How AI can help you scale your freelancing

The availability of ChatGPT, Bard, JasperAI, Rytr, Copy.ai and many other writing services has grown incredibly quickly. Mainly because many AI text services all use the same LLM data or API access to OpenAI’s GPT platforms, and then add extra features to try and differentiate themselves.

All of them tend to produce work of a similar quality, and although many focus on one particular area of content generation, they all tend to have comparable benefits and limitations.

The best usage for AI text generation is alongside a human writer or editor, rather than as a replacement. While the output has become fairly acceptable, particularly for short, easily-templated work such as hundreds of product descriptions, it’s also still typically generic, and often incorrect.

But it can certainly help you scale by offering useful templates, suggestions and drafting a starting point for articles. Almost every AI writing tool also integrates with grammar, style, and plagiarism tools to help you hone the initial output and your own edits, along with SEO tools if you need to improve your focus on keywords. 

Almost all will give you a Google Docs-style editor to make changes, and will suggest alternatives for headlines, subheadings and more.

There’s an obvious benefit if you’re a freelancer who isn’t a natural or trained writer, and needs guidance in creating content for your own website and social media. Or to boost the output for any content services you offer, assuming you still ensure quality and accuracy is maintained.

Many articles suggest you can simply offer the output of AI as a copywriting or blogging service, but this carries some risks, including the potential for errors, or for clients to realise they could just implement AI content themselves for less.

But there are other useful areas for AI text to help you scale, including generating personalised emails for sales and marketing. The confidence of AI can help you produce a more effective pitch, along with freshening up CVs, covering letters, responses to briefs and marketing materials.

To get the best results, it’s important to spend time learning how to create and hone the most effective prompts. And to use AI as a collaborator or untrusted new contributor, who will require input and editing, whether that comes from you or a professional writer or editor. 

One issue in freelancing for customer-facing brands is that you can often spend time trying to resolve relatively simple customer enquiries and complaints. Chatbots are a well-publicised potential use of AI, along with automated email personalisation. And while neither is suitable for complex problems, they can certainly help with simple questions or to filter contact appropriately.

There are a variety of Chatbot platforms which can be implemented on behalf of your business or clients, providing quick responses with predefined answers to common queries, and the suitable routes for issues to be escalated to you, or your client, if necessary. And because they can run 24 hours a day, you’re less likely to wake up to an impatient customer complaining that you didn’t respond at 2am.

Many tools such as EBI.AI, ProProfs Chat, Chatfuel or Aivo also integrate other marketing and lead generation features such as broadcasting messages to multiple users, list building and drip campaigns triggered when someone completes a specific action.   

This can be combined with automated email personalisation, using AI to amend defined copy and details appropriately for each user. And these can be tailored based on customer segments, the action they’ve taken so far, or any other data you’ve acquired.

And usually, these services are offered alongside content optimisation, including email subject lines, and any calls-to-action you want included. For example, Twilio SendGrid uses AI for recommendations on deliverability, while Optimove uses data and insights to offer the most relevant information even when emails may linger unread in inboxes, or Seventh Sense, which works with HubSpot and Marketo to personalise email delivery times for everything who has signed up to receive your communication.

AI is being integrated into most popular email services, such as Mailchimp. And it can also be used to improve cold emails to potential customers at scale.