AI is the big thing right now.
And while tools like ChatGPT are incredible in many ways, there’s one thing they’re really, really bad at.
Emotion.
Bots don’t do emotion.
They definitely don’t write with emotional intelligence.
For a start, they have no first-hand experience of emotions. Lines of code can’t fall in love, or laugh.
And they can’t feel empathy for others. Lines of code don’t care about people, and how they feel.
Emotion is at the core of great copy. This has always been the case… before AI, before the Web, before computers.
Great copy touches its readers at an emotional level.
Why? Because as consumers we buy based on our feelings. We buy the car that makes us feel good. We buy the pair of shoes that makes us smile. We buy the video game that gives us pleasure.
Every purchase is triggered by emotion. Once we have decided we want something, we will often turn to our more rational selves to justify the purchase.
If I suggested you double the fees you charge, maybe you’d tell me that none of your clients would use you.
That sounds reasonable.
After all, as freelancers we don’t set out to charge less than we can. We think we know what our clients and prospects will accept, and we write up our estimates accordingly.
Suddenly I have strange superpowers and I’m going to force you to double your fees anyway.
Every two or three years I create a new course for digital copywriters and content writers.
Next up is a course for writers who want to take advantage of the huge growth in the area of Web 3.
Hang on, you ask… what the heck is Web 3?
And what happened to Web 1 and 2?
We’re all guilty of rushing when writing web content.
Well, I am. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone!
A 500-word blog post? Maybe I can get that done before my meeting at 11:00. Or I’ll squeeze it in before finishing up at the end of the day.
It’s weird, because we rarely think the same about writing a more “important” page, like a sales page.
But… your content pages ARE important.
Over the last few days I have had the opportunity to read through dozens of homework assignments from one of my courses.
This particular assignment was to write a blog post about foods that are good for brain health.
As always, it was a real education going through everyone’s work. The overall quality of writing was excellent. And it was amazing to see all the different approaches people took.
Different writers showed different strengths.
Some wrote amazing headlines. Some were particularly strong with the introduction, clearly setting up what was to come in the body of the post. Others were strongest when it came to the main part of the post, where they were talking about the health benefits of various foods and food groups.
But…