Have you already added ChatGPT to your B2B content marketing toolbox? Now is the perfect time to leverage AI tools and make them an integral part of your content creation workflow. It can vastly speed up idea generation, streamline content production and increase output.
This article explores how you can use ChatGPT to create high-quality B2B content that resonates with your audience. We use ChatGPT as an example, but the tips underlined here can be applied to any other AI-based content generation tool.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a generative AI model developed by OpenAI. The AI-powered language model generates human-like answers based on prompts. Having been trained on vast amounts of data, ChatGPT can mimic the structure, style, and tone of various content, including one that works for B2B.
You can use ChatGPT to research, generate ideas and write different pieces of content. For example, you can ask Chat GPT to:
- Write a white paper that provides in-depth information about your product or service, then supplement it with a landing page.
- Create a series of social media posts that promote your content and drive traffic to your website.
- Answer questions that your customers or prospects may have about your business.
- Create an email campaign to nurture your sales leads.
Regardless of the content you want generated, ChatGPT is a good starting point. As a content writer, sometimes one of the trickiest parts of the job is to begin - this is where a language model like ChatGPT comes in handy. It can suggest a structure, throw in ideas and points to cover. You won’t necessarily use everything suggested, but it will give you an overview and a base to build on. Full disclosure: This is how this very blog post started out.
Why use ChatGPT in B2B content writing?
Content remains a vital resource your potential customers use to research, evaluate and find your product. At the same time, the web is flooded with content, making it increasingly harder for B2B companies to stand out.
No doubt, by producing any type of content in a matter of seconds, generative AI tools contribute to the problem, but as long as you can take the best of what they can offer and use that to create high-quality content, you’re on the right track.
In a study by McKinsey, 79 percent of employees said they used generative AI tools, either for work or outside of work, and 22 percent said they use the tools regularly to complete tasks, such as crafting first drafts of text documents.
Here’s how a tool like ChatGPT can improve your content production process:
- Generate content faster
Creating content regularly can be time-consuming and challenging. ChatGPT helps streamline the content creation process, enabling you to generate a higher content volume in less time.
Let’s say you need to write a blog post; all you have is a rough title. You can use ChatGPT to help you create the outline for the blog post or rewrite the first draft to fix grammar mistakes and provide more coherence.
For example, you are writing a blog post about how to get the most ROI from your performance marketing efforts. Prompt ChatGPT with: “Imagine you are the head of marketing at company X. Write a blog post about how to get the most ROI from performance marketing.”
You’ll get a blog post in a matter of seconds. Use its structure in full or customize it and start shaping your piece, supplementing it with original input. Once you know how long the blog post should be or what keywords it should have, you can also add those to the prompt. - Increase your content quality
ChatGPT produces human-like text, which is also free of human errors. The content is without typos or grammar mistakes and, in most cases, coherent and professional. That is not to say ChatGPT content is perfect - often, it’s generic and lacks storytelling and human emotion. So never use ChatGPT content as-is; rewrite, fact-check, proofread and give it your preferred tone of voice.
You can use ChatGPT to shorten or simplify your content and cut out any repetitive adjectives, adverbs or platitudes. The tool can make the same point in one paragraph instead of three. You can also ask ChatGPT to fix any grammar mistakes or streamline certain sections, etc. - Reach a wider audience
By leveraging ChatGPT, you can create content that appeals to a broader audience. The AI model's proficiency in mimicking different writing styles allows you to tailor your content to different segments of your target market, increasing its impact.
For example, say you need a description of a buyer’s journey. You ask ChatGPT to “provide a one-paragraph description of what a buyer’s journey is” and get a response similar to this one:
“A buyer's journey is the process potential customers go through before purchasing. It consists of stages like awareness (identifying a need or problem), consideration (researching solutions), evaluation (comparing options), decision (choosing a product or service), purchase (making the transaction), and post-purchase (follow-up support and feedback). Understanding this journey helps businesses tailor their marketing and sales efforts to meet customer needs at each stage, ultimately increasing the chances of converting prospects into satisfied customers.”
It sounds fine, but you need something simpler, even quirkier. You ask ChatGPT to “simplify the text and add humor,” and you get this:
“Think of a buyer's journey as a shopping adventure with stages like window shopping (awareness), trying on outfits (consideration), picking the perfect dress (decision), paying at the checkout (purchase), and calling customer service when you can't zip it up (post-purchase). It's like a retail therapy session for your wallet! Understanding this journey helps businesses ensure you don't get stuck in the changing room and leave as a happy customer. 🛍️😄”
So, it even added a couple of emojis for good measure. You can get the gen AI model to provide content in any tone of voice and for any audience if you specify those details in your prompt.
How to use ChatGPT to generate high-quality B2B content
ChatGPT can write a blog post in under a minute. But will it be good? You can do a few things to ensure you’re getting the most out of the platform.
1. Have a clear goal/strategy
Whatever content you ask ChatGPT to produce, make sure it plays into your overall content strategy. In other words, know what you’re doing and why. Develop your B2B content strategy, identify key objectives and the tone and style that fits your brand. This strategic groundwork will help you generate effective prompts and guide ChatGPT toward delivering content that aligns with your goal.
2. Research your target audience
Understand your target audience, their needs, and their pain points. What language do your buyers speak? What words do they use when looking for information? Only if you know your potential customers well can you use that knowledge to generate effective prompts and create valuable content with ChatGPT.
3. Experiment and find the best ChatGPT prompts
Feel free to play around - keep shaping your prompts to find ones that provide the best results for your desired content tasks. Help ChatGPT to get into your shoes (maybe more importantly, your customers’ shoes) by writing clear, informative prompts that align with your content goals.
4. Make ChatGPT content your own
See the platform as an add-on to your content production efforts rather than a replacement. Maintain a consistent brand voice by reviewing and modifying ChatGPT's output. Inject your expertise, industry knowledge, and company voice into the generated content to make it yours. Proofread, edit, and optimize the content for search engines.
5. Fact-check and use ChatGPT ethically
Ensure the generated content adheres to legal and ethical guidelines, avoiding plagiarism and unethical practices. ChatGPT should enhance your content creation process, not replace original thought and expertise.
How to best prompt ChatGPT to generate content
ChatGPT output is only as good as its input. Be as informative as possible, describe a content piece's tone and format, and give ChatGPT context and examples. Here are a few other things you can include in your prompt for better results:
- Keywords to support your SEO goals
- Indicate role or perspective (content writer, expert, etc.)
- Define scope or character/word limit
- Specify target audience
For example, if you’re asking ChatGPT to create a landing page for a white paper about the ten best ways to generate revenue as a SaaS company, the prompt could look similar to this: “You are a content writer at company X. Your company provides X service to X companies. Write a 300-word landing page for a white paper about the ten best ways to generate revenue as a SaaS company. Find the white paper inserted below. Include keywords “SaaS” and “revenue” on the landing page. The tone of voice should be informal but knowledgeable.”
This is just an example. Start with the first prompt and find what works best for you. Remember that the better you know your content goals and audience, the better prompts you can generate.
Start creating impactful content
As AI tools get smarter, so do their capabilities to produce impactful, personalized content. By adding platforms like ChatGPT to your B2B content marketing toolbox today, you are essentially future-proofing your business.
Take a look at our content services if you could use more help and guidance on content production or shaping a full-funnel content strategy.
