Startups are up against it from the beginning with expert estimations placing long-term success rates at just 10%. Anyone with the drive to start a new business should be commended, but knowing what to spend your money on during the early stages could make or break you.
One way that a lot of modern startups are saving money is through automating certain processes, and AI copywriting is just one of the ways that new businesses can get copy up quickly and cheaply.
But many startups are beginning to question whether they should have such a reliance on AI, and whether it could be detrimental to short-term and long-term success. We explore whether using AI or hiring a copywriter is best for startups below.
Difference Between Hiring A Copywriter Vs Using AI For A Startup
The Rise of AI
Technology is moving at a rapid pace, and improvements to artificial intelligence have seen it being implemented across a variety of industries.
The supply chain industry has been able to automate key processes to improve transparency and efficiency by using AI, while the gaming industry has embraced it to personalise games, marketing, and compliance.
The gambling industry in particular must adhere to strict regulations in the UK, with online operators being part of the voluntary self-exclusion program, Gamstop.
AI can be used to streamline sign-up processes and to check the Gamstop register for new customers. Alternatively, the best UK casinos not with Gamstop can also use AI to analyse player data to provide tailored gaming and marketing experiences for them.
In-game AI can help to provide more realistic gameplay and a more immersive experience for the player. While AI has undoubted attributes, it is not without its critics, with plagiarism concerns regarding how it is trained.
The process of training AI includes feeding it information, and the more information it is given, the better results it will provide. However, artists, writers, and musicians have expressed concerns that by feeding their work to create new content, this should be considered plagiarism.
Environmentalists have also raised complaints about energy consumption rates in relation to AI generation, and many businesses are keen to operate in a more environmentally friendly way.
The Benefits of Hiring a Copywriter
While AI is handy for a lot of tasks, a skilled copywriter will be able to provide more nuanced, original content from a human perspective. This should not be overlooked by businesses and startups, with Google algorithms constantly striving to find the best quality content for its users.
Human experience can determine when two seemingly unrelated topics have relevance, and this can be invaluable for websites that want to provide users with the information they need, and to rank well on search engine results pages.
High quality content about specific topics will rank better for related keywords and phrases, resulting in organic traffic that is driven by natural searches.
This can be extremely valuable traffic to a site because people have arrived their from their own searches, rather than being funneled by marketing techniques.
A good site will then enjoy a higher conversion rate from this organic traffic, especially if the user finds the content to be useful.
Why Hiring a Copywriter for a Startup Might Not Work?
The biggest reason that startups might consider alternatives to hiring a copywriter is the cost and responsibility of another employee. Startups will typically be operating on extremely tight budgets, and finding the money for another employee or to hire a freelance copywriter.
The people behind startups will already be under a lot of stress in trying to launch their new brand, and the thought of another person reliant on it’s success, and potentially being made redundant if it doesn’t work out could add to this.
The Benefits of Using AI for Startups
Using AI can be a great way to save money in the short-term and ensure a new website is fully populated with good content. This can allow startups to channel money in other directions such as product development or purchase, renovating physical spaces, and marketing.
Using AI content as a stopgap solution could help startups launch in a timely fashion, and the money saved could then be used to start the ball rolling by reaching potential new customers and clients.
In some cases, AI can be used by the existing team to create a framework of the type of content they should be creating, which can then be rewritten to suit the brand.
How AI Content Could Harm a Startup?
AI created content is not foolproof, and in some cases the instructions provided can result in irrelevant content being produced. New customers visiting a site will have first impressions, and if the content seems poorly produced it will reflect poorly on the businesses.
As well as the risk of below average content being provided, there is also the risk of duplicate content. AI uses existing content to come up with whatever it produces, if there is a limited amount of information about certain subjects, the content produced can be very similar to existing sites.
Duplicate content can lead to search engines penalising the site, and this will result in fewer organic visits. Long-term traffic can be impacted by this, and it is likely that Google will implement some kind of AI detection into its algorithm that weeds out computer generated content.
Conclusion
AI can be a useful tool for startups who need to populate a website quickly. However, the long-term value of high quality content should not be underestimated, and could lead to far better results.
