Why ChatGPT is going to change inbound marketing

AI content creator generated using DALL-E

GPT-3 (short for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3”) is a language generation model developed by OpenAI. It has the ability to generate human-like text, which means it could potentially be used for a variety of purposes, including inbound marketing. However, it’s important to note that GPT-3 is still a tool, and its effectiveness in any given situation will depend on how it is used.

One potential use of GPT-3 in inbound marketing is to generate chatbot responses. Chatbots are automated programs that can communicate with customers through chat or messaging apps. They are often used to provide quick, convenient responses to customer inquiries or to help guide customers through a process, such as making a purchase.

With GPT-3, it’s possible to train a chatbot to generate more natural, human-like responses to customer inquiries. This could make the chatbot more effective at providing helpful information and improving the customer experience. It could also help to improve the overall efficiency of inbound marketing efforts by allowing businesses to handle a larger volume of customer interactions.

However, it’s important to note that GPT-3 is not a replacement for human interaction. While it can generate human-like text, it is not able to fully replicate the nuance and depth of understanding that a human can bring to a conversation. In addition, it’s important for businesses to carefully consider the ethical implications of using AI-powered chatbots and to be transparent with customers about the fact that they are interacting with a machine.

Overall, GPT-3 has the potential to be a useful tool for inbound marketing, but it should be used thoughtfully and with the appropriate safeguards in place.

Safeguards to consider

When using GPT-3 (or any other AI tool) for inbound marketing, there are a few key safeguards that you should keep in place to ensure that you are using the tool ethically and effectively:

  1. Be transparent: Make it clear to customers that they are interacting with a chatbot or AI-powered tool, rather than a human. This will help to avoid misunderstandings and ensure that customers are aware of the limitations of the tool.
  2. Set clear boundaries: Define the specific tasks that the chatbot will be responsible for, and make sure that it is not able to engage in inappropriate or sensitive conversations.
  3. Monitor and review: Regularly review the chatbot’s responses to ensure that they are accurate, appropriate, and helpful. This will help to identify any potential issues or areas for improvement.
  4. Seek feedback: Ask customers for their feedback on their experience with the chatbot, and use this feedback to make any necessary adjustments to improve the customer experience.
  5. Stay up to date: Keep up with developments in AI and chatbot technology, and be mindful of any ethical concerns or best practices that may emerge.

By following these safeguards, you can ensure that you are using GPT-3 (or any other AI tool) in a responsible and effective way to support your inbound marketing efforts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, GPT-3 is a powerful language generation model developed by OpenAI that has the potential to be used for a variety of purposes, including in inbound marketing. It can generate human-like text, which means it could potentially be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of chatbots and other AI-powered customer service tools. However, it’s important to use GPT-3 (or any other AI tool) thoughtfully and with appropriate safeguards in place, including being transparent with customers, setting clear boundaries for the tool, regularly reviewing and monitoring its responses, seeking feedback from customers, and staying up to date on developments in AI and chatbot technology.

PS – This entire article was generated by ChatGPT. Not a single word in this is mine. Enough said.

Solving the problem of Discovery

The real problem that Google solves, is the problem of availability. When you have a problem and are searching for the solution, Google provides you with a list of most likely content that can address the problem. The problem is created by information asymmetry. You just don’t know and are willing to try out or read about the different solutions.

However, over a period of time this has turned into a problem of plenty. So many content providers are creating content for the average internet user, that the options tend to give all the creators a sliver of traffic. This has led to a bulk of copy-cats and me-too content providers eyeing for their search visibility. So much so that one of the default rules of inbound marketing is to start a content creation cycle and hope that you keep attracting traffic via Search.

What can new brands do?

Stay away from the whole attack of the clones! All marketers would swear on grabbing the attention of the customer as many times as possible in order to drive a higher brand share. However, at the cost of what?

Instead of creating very similar content? How about solving things that matter instead?

