Unless you’ve had your head in a hole, you might have clocked that AI in marketing is absolutely everywhere right now. And content marketers are riding that pony hard.
AI is merrily churning out millions upon millions of blog posts, social media captions, emails, and whole websites faster than most of us can down an espresso. On paper, that sounds efficient. But in reality, machine-made marketing frequently feels flat, repetitive, and dislocated. It’s bland content without human context.
So, where does that leave small business owners like you who are desperately trying to save time and money, but still want to connect with real life humans? Well then, let’s talk about the limitations of AI in marketing, and how to make it work for you without compromising your originality.
AI can’t feel so it will never really know
AI has no clue know what it feels like to laugh so hard you snort tea out of your nose. It doesn’t know the jitters of pressing “publish” on your first product launch. Or the stomach plummet when you know you’ve just hit “send” on an email then seen a glaring error even though you and your team have checked it a squillion times. Equally, it can never know the fizz you feel at gaining a new client or the joy of seeing loyal customers come back again and again.
But you do. I’m entirely confident that at least one of those experiences resonates with you.
That’s the glaring gap when we use AI in marketing without injecting any personality or originality. Yes, AI can generate reams and reams content, but it always fall slightly flat because there’s no feeling or lived experience behind it.
Without the human emotion, AI-generated content will never create the kind of connection that makes your audience remember you or care a fig about what you’re saying.
Machine-made marketing is easy to spot
If you’ve ever read something online and thought, “Nice… but dull,” it was probably AI-generated. AI can only ever write the averages, because that’s what it’s trained on: everyone else’s words. It lacks soul simply because it doesn’t have one.
The danger is that small businesses lean too heavily on AI and end up sounding just like everyone else. Any of the originality, humour, and idiosyncracies that make you memorable get ironed out into blah blah blandness. And that’s when your customers scroll on by.
Only humans create with true originality and AI can’t replicate that. So let’s all make people smile, nod, or even better, snort messily into their tea. That’s where the magic happens. When you have tea all over your face.
Humans make meaning
The value of AI in marketing isn’t in replacing humans, but in supporting them. Use AI for ideas, outlines, or even first drafts if you want to. It’s a great tool to stir the pot of inspiration. But the real creative magic happens when you bring your unique voice, your lived experience, and your quirky humour to the table.
That there’s the difference between content and connection. AI can spew out a million passable sentences. Only you can make someone care enough to click, share, or buy.
How to make AI work for you
AI helped me write this article. I’m not going to hide that fact. I simply don’t have the time to sit in front of a blank screen and start from scratch.
My approach is to let AI do the heavy lifting on tasks that drain my time and energy. This leaves me with more time to focus on the parts I love: the creativity and connection only exist in my human brain.
Here are a few ways you can use AI to help your content marketing processes without handing all your originality over to the robots. Why not try:
That way, you save time, but you never lose the human spark that makes your marketing memorable.
Putting the soul back in your marketing
If your content is starting to sound like it was written by a robot (because it is!), then perhaps it’s time to rethink your approach. I help small businesses use AI as a tool, not a substitute, so your marketing still has originality, personality, and heart.
Let’s make sure your voice doesn’t get lost in the machine-made noise.
Tired of machine-made marketing?
If your content reads like blancmange, let’s add some oomph. Together we’ll make your marketing message sharp, sassy, and unforgettably human.
Book a free call today and let’s chat about how to keep your marketing orginally you.
