or brand you’re writing for. When I’m writing, I try to get inside the minds of my clients and adopt their personalities, just as an actor would when playing a character in a movie or TV show. This is my absolute favorite part of being a copywriter (and honestly, the reason why I still believe that human writers will not go away forever… more on that next time). 

   So how do you define your tone and voice? It’s always a great idea to lead with authenticity, and consumers agree. According to Forbes, 90% of consumers consider authenticity an important factor in the brands they engage with. If YOU are your brand, thinking this through will be a bit easier. Ask yourself what it is about your personality that makes you stand out. Is it your signature sarcasm? Is it the way you treat everyone like a friend when you meet them as if you’ve known them for years? Is it your tough love attitude? 

   When your writing digs deep into who you are as a person, it not only opens the door for consumers to connect with you, it opens the door for the RIGHT consumers to connect with you. If your brand has its own identity, think about how you want it to show up in the world through characteristics and personality traits as if it’s come to life. When brands are humanized, they help to form deeper connections with your consumers. This leads me to my next point…. 

3. Who is your audience?
   If you don’t take anything else from this post, take away this: knowing who you are trying to reach is absolutely crucial to helping you - and your copywriter - reach your audience. So far, your copywriter knows the tone to use when writing in your brand’s voice, but they can’t write effectively and persuasively if they don’t know WHO they’re writing for. 

   I want to be clear: this is about reaching an audience who will care about what you bring to the table and to their world - not about manipulating them or bombarding them with misinformation to get them to buy something. That’s what leading with authenticity is all about!

4. Does your copywriter plan on using generative AI tools like ChatGPT to support them in their writing?
   Some business leaders and entrepreneurs don’t need to know whether their writing team is working with generative AI tools or not, as long as the job is getting done. Respectively, this way of thinking can be detrimental to your marketing and your business, and here’s why. We talked about presenting yourself with authenticity in your marketing copy, and creating copy using generative AI tools can do the opposite if that is all you’re relying on. Not to mention consumers can sniff out inauthenticity from the moment they start reading. They’re smarter than you think! 

   But I’m not saying that it’s never OK to use generative AI when writing at all. The efficiencies that AI has created in the writing world are undeniable, and frankly, remarkable. As a longtime expert copywriter, I’ll admit I was a bit bitter and even intimidated by ChatGPT when it first launched, but now I see it as an enhancement to my writing. Still, robots are not humans, and until these tools advance, I suggest using them as exactly that - tools. As long as you continue to have a human eye scan through any copy that AI generates to ensure the writing is in your brand’s tone and voice, knock yourself out and use AI all you want!

5. What are you promoting and what are those details?
   If you’re using a copywriter to help you promote a particular service or new project, it’s important to understand what those details are before your copywriter or generative AI begins the writing process. I’m not saying that you have to have every single detail ironed out (hey, I’m in marketing; I love teasing out bits of information to get people excited for a new project launch!) but keeping your copywriter in the loop internally as much as you can is extremely beneficial. Why? Copywriters, especially marketing-focused copywriters, are looking at your project or service launch through a different lens and can identify any gaps that need to be filled before it gets to the consumer. 

   When I’m writing marketing copy for a new project that a client wants to promote out into the world, I always ask for as much detail about the project as possible upfront because I end up finding gaps that should be filled prior to launch. Not having these details ironed out upfront often creates a recipe for error and consumer confusion when the project or service finally launches. 

   New project launches are inevitably a little (or very depending on your experience) chaotic, but sharing the full scope of your project details with your copywriter will save you the headache down the road!

6. Are your copywriting needs urgent?
   There are a couple of reasons why I bring this up. First, many business leaders and entrepreneurs don’t realize that copywriting is truly an art form that, for many copywriters including myself, requires a very creative process that goes beyond just writing something creative or “catchy” as we like to say. It involves getting to know the person or brand they are writing for on a deep level like we talked about, and this can take time to nail down.

   Of course, busy entrepreneurs and business leaders don’t always have time on their side when they’re hustling through their day-to-day, but if something really isn’t urgent, try not to rush your copywriter. Plus, error, even with ChatGPT, is always possible. Efficient doesn’t always mean effective!

Need a little extra support or just want to pick an expert’s brain? Book a free consultation with me to chat about your copywriting, content and marketing needs!