AI Is Not An Expert Copywriter

Intro

Hello, I'm Kerry guard and Welcome to Tea Time with tech marketing leaders.

Welcome back to the show, I hope you didn't mind a little hiatus last week and maybe even got to check out our other podcasts called What's the Problem hosted by my business partner, Mike Krass. I really appreciate the break.

But don't worry, we are back this week.

I have an amazing guest who joined me her name is Kathryn Strachan and she is the CEO of CopyHouse. Actually she's in the UK, along with myself and she's also an American so it's very cool to reconnect with another American also in the marketing world. And to dive back and forth and, and share ideas. She is on the fast track in terms of what her company is doing in the way that they write content for complex b2b companies. She's very smart, very onpoint, very concise, and it made for great conversation.

In this episode, Kathryn and I unpack trends that are happening right now in copy and writing and how AI is impacting it. And at the end of the day, you still need writers, especially in marketing, you still need that refinement, it's great to get ideas from AI and chat GPT. But at the end of the day, you need somebody to really bring that content to life who truly understands not just the market, but your product and the power of it. And that's what Catherine is out to do. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Catherine struck it.

Transcript

Kerry Guard: Hello, Katheryn, thank you for joining me on Tea Time with tech marketing leaders. So excited to have you.

Kathryn Strachan: Hi, thank you for having me here.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. I'm really excited for our conversation. I think it's going to really resonate with what's happening in the world today. Spoiler alert. But before we get there, tell us about yourself. Catherine, what's your story? What do you do? And how did you get there?

Kathryn Strachan: Yeah, so I am Kathryn Strachan. I'm the managing director and owner of Coffee House coffee house is a content marketing agency specialising in the b2b tech space. We do everything from content strategy, where we help clients at the foundation and determine their core messaging and identify their audience to content production where we help bring this to life with copywriting content design and b2b social. We've been going for about three years now. And it's been a crazy ride going from just a team of one to a team of 25. And today we work with some really big clients like Mehta and Klarna. And have have a really great roster of clients across the FinTech and health tech and insure tech spaces. Yeah, it's been it's been really crazy ride, I feel like three years is like three decades. Yeah,

Kerry Guard: That's super fast to reach the scale that you have. What's your what's sort of your differentiator like why it sounds like you sort of carved out this niche for yourself in a way that people really gravitate towards? What do you think that is? Yeah, I

Kathryn Strachan: Would say having a really clear proposition. So we do content marketing for b2b tech companies. You know, it means that we don't have a lot of competition, because there's not a lot of content marketing agencies out there and the ones that are more generalised. So a lot of our clients struggle to find people who can write for them who understand what they do enough to be able to create a really high quality piece of content. And, you know, they'll try these generalist agencies and not get the results that they want. So when they come to us and you know, everything about us is baked into that everything from our processes to the team that we've recruited to how we recruit and you know, only keeping our content in house and not using any freelancers or, you know, not outsourcing any of it keeping it in house, every element of what we do is designed for the b2b tech space. So you know, we've really own that niche. And that's allowed us to massively punch above our weight. You know, when we want meta that was one of the reasons that they said that they chose to work with us was that our focus in the b2b tech space as well as as well as my leadership, so I think that's another thing that has massively helped is marketing actually since the very early days, we've always invested really heavily in our own marketing, you know, we've had a marketing manager and had dedicated budget and really went hard to promote the coffee house brand. And you know, meta would have only known about my leadership via my personal brand and via, like, the content we're creating about the company and about the company culture, because we had only had, you know, an hour, maybe pitch time with them. And that's not necessarily something that comes through during during a pitch. So, you know, just goes to show the power of your own marketing, and I think it is something especially agencies and smaller brands often don't do is they don't invest in themselves. But you know, everything that you make, if you really want to grow should be going back into the company.

Kerry Guard: I think it's really interesting how you've niched down in terms of not just b2b tech, but also the fact that you are not an everything agency, we, we decided to do something similar, we're sort of at a crossroads where we started taking on more capability. We're starting to design websites, you're starting to create content, we were starting to do all these other things outside of SEO and digital ads, and we came to that fork in the road where it was like, we could either try and we got to do one or the other, we can't be everything to everybody, we're not going to be good at any of this. And so I think that is being specialised in that way, I think is a huge help. Because I think the general agencies are trying, I don't wanna say trying too hard, but like, it's, they're not special. They're not. It's kind of like buying, you know, those all on one machines where they say they can do everything, it's like they do, and they don't do any of them well, right.

