AI for Content Marketers: Testing Anyword
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AI for Content Marketers: Testing Anyword
I test out an AI writer tool for content marketers on my fictional Uber clone. Also: latest #aiwriter news, perspectives & research.
This week I’m looking at AI writing from the perspective of content marketers. I’ve chosen to have a play with Anyword, a product that aims to “remove the guesswork from writing for marketing.” I was alerted to Anyword by a LinkedIn contact, and I soon discovered that the company has been around for a while. Way back in March 2015, when the company was known as Keywee (good to choice to change the name!), it got a writeup by Techcrunch for its “AI approach to content marketing.”
I realize that Jasper.ai is perhaps the trendier AI app for content marketers, but Anyword was the first mover in this space. Also: unlike Jasper, which asks for your credit card before you can try it out, it’s easy to test Anyword. All you need to hand over is your email address. (btw: I have no paid or any other relationship with Anyword — this post is my unbiased first impression.)
After signing up to the 7-day trial, I was prompted to choose a role (I chose “Content Marketer” for the purposes of this post). I was then given four options:
I chose “Data-Driven Editor” to start with, and then selected the “AIDA” template. Now, I must admit I’m not au fait with the latest marketing terms, but apparently AIDA is a modern marketing model that stands for “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.” According to Anyword, it’s “used by almost every copywriter on the planet.”
I was then instructed to give Anyword a marketing brief. I decided to use the fictional product in my short story that I wrote about last week: Buber, an Uber for Bicycles. I fleshed out the description and then changed the default tone-of-voice from “Engaging” to “Hard Sell” (as per my short story, this startup is desperate for attention, so let’s assume they’ve put the squeeze on their content marketer to help drum up new users). I clicked the “Generate” button.
I was actually really impressed by the first result:
Are you tired of struggling to find a bike when you need it? Look no further than Buber.
Buber is like having your own personal bicycle fleet at your fingertips. No more searching for available bikes or dealing with the hassle of renting one. With Buber, bikes are always available and easily accessible through our convenient app.
Plus, as a user, you're contributing to a more sustainable city by utilizing existing bikes instead of buying new ones. And as an owner, you can make extra money by sharing your bike with others when you're not using it.
Download Buber now and join the growing community of satisfied users who are enjoying a better way to bike.
I especially liked the ‘greenie’ angle the AI introduced (unprompted) in the third paragraph. However, I felt like the final paragraph — the “call to action” I believe it’s called — could be improved. There was an “improve copy with prompt” button, so I clicked that and entered: “The final sentence needs a more urgent call to action, to sign up now!”
Among the several options it gave me for a revised ending, this one looked good:
Download Buber now and start enjoying the ultimate bike sharing experience! Don't wait any longer to join this sustainable revolution in transportation!
The AI had also changed some of the other copy, however, so I had some manual editing work to do. Even so, I was pretty impressed by its ability to generate a good first draft of marketing copy. Of course, it would need some human loving and originality to make the copy truly sparkle, but the AI gave me a good foundation.
Anyword has some other neat features, like its new “Performance Boost AI Chrome Extension.” I like Chrome extensions, since you can use them on any web page you browse to. Anyword’s extension gives you “predictive performance scores” for marketing copy. I can’t vouch for how accurate the scores are, but this seems useful for when you are writing ads — e.g. for Facebook, as in the screenshot below from Anyword’s promo video.
Anyword has some useful integrations with third-party apps, too, such as Google Ads and Hubspot. Also the ability to add “custom models” (in other words, train Anywords on your own data) is enticing.
Lastly, I couldn’t resist trying out the “Blog Post from Scratch” feature. How about a launch post for Buber…
The AI gave me a good head-start, with suggested titles and an outline (which I changed a little).
As for the resulting 1000-word blog post? It was a decent first draft, and had some useful tips in the sidebar to further improve it. But, of course, it needed some rewrites.
Overall, I was impressed by Anyword. For the content marketers out there, give it a whirl and let us know what you think by leaving a comment (click through to the site if you’re reading this by email). Even better: if you’ve used Jasper too, how does it compare? After you’ve done that, keep reading for the news of the week…
News 📰
The Verge: The Associated Press sets AI guidelines for its journalists; Crucially, the AP has decreed that any result from a generative AI platform “should be treated as unvetted source material.” (see also AP blog post)
Nvidia releases NeVA, “a multi-modal vision-language model that understands text and images and generates informative responses.” Upload an image and NeVA will describe it for you — useful for all kinds of writers. (via aiTTENTION)
Vimeo launches AI editing tools; including an “AI script generator” and an AI-based video editing tool to “identify ‘ums’ and pauses to remove.”
NY Times: “Google DeepMind has also been evaluating tools recently that could take its A.I. further into the workplace, including capabilities to generate scientific, creative and professional writing […]”
Reuters: AI use rising in influence campaigns online, but impact limited - US cyber firm (via Techmeme; see also Mandiant)
Perspectives 🗣️
Charley Karpiuk, Growth Marketing Manager at Airtame, advises against using AI to generate content, and instead “use the machines to talk to machines” — i.e. use AI to create the technical aspects of SEO; meta tags, meta descriptions, etc.
Jamie I.F., who runs a newsletter on “SEO affiliate marketing tactics”, advises content marketers to focus on “collecting the right data and research, and augmenting that with AI if necessary”.
- (who writes the fab ) on how prompt-writing is like managing people: “It’s about articulating the objectives correctly and finding the right balance between being explicit and still allowing for creativity.”
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri lists “some of the most interesting ways that I've heard of creators using LLMs.” One of the items: “Brainstorming ideas for content by providing a rough high level prompt and asking for lists of options.”
Ethan Mollick argues that AIs can be creative, because they are “connection machines between unexpected concepts.” He adds, “add in the randomness that comes with AI output, and the result is, effectively, a powerful creative ability.”
Reference 🧠
Digiday compiled a list of some of the key terms in AI that are frequently used in the ad industry. (via aiweekly)
WGMI: 20 Claude Prompts For Content Creators
“They guess the next word.” If you’re still struggling to understand LLMs, then watch this wonderfully lucid presentation by AI engineer
.
See you next week, my fellow augmented writers!