Why your AI sales copy isn’t converting (and how to fix It) - Cheryl Oliver

Website: https://cheryloliver.co/

[00:00:01]: Hey, yeah, I'm so excited to get started on this topic. I'm Cheryl Oliver and today I'm going to be talking about why your AI sales copy isn't converting and how to fix it. So let's get started. Hopefully I can. Nope, there we go. First time using Figma slides instead of Canva presents. So excuse me if things don't work 100%. So.  

[00:00:29]: So today we're going to be covering, number one, how to use AI to help you write sales copy faster. Number two, the most common AI copy mistakes and how to avoid them. And number three, what you can realistically expect from AI and what it still needs you for. So, hey, I'm Cheryl. I'm a conversion copywriter and a copy coach. I help online coaches, course creators and membership owners write sales copy that actually sells without losing everything that makes them unique. As a mom with limited time, I started using AI to get out of my head and create more copy faster and not just copy offers everything right like, and it actually has been such a huge change for my business. I'm not gonna say game changer, but I wanted to because it gets used a lot now, so, so I wanted to teach other business owners how to use this amazing tool because what happens is when you first start using it, people tend to give up on it too quickly because it comes out with stuff that's not great.

[00:01:40]: And so I want to bust those myths and talk a little bit about how we can make it better, but with having realistic expectations of how to use it and what it can actually produce for us because there's a lot of people out there saying that, hyping it up and pretending like it's something it's not. And so I just want to talk about the realistic expectations here of AI. So here's the no BS truth about AI. So I love, love busting, you know, busting myths and calling out people in the industry. The truth is that AI is here to stay and pretty soon it's going to be like Google Maps. We're not going to know what we did without it. You know, I mean, remember, I don't know if you're old enough to remember using a map book to find your way around your city. I remember getting lost many, many times and having my map book out on my driver's, my passenger seat and having to pull over and try to find my way in Cape Town where I lived in my 20s and am back now.  

[00:02:42]: But soon AI is going to be like Google Maps. You're not going to know what you did without it, so it's not going anywhere. I'm not saying that AI is not here to stay. I'm not saying it's a hype or a fading, just saying. I'm saying that you should learn how to use it. But at the moment, I don't think it's quite where people are saying it is. And that's the thing I want to bust here. I don't think it's a throw your copy at it and it spits out something perfect, which is what a lot of people are selling it as.  

[00:03:13]: And that's just not true. The truth is it still requires quite a bit of work. It does definitely speed things up, but not to the extent that people are selling it right now. I do think it's going to drive a human, big human comeback, like people craving real connection and relationships. And you're going to need to drive that in your copy. Like it's going to need to reflect some humanness. And I think the copy that is clearly Spat out by ChatGPT or AI 100% without any human intervention is going to tank. And I've seen this in my own copy, testing out different emails.  

[00:03:48]: And the emails that I send that have very little intervention from myself really don't do that well. So the gap between good writing and amazing writing is only going to get bigger because most people will use AI badly and a few won't use it at all. And a few will use it really well. And so I want to teach you how to use it really well so that you can get out of your head, keep up with everyone that's using it, but still connect with your audience. Really build those relationships. Be the human behind the copy rather than just copy. That's for content copy sake. Okay, so let's get into the mistakes here, guys.  

[00:04:32]: Okay, so mistake number one is not having any strategy. When you use AI to write your copy, people jump into think into AI, thinking it will fix their copy, but they don't actually know how to write sales copy in the first place. Sorry, I was just checking to see where my loom thing is. Sometimes I'll be recording and then I realized like it stopped recording randomly and I've been like chattering on for like 20 minutes. It's like a big like, oh, so just checking to see it's still going. So they don't, they actually don't know how to write sales copy in the first place and they think that ChatGPT or AI is going to be able to help them write good copy. Without any knowledge of how what actually makes a good sales email or actually what makes a good sales page. And that's just not how it works.  

[00:05:20]: It actually does need a bit of intervention from you. And so you need to know the foundations of good copywriting before you can actually really use AI. It'll get you a bit further. But if you want to take your copy all the way up to like really great elevated copy that works well, then you're going to need the foundations in place before you actually use it to learn conversion copywriting. Then use AI to speed things up. Okay, perfect. Okay, mistake number two, relying on AI too much. I touched on this a little bit already.

