DIY copywriting is like home DIY. Yes, you might get the job done, but you can never be sure if your work will turn heads and stand the test of time.
Now, you might be thinking, “Why hire a copywriter when I can get AI to help me?” And I get it. For some simple copywriting projects — short emails, metadata, social media — AI does a job. Even better if you use it as a tool rather than the primary writer.
But when the stakes are high, the DIY route is fraught with risks. Here are a few of the most serious.
Generic Messaging
It’s easy to be blind to copy when it always looks the same. You land on a page, and you already have a good idea what you’re going to see.
Take a look at your existing copy. If you swap out the identifiers, could it simply be lifted verbatim and copied onto another site? That’s one of the biggest problems with AI these days. It’s just bland. You might hear it called “slop”. I like to call it sh**.
You and your team are what make your accounting firm different from all the others. You and your colleagues are what separates your eCommerce business from the other 200 million out there!
Give your voice the chance to thrive. AI can do a lot of things, but it can get inside your head. It can never be you.
Inconsistent Brand Voice
Using AI effectively always comes down to the prompt. Garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t have a consistent approach to AI copywriting, one web page might have a wildly different tone and voice from the next. And that’s always bad for brand building.
If you’re solely relying on AI for all your copywriting, your brand may appear fragmented and unrecognisable to others. Take control. Create a brand guide and stick to it. And don’t leave it all to AI.
Surface-Level Understanding of Your Audience
You ask Claude to write a blog post about bicycle parts, and you tell it that your audience is mostly comprised of 18 to 30-year-old men. So, AI mimics previously written content for you. But you’re doing your actual audience a disservice.
Is that all you can say about your audience? As good as AI is, it can’t know your particular audience as you do. As a result, you end up talking at your audience instead of to it.
Stop that sh**. It’s disrespectful. Perhaps your audience is predominantly British. Maybe it’s comprised of mostly low and middle-earners. Perhaps your audience prefers family-run businesses, DIY bicycle maintenance, and walks on the beach. How could AI ever know all this unless you tell it?
And even if you spend a few minutes describing your audience to ChatGPT, there can never be any empathy with your customers. There can never be any sympathy or common ground. You understand the people who buy your products more than any machine does. So don’t rely on machines to talk to them.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Letting a machine do your talking is disrespectful.
Copy That Sounds Right but Says Nothing
Your AI copy is smoother than a purring kitten sitting atop the rumbling engine of a classic Ferrari. You take your first look, and you think to yourself, “I couldn’t do any better myself.”
But take the time to fully digest what’s being said. Polished words and finely tuned sentences are a technical achievement – not an artistic or meaningful one.
Good copy sticks in the memory. It makes people think. It inspires visions of what might be. And to achieve all of these copywriting goals, you need real human experience and emotion.
Grok might tell you that it loves you, but do you really believe it?
Missed Opportunities to Persuade
What persuades a reader to become a buyer or a doer? In my experience as a copywriter and content writer in the UK, it’s a vision of the future.
There’s life before a purchase, and there’s life after a purchase. How does life get better or easier? If you can nail this in a way that resonates with your target audience, you don’t need to work all that hard to persuade.
But every line of content has to have strategic intent. These days, the average reader is impatient. And boredom sets in very quickly. If you can’t explain an outcome or benefit in a line or two, you’re likely to lose the reader.
Once you’ve created a vision of the future, you need to initiate action quickly — or the moment is lost. This is a careful balancing act that requires skill and nuance. And, in my opinion, it’s still an impossible task for LLMs.
Over-Reliance on AI Outputs
I’m not saying there isn’t a place for AI in the creation of online content. It’s great for research and proofreading. But too many businesses are relying on AI for all their content.
AI without refinement and direction leads to generic gloop and repetition. Bland phrasing and dry terminology leave readers feeling cold and disconnected.
Be different. Make a stand. Be a little controversial… a little wacky. And, dare I say it, add a little humour from time to time. These are all things AI sucks at right now.
Weak or Non-Existent Conversion Focus
What’s the point of web content if it’s not to convert? Your AI copy might attract thousands of visitors every week, but if none of them buy or sign up, your efforts and costs are wasted.
When you ask, “Do I need a copywriter?” you’re probably just thinking about keywords, descriptions, and hooks. But you also need direction, and AI isn’t good at that. It fails to guide people towards the next step. It’s shi**y at creating a vision of the future and linking it to a specific action. And it’s downright hopeless at subtly planting the seeds of urgency in the minds of potential customers.
Don’t Choose DIY Copywriting When My Services Are Cheaper Than a Nun’s Prophylactic Bill
Why hire a copywriter when you can do it yourself with artificial intelligence? For all the reasons I’ve listed above. But if I had to pick one reason, it’s about respect.
Do you really think so little of your customers that you’d be willing to let a machine do your talking? Don’t they deserve the time and attention of you or one of your human colleagues?
While there may be a place for DIY copywriting, there’s no substitute for raw human emotion, empathy, and experience. And if that’s what you want in your copy, enlist the services of a UK copywriter.
Get in touch today, or give me a tinkle on 07386704956. Let’s do something fu**ing spectacular together.