Kathryn Strachan: I think a lot of companies struggle to niche down because they're scared that by doing so they'll limit their options. But I'm a firm believer that actually the opposite is true. So I have a networking goal of meeting 50 new people every month. And that's where I got some really great opportunities, but it's allowed me as well to hear lots of people's elevator pitches. And when I hear pitches, like we're a full service digital marketing agency that works across all industries, I just don't know what to do with it. I don't know who to introduce them to projects to think of them for I just, I don't know how to help them. Where when I meet somebody who says we do X for Y, I know exactly, Oh, okay. I know five other people who work in that space, or, you know, oh, I just heard about this project the other day, and it's much easier to make things happen because people know what to do with you. So I'm a firm believer, you know, whether it's brands or agencies that like sticking your flag in the ground, and really owning what it is that you do well, is a massive strength, and it doesn't limit your opportunities, it actually makes them a lot bigger.

Kerry Guard: I totally agree. How did you get coffee house started? Did you just decide one day you were going to, you know, write for brands? Did you set out with a with a business plan? What sort of how'd you get started?

Kathryn Strachan: By accident, I don't think I knew that I was setting up an agency, when I set up an agency. I had gone freelance after you know, struggling to find my place in the world, you know, I had had my daughter around the same time. So she was really young at the time. And, you know, it was really difficult to find a role that would support me to have her but also to have a career. I'm a really super ambitious person. So I wanted to have a big career I wanted, wanted and still want to do really big things. You know, I think I'm only just getting started. So there's lots more to come. But I wanted that and I wanted to you know, a hat. Well, I did have her as well. So I needed something that would do both, and struggled to find it. So I went freelance. And it was pretty quickly into my freelance journey that I started to not be able to do everything on my own and needed help. Started to hire. So I started to hire not with necessarily the intention of I want to have an agency but with the intention of I don't want to do everything. And yeah, I mean, that's kind of always been my motto. You know, we have a really we're 25 People now and I don't do almost anything, which Yeah, it's a really nice place to be. I haven't written any content and over a year, I don't even remember how to do it. And yeah, my focus today is to do lots of podcasts and speaking and branding brand ambassador, you know, that sort of thing, but I don't know how to do any of the actual day to day anymore.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, I'm in I'm in the sea. But I rely heavily on my experts who have really deep knowledge of their service lines, and it's nice to fly higher and talk about their greatness and go on podcasts and, you know, market the agency and talk about them. Really, it's so much more fun.

Kathryn Strachan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, they're much better at it than I could ever dream to be we but a year ago hired a Content Director to come on in and oversee the creative team. So before that, we had had a content lead, who was kind of my protege, you know, I taught him absolutely everything I knew, and really invested heavily in him, he left moved to the US to marry his, like lifelong partner who had been with us for like, five years, and, you know, do the whole US life so so he left, sadly. And it wasn't until we brought in this content director who has like 30 years experience and like, really knows his stuff, that I started to not identify as a copywriter. And that really allowed me to break away from it, you know, our content lead, while I was really sad to see him go, he could also only take us as far as I could take us, because I had taught him everything you knew, where our content director could come in, and have a totally different spin a totally different approach and, you know, get a the same, if not better, most of the time answer. And that was quite a transition, that was quite a big, like, difficult thing to do to like, have him come into the team and like to get used to working with him and to know what, you know, where my role stopped, and where to where his started. And, I mean, there was definitely some growing pains there and like moments of contention, but we got past them, and now we're really good friends. And now I'm I know, I'm not a copywriter.

Kerry Guard: That's, that's awesome. Um, it sounds like, that's me. That was one of your challenges that you were having when you initially hired him? What's what's the challenge we're currently having now.