[00:05:54]: But, but what I want to say is hard truth here. AI defaults to a generic tone even when you give it examples of your voice. And this is something that really flies in the face of what other people are saying right now about AI. Oh, you just need to train AI better. You need to give it examples of your voice and your tone and it'll get it right. No it won't. It definitely won't. I've tried it a lot.  

[00:06:15]: I use it a lot. And I'm not saying like I tried it once and I gave up because I'm a copywriter and I think I can do better. I use it every day, I use it all the time. I use it for sales pages, I use it for emails, I use it to help me write my clients sales pages. So my done for you writing. I use it in the service and I'm telling you right now, no matter how much you train it in your voice, it doesn't get it, not 100%, not first time. So it still requires a bunch of input to start with and we will always need to edit it afterwards. And I'm not talking like light edits here, a proper edit, because what it does is it tends to strip out everything that sounds human in the email, everything that's conversational or not, perfect grammar and that just sounds very forced.

[00:07:10]: It ends up if you read it, it sounds very forced. It doesn't sound natural to the ear. So you do need to put your humanness back into the email or the sales page after you use ChatGPT or AI to write. So if you expect it to sound exactly like you, like do you expect it to spit out something that sounds exactly like you? You're going to be disappointed and give up. So this the takeaway here is treat AI as a starting point. You'll still need to add back in a lot of unique voice and edits afterwards to make it sound like you. AI creates generic copy. And that's not how we speak.  

[00:07:49]: It's not generic, but actually like perfectly perfect grammar is. That's kind of more what I mean there. Okay, mistake number three, giving up too soon. I did this in the beginning. I tried it a couple times and I was like, ugh, this is horrible. I'm never. It's just junk. What's the point? So I gave up for quite a while and then I went back to it after a while.  

[00:08:11]: Mostly because people kept saying, oh, it's so good, it's so good. It'll get everything perfect. You just have to train it right? So I bought some prompts and I bought some courses and everything I tried was like, nope, it's still. Still junk. Nope, it's still junk. I can't believe this. You know, like people all using the same sales pitch and it's just, it was just junk. So I just thought, okay, well, but in that process I realized it's still very helpful to use because it gets me out of my head.

[00:08:36]: It gets me. Gets ideas flowing, which is really helpful when you're a bit of a perfectionist. And so I started using it anyway. So. Giving up too soon? Most people try once, hate what it spits out and gives give up. That's because everyone's selling it like a done for you solution when it's really not. It's a done with you solution. So it's a collaboration and requires some back and forth.

[00:09:00]: So if you go in with the correct expectations, you won't get frustrated. So that's all I'm trying to do is make sure that you have the correct expectations to use it and then you won't give up and you will actually use it as a tool and actually like a bit of a writing buddy, which is kind of cool. I do like to, you know, I do like the fact that it spits out ideas for me. And when I'm just not feeling that inspired about writing an email today, even if I know what I'm selling, sometimes it's great to just say like, hey, can you just give me five ideas on how to sell this offer today? You know what I mean? Even if it's just like sometimes, and just sometimes it's just that one little idea that you're like, oh, actually I've got a great story about that that really gave me an idea. You know, we work alone a lot as online entrepreneurs and it's so helpful to have like someone to talk to in A way. And so I kind of use it like that a little bit as well. Okay, so three things that AI still needs from you or does need from you to create a good first draft. If you want AI to create sales copy, that sounds like you.  

[00:10:07]: It needs more than just your offer. It needs the human behind the brand. So you need to give it one. Your stories. One thing that I find really helpful is when it gives, it gives me an idea. So often I ask it for a little some topics and then that will spark an idea based on something that's happened in my life. I will then give it that story and say, can you write on this topic? Here's a story related to this topic. I want to write an email to sell X and then it will give me a better first draft than if I just said can you write me an email to sell X with this topic? Number two, your perspective, your unique take on your work, your people, your industry.  

[00:10:46]: So just, you know, that's based on like your expertise, right? You've been working in this industry for a few years, 1, 2, 3, 5 years. You know some stuff, right? You've worked with your clients, you have an idea and a perspective on your topics. So give them your opinions. Basically your perspective, your opinions about something. Sometimes they're big opinions. I have strong opinions about things. And you just tell people, like, give them those strong opinions. That's what's going to change your copy.  