How about identifying a niche area where there is a genuine need and people are struggling to find answers?

This might seem contradictory to what I was saying, but once a brand (or a team) starts engaging with the customers, then you start seeing a slew of issues that no content provider is addressing. Talking about these issues and solving them via your product or service is a far better way to get discovered, rather than to keep talking about how your me-too offering is different from the competitor’s me-too offering!

tl-dr;

Engage with customers to discover what message and positioning you need to take when it comes to working in a crowded market.

Thoughts on Social Media

Social Media

I wrote this note out for a discussion on Social Media sites and how their relationship with publishers has evolved over a period of time. It goes to show that too much of reliance on any one channel may not be such a good thing after all!

Can we as digital marketers and analysts create a measurement model that can reliably help us to identify whether our social media investments are justified?

Social Media and Creators

One of the problems that new Social Media websites face is generating enough content that users want to consume. This they do by welcoming publishers to come and register on their websites. This is the main fuel for their growth.

The social media site in question (including Facebook) does all it can to attract publishers and creators. The focus is on getting more creators and therefore more users. Users get to follow their favorite brands and celebrities on these sites. Brands and celebrities get a scalable way to engage with their fans. A win-win on paper.

A platform is born

As more users sign-up and start using the site, it soon starts being recognized as a platform. This platform now is independently known and now, creators are attracted to the platform not because its easy to publish their content or its easy to create their content … but because that platform already has their potential target audience.

So, from engagement at scale, the reason why the platform is being used shifts to reach and discovery. The very publisher who used to get throngs of crowds flocking around them now is looking at the platform as the source of that crowd. The shift of behavior due to the change in thinking is not amiss to platform owners.

From Win-Win to Monopoly

The platform owner now knows the dependence of the publisher upon the platform. E.g Facebook single-handedly crippled the stock prices of Zynga (famous for Farmville app on Facebook) by taking it off their Featured apps page.

Take the organic reach that Facebook now provides. Some years back (circa 2012), a single post on your Facebook page would be shown to 10-12% of your followers. This has slowly trickled down to 1% now (3%-4% if you have high engagement on the page). The reason behind this is because every brand out there is pushing out more and more content than what the platform was designed for, and every brand / celebrity out there wants to create content that goes viral.

Pursuit of Viral

Publishers in the pursuit of this holy grail tend to create a Sea of Crappy Content. This is loads and loads of content which does not drive engagement. Platform owners now are scared by the very publishers they used to chase. Not because they don’t need them … but because they are not clearly able to differentiate the good ones from the bad ones. The definition of quality becomes more blurred.

Zero Organic Reach

In the end, the platform owner plays the one card that they can control. Throttle the impressions and reach of the publishers. Quality is then replaced with budgets, with the underlying assumption – if you can create great content, most likely you have enough budgets to buy the impressions required to go viral.

Another example to highlight this is to look at any Facebook page which has over 10,000 likes, the last post of that page won’t even have an engagement rate of 1%. The problem may not with the page or the post in itself, it stems from the throttling down of organic reach.

So what can be done?

Do we pay the piper and buy our followers? Or do we dance to the tune of the platforms and keep pushing more content in the hopes of getting that one beautiful post that gets shared by the millions.

Can we instead, arrive at a scientific method of identifying what platform works and what doesn’t in furthering our objectives?

Using Google Analytics to Power your Content Marketing Efforts

Content Velocity Experiment in Google Analytics

Almost all blogs / content based websites use some format of web analytics or the other. This post is for those folks who are running content focused sites and need cues from Google Analytics data on what to write.

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Correctly using the Read More tag

Read More tag

As a blogger who has been writing for the past 5 years or so, I was always confused about the Read More tag. This is a tag that you will find in your WordPress editor besides the Toolbar Toggle button.

Why would one want to insert their content with this tag? Wouldn’t it fill up your blog content with such intermediate tags and break the reader’s flow? Let’s go find out how to correctly use the Read More tag.

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