Kathryn Strachan: Um, I think the challenge that we're having at the moment is just around recruitment. It's quite a difficult market to recruit in. And we have really big girls and really big growth plans. So we especially because we keep everything in house have to do a lot of recruitment. And we have ahead of people who is brilliant, but the candidates can sometimes be not the greatest. So we've made a few offers, and then had people accept them and then fall off the face of VR. We've had people accept offers, and then try, we found out on LinkedIn that they actually accepted a job elsewhere. And, you know, recruiters get a lot of flack for not, you know, not great treatment of candidates. But candidates can also be kind of crummy sometimes, too. Yes, definitely

Kerry Guard: a tough market out there. ghosting on both sides is unfortunately, very real. And so I think it's made candidates really hardened. And then I think it for those of us that don't go so far.

**Kathryn Strachan:**Yeah, yeah, we have one role where we've probably on our third attempt, we're just about to make an offer today. And hopefully, that will be the last one. Because yeah, we've had two offers accepted, you know, they've said yes, and then just have fallen off the face of the earth. So I would say our biggest challenge

Kerry Guard: is recruit recruiting. Yeah, that makes a tonne of sense, is tough out there for sure. Let's talk about, you know, you're saying you're not a copywriter any more, but your agency is very much all about copywriting. And so you there, the expertise is still there, in understanding what your company does, right? Even though I'm not a digital ads expert anymore. I still understand what my team is up to and what they're doing and how they operate. So that I can make sure that operations are running smoothly to make sure I can speak to it to make sure we can market it all that fun jazz. So you might not be doing the doing anymore. But from my understanding in our previous conversation, you do still understand what how they're or maybe you're also doing this but in terms of adopting chat GPT and AI. I mean, how's that impacted your agency as a whole as it?

Kathryn Strachan: Yeah, to a degree and you know, it's part of our senior leadership discussions because we're looking at how we can maybe use it for not for content creation, but for like proofreading for example. Um, you know, I think that AI has greater potential to proofread a piece of content, because it's more able to pick up errors and in spelling and things, then, you know, perhaps the human eyes, which you know, we all know that if you spend five, six hours writing something, sometimes you become like blind to the mistakes note, because you've spent so long looking at it that you can't see, you know, a simple spelling error or something like this, where AI could be a really interesting use case for proofreading, or for you know, coming up with creative ideas, I still would need human input, because not all those ideas would be relevant or suitable. But it could be, you know, a unique way to think outside the box. So there are definitely some potentials with it. And, you know, we're playing around and talking about it at the senior level. You know, it also can play into operations into like, how we schedule things, and, you know, perhaps not chat GPT itself, because it's more of a respond and answer sort of tool. But AI in general, could be quite helpful with things like scheduling and planning and, you know, moving pieces around and understanding what needs to go where. So yeah, it certainly has some really interesting potential, though. It's also I think, it's also really important to understand the difference between the potential and the hype. So since chat, GBT came out in like November, it's had a massive hype around it. So everybody's talking about every time you go on LinkedIn, and there is an element of it. That is that is that that is hype that, you know, is, you know, a new fun tool to play with, and kind of over eggs, its potential and its possibilities. So I think anybody who's looking at it kind of needs to think about it rationally and reasonably, and not buy into all of the hype. And, you know, obviously, that's not to say that there's not potential there there is, but is it going to replace copywriters? Probably not. I mean, the content we do, we do a lot of thought leadership content. So we do a lot of content where we interview subject matter experts, and then take their insights and turn it into really high quality piece of content. And it's a very far away away from doing that. You know, it has some really serious, it can have some really serious implications if it's not monitored. We saw this the other week, when Google's barred technology wiped billions off of its value for giving the wrong answer. I mean, if you're a brand, you really want to be publishing something that could be incorrect, because that that is one of its pitfalls, you know, it's very good at making it seem like it is the correct answer, even if it is not. So, you know, we have to be aware of these limitations. You know, the fact that chat, GBT doesn't have any more recent information since 2021. Now, if you're working in the financial space in the payment regulation space, that means that almost all of that content is going to be out of date. So do you want to publish content that's out of date? Because you know, all marketers know that a blog from 2021 probably needs to be updated? You know, it doesn't do SEO, it doesn't do citations. You can't be research backed. So it's helpful to a degree, but it's not not a be all end all. Nor does it have the potential to truly replace great copywriting.

