Is AI stripping the value from content? Here are 5 reasons to use human writers

Words matter. What you say to your customers and prospects, and how you say it, is the stitching that holds marketing campaigns together. But today, the value of that writing is increasingly being questioned.

Marketers face what on the surface is a difficult choice; one that’s been the primary topic of conversation for years now: To AI or not to AI? Is the cost saving and simplicity of AI-generated content worth the gamble? Does a shortcut ever pay dividends? Or are brands risking their reputations for short-term efficiency gains?

There are lots of reasons why the answer to this seems obvious to me. I’ve been in the copywriting industry for fifteen years, and we have a full team of writers with years and years of experience whose value and talent I see every day. But I do understand that value might not be clear to everyone until they work with us, or those like us.

The truth is, while AI can spit out grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and full pieces of work, a lot of the value good writers bring to marketing campaigns isn’t about writing at all. It’s about understanding, communicating, strategizing, spotting gaps, conducting interviews with SMEs, recognising the value in what they say, and applying years of experience to elevate the ambitions of the marketers they work with.

With that in mind, I thought it would be good to shine a light on some of the sometimes-unnoticed value a good copywriter will bring to your project.

A good copywriter can help you strategize

Often, marketers bring copywriters in when the writing is ready to begin. Makes sense, right? But, bearing in mind those writers have experience with hundreds projects, in most cases across many different clients, there’s actually a lot of value they can add in the earlier stages of a campaign.

This can range from general advice around content types to more strategic considerations. In fact, more copywriters are offering content strategy as part of their packages these days. This can be defined in different ways, and not everyone will offer everything (you may want to be wary if they say they do). But at Radix, we offer a range of services that can help you produce more valuable content later down the line:

• Content audits: So, you have your budget, but you’re not sure where it would be best spent. One of the most effective ways to figure this out is to conduct an audit of your existing content. What do you have? What’s working and performing well? What isn’t? And, most importantly, where do the gaps lie? This process is a great way of helping you prioritise content production and fill any engagement gaps that might be missing.
• Messaging workshops: All good content starts with a good messaging document and an alignment over who you want to talk to, what you want to say, and, vitally, how you say it. A messaging workshop is vital for building the foundations your content will rest on. Interestingly, while some organisations revisit this practice when major changes occur, two of our writers recently espoused the benefits of more regular tweaks rather than wholesale refreshes. You can listen to that conversation here.
• Ideas generation: Writers are inherently creative thinkers. So, if you’re at the stage of a project where you know what the campaign is, you know who the audience is, but you’re not sure how to execute, it’s a great time to let a writer loose with ideas. A good content ideation document will provide a wide range of ideas to choose from, covering everything from social copy to videos, ebooks, infographics, and beyond. It should also provide some key concepts, such as tag lines and angles if those aren’t already present in the brief. With that document in front of you, you should be able to select the right combination of assets to support your campaign in line with your budgets.

A good copywriter brings the gift of wider contextual knowledge

Fifteen years as a copywriter has made me more knowledgeable, but perhaps not in the areas you’d expect. I already knew where to put a comma and how to structure a story, but since joining Radix, I’ve become an expert on a range of topics, from data and analytics workloads and the role of AI in data science to the common pain points of retailers, fintechs, and HR departments.

Experienced writers will have had countless conversations with experts in various fields, which means they come equipped with an understanding of audiences, challenges, industries, and technologies. And they’re also accustomed to picking up new ideas quickly. These powers can help them fill in gaps in briefs, understand the wider implications of things, and have truly meaningful conversations with your SMEs. All things AI isn’t capable of as it slavishly follows your prompts without any real care for the outcome.

That last point can be so critical for getting the most value from your in-house experts. When writers have accrued a bank of industry knowledge, they don’t just understand what an SME is telling them, they can also direct the conversation to areas that they know will add value to the work. This is especially important when you consider SMEs are subject matter experts. They’re not marketing experts. Quite often, they’ll answer questions without the bigger picture or end goal in mind, which is where an expert writer, who understands the subject matter and the marketing ask, can be worth their weight in gold.

Understanding intention and communicating ideas

One of the most important differences between a human writer and an LLM is that a human writer can explain the why.

Put simply, an LLM doesn’t really know what it’s doing. It skims the internet or source documents for information and turns it into sentences and paragraphs based on likelihoods. But that’s not writing. It structures things the way most things are structured, but it can never understand why they’re structured that way, so it can never understand when to change the structure. A writer knows structure because they studied it. They probably went to university to do so, and read books like Into the Woods, The Hero’s Journey, and Aristotle’s Rhetoric. They didn’t just read those texts in the way AI ingests them; they understood them. And because they have this knowledge, they’re capable of something fundamentally human, metacognition.

This will have a huge impact on your marketing project. A writer won’t just take a brief; they’ll feed back on it, highlighting opportunities for improvement and added value. They won’t just produce a first draft; they’ll craft an outline, complete with comments sharing their thought process, which helps bring everyone together on the same page.

They’ll do the same thing when it comes to stakeholder feedback. While an LLM will respond to edit requests by simply regenerating a chunk of text from scratch, a writer who understands the piece they wrote will understand why something should change and how to change it. As part of the job is to share expertise with clients, they’ll also know when to push back on feedback with an explanation of why a specific change could make the piece less effective. They can also find a compromise between what you’re asking and what you need. And spot problems you might not have seen yourself.

Your goals are our goals

There’s probably a more nuanced way to say this, but an LLM doesn’t give a shit if it does a good job or not. In fact, it can’t even tell if it has. We’ve all seen ChatGPT offer one of those weirdly remorseless apologies for doing or saying something completely incorrect: “Ah, you got me there, I did in fact share false information.” That’s probably not something you want leaking into your content. As a rule of thumb, regardless of what service you’re procuring, it’s best to hire someone who cares at least some amount.

Copywriters have skin in the game. They’re incentivised to actually help you achieve your marketing goals. that’s how they build better long-term relationships with clients, boost and maintain their reputation, and win more work. In the end, your success or satisfaction is what will pay the bills. For an LLM, a good result is that the user stops prompting it and is therefore happy with the latest output. Job done. Was that output good or accurate? Who knows? And who cares when there are no repercussions?

As a relationship builds, your needs become second nature

Finally, perhaps the most important benefit can be found in not just finding a copywriter, but finding a copywriting partner.

We’ve worked with some of our clients for many years, and the benefits of that increase over time. Briefing is easier, because we already understand the fundamentals. We also have a really firm handle on what the marketers we support do and don’t like. And we understand the company’s culture, tone of voice, and audiences to the point that we don’t just write to them expertly, but can point out where something we’re asked to do is misaligned with those factors.

One of the biggest advantages our long-term clients experience is the strong relationships we develop with SMEs. Sometimes, persuading experts with packed diaries to participate in marketing can be an uphill struggle. But once they meet our team and see their thoughts in print, that all changes. You can read about that, and about the value of one of our long-term partnerships, here.