(2023-08-11) Udell Should Llms Write Marketing Copy

Jon Udell: Should LLMs Write Marketing Copy? On The Marketing Mix podcast, Charley Karpiuk advises against using LLMs to write marketing copy

in the thick of the website makeover discussed last time, I found myself bending the rule.

The final pieces of context were a sample document that discussed a particular set of features and benefits — in the style and tone of the new documents we wanted to create — along with a title and subtitle for an article to be modeled on the sample.

I did expect them to jump-start the writing process by surfacing key points from the provided context, and they did that to varying degrees of usefulness

I find that LLMs can be very useful tools for improving routine marketing docs. Here’s a wickedly effective prompt: “Please evaluate this marketing document according to George Orwell’s writing guidelines as laid out in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. Which parts would make him cringe?”

Here’s another effective prompt: “I’m going to show you a marketing document. Please revise it according to Strunk and White: Omit needless words, prefer short Anglo-Saxon words to long latinate words, use active voice.” Responses may or may not preserve all the detail you need, but they can lay a solid foundation for a rewrite.