Kerry Guard: Is your team experimenting with it at all right now? Are you experimenting with it? How are you figuring this out? It sounds like you're using it to a degree to understand the potential but also the hype.

Kathryn Strachan: Yeah, we don't use it in like our day to day operations. But we are playing around with it and thinking about ways that it could help us do what we do better. But it's very much in like the research and development in the r&d stage rather than in like the actual implementation stage. You know, we wouldn't use it on any of our clients content at the moment because it's not really developed enough to be able to do something like that. Even on like the proofreading, you know, it still can't be 110% trusted to you know, pick up grammatical error. So it's something that we're thinking about and investigating and doing research and development into but isn't, isn't something that we're implementing in our day to day activities.

Kerry Guard: I've been dabbling. Very loosely gonna say that I am not a heavy user by any stretch. I do have people in the team who who are not, not necessarily for a lot of client work more around research tools. But then, you know, well as one research tools, many also like idea starters, like you mentioned, but they use it a lot more than I've dabbled. And the challenge I have with it is tau. I feel like I have a very, that was a unique, but I have a way of talking because I've just lived in so many different places. And so how I talk is, you know, I think if you if you talk to me enough, and then you go read something that I wrote, you can be like, I can totally hear your voice in that it's very clear. And I can't it's totally lost like you like I asked chatting with you to write me a LinkedIn posts, I wanted to see what would happen. So I thought it you know, some a transcript, a simple down transcript from one of my podcasts, I. I said it some other information. And then I said, Can you write me a LinkedIn post about this topic, and it did. And I was like, this doesn't sound like me. And then I start to get it to sound like me, and then rewriting it from scratch.

Kathryn Strachan: You have to be able to control voice, which means that you have to know how to describe your own tone of voice. So if you had if you had like, a tone of voice guidelines for you, yourself, you'd be able to tell that tell chat, GBT, right this post like a 10 year old boy or write this post like a Midwesterner, you know, whatever it was that you wanted it, but you would need to know how to describe your own voice. And I think that's something that most brands, especially in the b2b space tend to struggle with. You know, when you see their tone of voice guidelines, it's knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, professional. And you know, it unless they've had it professionally done, it tends to be pretty like standard across the board, which makes it difficult to create content that is unique when you're when you can't listen to the voice and pick it out. So you know, being able to tell chat, GBT, you know write this post, like a friendly, helpful, professional, knowledgeable person probably isn't going to produce the best results, because it's not able to read between those lines and actually understand the tone of voice I should be used for that brand. When the tone of voice like adjectives most brands use are pretty nondescript.

Kerry Guard: Yeah, I just find maybe it's just because I have to retrain my brain on how to think about it. But it feels like more work to, like train this thing and help it maybe, maybe it'll be something in the long run. Like if you take the time now to sort of, but it doesn't remember either, right? It's got it remembers for that specific window you're building, but it's got a certain lifespan in terms of like, what it can remember to write. It's not always Yeah.

Kathryn Strachan: I mean, one of the interesting uses is for responding to email, so I can see this perhaps becoming like a business integration in the future, where chat GBT can actually respond to, and it does pretty well, because you know, most emails are relatively easy to respond to. But it can take, you know, big, long email and create an understandable like, response. So having having it to answer some of your emails, you know, something that is less personal than perhaps your LinkedIn posts. is one way you could use it.

Kerry Guard: That's interesting. Yeah, I think what I'm just trying to figure out from that, you know, from a copywriting standpoint, and all the things you all bring to the table naturally between tone ceiling, I just feel like when I'm, unless you really prompt, prompt and prompt and prompt and prompt to get it to really say something thoughtful. It feels like like I was saying it's in some ways more work. Because what we feel naturally as humans versus trying to teach an AI that for something we could have written I just, I guess I'm just trying to understand, like, to your point, you said that there's potential. And there's emails a good example of that. You said copywriters aren't going away? Do you see the potential in the way that it could produce content? Or is it more behind the scenes? Operational? It's is sort of what I'm getting from the things you're saying. Yeah.

