A lot of my blog posts are inspired by events, interactions or things I’ve seen or read in the past week or so, and this week is no exception.
As an agency, we’re always on the lookout for the right new business opportunities and the kind of companies we can genuinely get excited about. So, when we do come across a business that would be a brilliant addition to our client roster, it only feels right to send a properly personalised email.
I’m not averse to mass email marketing. In fact I’ve been experimenting with different messages quite a bit recently, but the ones that actually land are always the ones where I’ve made the extra effort – tried to foster a real connection, shared an insight, or included something just a little unexpected to prompt a response.
I’m fairly confident there weren’t any typos, split infinitives or rogue apostrophes, but what I am certain of is this; if ChatGPT, or any other AI tool, had written it, it would have smoothed the edges, taken away some of the charm, and made my carefully chosen wording feel slightly more generic and run of the mill.
Do organisations even create a tone-of-voice document anymore?
As a now slightly long-in-the-tooth PR and comms gal, I’ve seen, written and contributed to more tone-of-voice documents than I can remember. I can’t help but imagine many of them are now quietly gathering dust in the depths of a Google Drive folder, never to see the light of day again.
The whole point of those documents was to create a consistent tone across everything a brand put out into the world. Whether it was a poster, a website, an email or a social post, it all felt connected, cohesive, almost as if it had been written by one person. And where different audiences needed different nuances, that was all carefully thought through too.
It meant brands had real, recognisable personalities. You could feel the difference.
Now, not so much.
ChatGPT is rightly used for so much, as it can be incredibly useful. But only if what it produces is then shaped, challenged, tweaked and made your own. If we’re not careful, we’re heading towards a world where everything starts to sound the same, safe, polished, and just a bit beige and a bit meh.
The problem is that tools like ChatGPT are trained on existing content. So the more bland AI content that exists, the more bland content there is to draw from, and the blander the output becomes; a vicious circle of sameness.
It used to be that beautifully polished copy stood out, you could tell when someone really had a way with words, a point of view, a voice. But polish alone isn’t special anymore, because now everyone has access to it.
What stands out now is something else entirely.
Quirky, unusual, heartfelt, genuinely funny, a bit unexpected. That’s what cuts through. Not just in email marketing, but for all communication. The volume of forgettable blog content is only going one way, and the brands that choose to say something interesting, even if it’s less often, are the ones people will remember.
Google has already made it clear it values quality content, defined through E-E-A-T, expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. A quickly churned out AI piece rarely ticks those boxes in any meaningful way.
And let’s be honest, the number of times AI still needs to be questioned is high. I’ve often asked it to do some analysis, only to challenge the response because something didn’t quite stack up. It’s a tool, not an oracle, and it still needs human judgement behind it.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Google becomes increasingly good at spotting content that’s been lifted straight from AI, particularly its own tools, versus content that’s been properly written and shaped by a human. It may then start to quietly, or otherwise, push the former down the rankings.
Nothing official on that, but if Google’s goal is to ‘organise the world’s information and make it genuinely useful’, then endless streams of identically sounding content isn’t going to cut the mustard.
So back to the point I started with, why the slightly imperfect will become the new perfect.
With AI at our fingertips, anyone can produce a marketing strategy, a campaign, a blog post or a new business email in minutes. But will it actually shift the needle? Probably not, not if it’s been lifted straight from a prompt and sent out into the world untouched.
There is still, very much, a place for real people, coming up with real ideas and writing real copy. It might not be flawless, there may be phrases you could swap out or refine, and yes, the odd inconsistency might creep in, but it feels human.
And that’s what people connect with.
Looking ahead, I think we will all be craving content that feels real, with all its quirks and imperfections intact. That is what builds a connection. Perfectly polished, entirely predictable copy simply can’t do that to the same extent.