[00:11:16]: That's what's going to make you stand out. You know, your strong opinions about things are always going to make you like memorable. Okay? Your personality, the way you write is a lot like the way you speak. And AI can't copy this yet. And I say yet because maybe it will, maybe it'll get there, but right now it's not there yet. So adding in, but the personality aspect, I'm not going to pretend like you can add that in beforehand. That is something that I add in afterwards. I take the email and I edit it and I add personality back in because it tends to strip out personality as a default.  

[00:11:52]: Okay, so this is the simple email workflow that you can use. Sales page writing is a little bit more complicated than this, so I'm not going to give you a workflow here. But this is how I write my emails with AI and it gives me a pretty good email that I can use to send out to my list. So number one, start with notes on your offer and audience. You can create your own custom GPT, which is what I have. I've got all my offers in There. So I've saved my sales pages some examples of my writing an ideal client avatar, and then that's something that I use because then it can go back and it can use that. You ask it to check its knowledge base and then it refers back to the knowledge that you've added to it so you don't have to keep adding these things in and reminding it of the same thing over and over again.  

[00:12:42]: So you start with the custom GBT that's got your notes on your offer. Obviously, if you're not using ChatGPT, you would just give it your notes on your offer and your audience ask AI for ideas on email topics that would sell the offer. So you choose an offer that you want to sell and then say, hey, this is offer that I want to sell. Can we write something if you're not selling an offer? And that's not how you write your emails and you just want to write in it, like a connection email, you can just say, hey, this is an email that I want to write, or here's a topic that I'm thinking about writing, or I've got no idea what to write. Today you give me five ideas for write an email and maybe it'll come up with something cool and you can then pick one of those ideas. So number three is pick the idea that resonates most with you. You're pick it, you're going to tell Chatbot or AI, I want to work, I want to use this, this, this idea. And then you are going to share a story, insight or perspective on this topic with AI.

[00:13:37]: Use the voice message feature for even faster results. My top tip of today, I avoided using this for a while because probably because I'm a bit of a shy person and I share it like I sit at home with my husband quite a lot and he works from home as well. And I don't want to hear, I don't want him to hear me talking to my computer like a weirdo. I don't use it. But actually it's so helpful to just like click on the little button and say, here's my unique take on this, you know, here's my story. So much quicker than typing the whole damn thing out and then ask it to write her first draft if you're not loving it. This is also my top tip. If you're not loving that first draft, ask it for three alternative versions of the same email and say, can you write this email in three different ways for me? Or using three different structures or using three different email writing styles.  

[00:14:26]: And sometimes it comes up with something better that feels a bit more like you. Or you can say can you write this in and you can pick some words that describe your brand voice, warm, conversational, funny. I think I tried no BS the other day was really terrible. So those I find the results with that are a bit more iffy. If I ask it to write in three different versions in three different writing styles or three different structures, then sometimes I get closer result to what I want. So those are two different ways that you can tell it. Like you know, maybe get closer to the version that you like and then you have to edit to add in your. Add your personality back in as I was talking about.  

[00:15:11]: Okay, so. Oops. Oh, there we go. Okay, and that's it. That's my presentation on you know, your AI sales copy and how to fix it. If you want to know more or you want to join my email list or you want to get my free course, it's a free mini course, email sequences made easy with AI. You're going to learn how to plan and write your welcome sequence with the help of chat, chatgpt and your own brilliance. Then you can come join my.  

[00:15:45]: You can grab the free mini course at Cheryl Oliver Co Esme JJs and you can get the free mini course right there. And it's going to help you write your email sequence in, you know, five. It's like five emails in probably less than an hour but still making sure that it sounds like you and that it has that humanness and teaching you also how to edit it to add the personality back in again. So how do you how to use AI but without all the bs, you know, sales pictures saying it's perfect and it's going to be 100% your voice from the get go. Because that's just not true. But I'd love to teach you how to use it my way and so that you actually can use it. Get out of your head, use AI, write more, sell more, make more, but without losing the connection of your audience and your authenticity as well. I'm super excited about this topic and I'm really excited to get to know you.

 [00:16:47]: So come join my email list, come grab my mini course and hit me up, send me questions, hit reply when you get your first email and I'd love to hear from you. Okay, have a great day.