Using ChatGPT in Email Marketing: 5 Ways to Get You Started!

For me, and many of you, too, I trust, Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 1968 feature, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was perhaps what planted the first seeds of AI curiosity in the mind. While viewers of the movie might not have been very enchanted by the bleak route the sentient entity happened to take in it, there’s absolutely no denying that it left them grappling with the ceaseless possibilities such an entity could accomplish.

Cut to half a century later (a little over it, actually, but you get it), AI is no longer just a fancy-inducing buzzword. Now, it finds itself at the center of numerous practical applications spanning several industries. Research and innovation surrounding it continue to push the envelope with every passing day, leading to the generation of extremely sophisticated AI applications. And the latest in this line of revolutionary tools is OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

ChatGPT in Email Marketing

Merely 2 months after its launch, ChatGPT had 100 million active users to its name, setting the record for the fastest-growing user base in the process. For context, it took Instagram nearly 2 and a half years to reach the same landmark and Tiktok 9 months. To say, thus, that ChatGPT has captured the imagination of netizens is, indeed, a gross understatement. 

At present, business leaders find themselves immersed in discussions on how the tool can be incorporated into the regular workflow of their operations. The email community presents no exception to this. The field is no stranger to the workings of AI and, hence, rightfully finds itself all agog to discover the new horizons that ChatGPT can help it uncover. As an email marketer, the thought of leveraging ChatGPT to supercharge your campaigns must have crossed your mind once, at least, right? Well, we are here to kindle that nerve further. Today, we talk about 5 ways in which ChatGPT can be utilized in email marketing. Curious to find out? Let’s go!

1. Drafting Email Copy

Given that ChatGPT is a generative content AI, it’s only logical that we first talk about the myriad merits this tool can bring to the table with respect to email copy. From generating multiple versions of subject lines, preview texts, and CTAs, to producing fairly reliable preliminary drafts of the body copy (with personalization, on top of that), with the right prompts, ChatGPT can help take your email copy game to the next level.

Tasks like having to come up with multiple versions of similar-sounding copy and planning the skeleton, while comparatively less creative in nature, are quite consuming nonetheless. Having to tussle with them over a prolonged period affects your ability to channel your organic “writing flow”; all email copywriters will surely vouch for this. Thus, by assigning grunt work to ChatGPT, you can let your creativity stream sans any spurts and jerks, thereby composing email copy that compels, engages, entertains, and converts, all in the same breath!

With ChatGPT in your toolkit, generating ideas and structuring thoughts becomes vastly more convenient. For an email copywriter, the tool is nothing short of an ideal writer’s assistant. By taking the burden of the non-glamorous bits of email copywriting off your shoulders, ChatGPT essentially liberates you to dial up the humaneness of your brand communication by several notches. And this is speaking at a personal level. It promises to do good for the larger picture, too. 

You see, with the widespread adoption of ChatGPT, texts that sound template-like or very obviously AI-generated won’t simply make the cut anymore. It’ll keep pushing copywriters to strive harder and harder for excellence, to write copy that is both absolutely emblematic of their brand values as well as the needs and interests of their subscribers. Consequently, this will only result in the overall quality of email copywriting witnessing a massive hike.

All that said, there are also a few limitations you must take stock of in order to make the most of ChatGPT:

• Make certain your prompts are detailed and clear. If you are vague with your instructions, you will end up with subpar output, tweaking, and editing, which can be pretty time-consuming. As a result, the very objective of using the tool- saving time- will stand defeated. 
• It’s recommended that you don’t treat ChatGPT as a substitute for an actual, human email copywriter. At the end of the day, the content ChatGPT produces is bereft of human tone and spontaneity, factors that, one can strongly argue, lend life to a piece of text. More critically, it does not understand your customers like you do, meaning it lacks an intuitive understanding of their interests and preferences. So, without your intervention, copy written by ChatGPT will sound rather insipid and fail to engage your subscribers.
• At times, ChatGPT’s content contains ideas from sources that might not have granted explicit permission for the same. If you are not careful of the same, you could potentially commit copyright infringement.
• Content produced by ChatGPT may also contain biases and stereotypes that need to be vetted with a keen eye before utilizing in your email copy.

2. Simplifying Email Design

In design processes, visualization is key. The same applies to email design too. Once you have developed the blueprint for a particular design, it is important to obtain a first look of it so as to gain an accurate understanding of its feasibility. In this department, ChatGPT’s cousin, Visual ChatGPT, can come to your rescue. 

Capable of handling both simple and complex prompts, Visual ChatGPT can help you provide the first draft of your email template design upon receiving its textual blueprint from you. Subsequently, you can determine for yourself the elements which you want to keep and the ones that you want to do away with. Test out different color palettes, layouts, and fonts, among other things, until you arrive at something that truly appeals to you. With ChatGPT, hence, not only will you be able to accelerate your email design process, but also obtain a vastly enhanced output.

3. Assisting in Email Development

ChatGPT’s ability to dish out code in the blink of an eye can be leveraged to great effect for email development. Give it a prompt that outlines every requirement in detail, and receive an initial template, which, while it may not be accurate, can most certainly be married to your original vision with some tinkering. 

Keep in mind, however, that ChatGP has a tendency to offer best practices that it has gleaned from popular dialogue, and not actual, proven techniques, which in turn, can greatly derail your entire development process.

So, to really put it to good use, you must have a good grasp of the fundamentals of email coding yourself. In other words, the quality and usability of the obtained code will be up to the mark so long you are in charge of the reins. 

4. Creating Rudimentary Automation Workflows

In this day and age, it is near impossible to imagine an email marketing campaign that doesn’t involve automation. By enabling you to send the right message at the right time to your audience, email automation lets you stay on their radar at all times, paving the path for increased engagement, stronger customer relationships, and greater customer loyalty. 

Meticulously defining your automation workflows, such that it accounts for different kinds of triggers (resulting from the different interactions of customers), is critical to driving improved results. By helping you provide basic blueprints of your automation workflows, ChatGPT can help you in this endeavor. All you have to do is define the trigger and the objective behind executing a particular automation sequence. In response, it can conjure up a rudimentary framework that accounts for all possible scenarios in that workflow and the various emails that could be written corresponding to it. 

5. Preparing Advanced List Segmentation Frameworks

There’s no looking beyond personalization, is there? Not in 2023, nor in the near future. It’s the only way with which one can hope to rise through the clutter that characterizes the inboxes of invariably every email user out there and make a mark for oneself. 

Now, one cannot execute personalization successfully without practicing email list segmentation. Unless you have compartmentalized your contacts into different sections based on various parameters such as age, location, preferences, past purchases, and the like, you’d never be able to identify the diverse buyer personas engaged with your brand. As a result, you’ll find yourself hard-pressed to craft content tailored to their unique sensibilities. 

Preparing a sophisticated segmentation framework, therefore, is quite essential. ChatGPT can help you immensely with this. From coming up with a plethora of demographic and behavioral criteria to offering you effective segmentation strategies, ChatGPT can help you devise extremely targeted campaigns with relative ease. 

Wrapping It Up

ChatGPT’s range of capabilities is, no doubt, advanced, and should one manage to integrate them seamlessly into their email marketing operations, the resulting outcomes promise to be incredibly spectacular. While the tool is still in its nascent stages and is sure to take a much more complex shape going forward, we hope the insights shared above allow you to tap into its immense potential at present.