Kathryn Strachan: I mean, I can create basic content. So I mean, something like top 10 castles in Scotland. I mean, it's not particularly hard to write that and there's just a bajillion other blogs out there on the top 10 cast. Suppose in Scotland, so I think it could do a half decent job at writing something like that. I mean, it's already used by the media to do you know, football, football plays, because they can take the information on screen and turn it into, you know, a play by play written written summary of of the game. You know, it could be I remember back in my very early career spending hours and hours and hours writing page Titles and Meta descriptions. And you know, rather than having a junior copywriter, write 500 Page Titles and Meta descriptions, you could have an AI tool, do something like that. So I think what it will do is it will take a lot of like the more basic menial copywriting tasks, which there there are plenty of, and it will take over those. And you know, in five years, maybe even sooner from now, you know, copywriters won't be doing that. But I read a really great quote the other day, and I think it's really true is that technology is never taken away jobs, it's only made more. And I think, you know, AI is no different, it will create more opportunities than it will take away and what it will take away, you know, I remember being so bored writing all those meta descriptions that I wouldn't wish it on anybody? Why not give it to a machine?

Kerry Guard: Do you think it takes away an element of practice and learning though to remove more of those mundane tasks? Or do you like it just in terms of training? Potential? If AI does all of those things, then what's the training path become for somebody who wants to be a copywriter? Does it become more in depth bigger pieces of content out of the gate? Does it become more how to,

Kathryn Strachan: I'm not sure, but they'll probably need to hit the ground running a lot quicker. You know, if a lot of those more menial tasks are taken away, then you know, they might, they'll probably need to hit the ground running a lot quicker. But I mean, it's probably a long way away before all brands of using AI to write, you know, 10 best castles in Scotland. So there'll be some 10 Best castles in Scotland blogs for junior copywriters to write I've definitely written a few in my very early career. So I mean, I there will be other things that they can be trained on. And you know, I am not in charge of copywriting training anymore. I don't have to think about their growth and development, because our really brilliant content director does all that. Yeah, not sure.

Kerry Guard: Give me an interesting challenge, I think that we're going to face as because you're pointed, I think it'll make more jobs. But there'll be the jobs will be different. There'll be Yeah, of course, it'll just be very different.

Kathryn Strachan: But I mean, our jobs today are way different than even our parents jobs would have been. I mean, we're doing this podcast by zoom, that wouldn't have been something that in the late 90s would be possible. I don't even know that they had podcasts in the late 90s. Maybe a radio show, but not podcasts. So I mean, there's our jobs, our lives today are million times different than our parents at our age or our grandparents at our age. And that doesn't mean that like, you know, there aren't junior positions these days. Of course there are but they're probably look a lot different than in our parents days, or in the Mad Men days were like, Yeah, you were literally running paper between rooms. Our content director, actually, who has about 30 years experience in the creative industry remembers having to fax amends to clients. So you know, we we rely on email, right? Like we send our work to clients by email, but imagine if you had to post it, like put it in the mail to get it to clients. You know, that's just unfathomable. Yeah,

Kerry Guard: no, it's so it's interesting to think about what jobs to your point like podcasting. I mean, there's careers in that now, which wasn't a thing. So it'll be interesting to see what this AI frees up in terms of not having to do certain things to allow you to do other things. So one thing that the my previous guests, Sarah mentioned about AI and how he's thinking about it, is volume. So like to write a few pieces of ad copy and then have the AI produce variations of it, and then a B and then use AI to AB you know, and then you pumped through your ad platforms and then AV tested right just from like a volume standpoint, how it's going to just like digital photography, change the change the game. And can be interesting too, and seeing how this has copywriting and how we think about content sort of evolved that way from a volume perspective. But I think it does have a lot of potential, I hope that the potential is for good. Rather than true wielding,

Kathryn Strachan: I mean, every every great change and technology has always been kind of met with fear or hesitation, you know, so when computers first came out, or smartphones, you know, the same sort of like, what is this mean, for future generations and you know, will have a positive impact on the world. And, you know, obviously, not all technology has as massively contributed to global warming, and there's some real downsides to being so technology advanced. But on the whole, I mean, I would say, at least from my position, it's made like these, these advances in technology have made life a lot better, and allowed us to do things that were far outside the imagination, you know, being able to work remotely, to be able to work from a beach in Bali, or, you know, wherever it is that you want to work is incredible, even for a few decades, you know, a few decades ago, that wouldn't have been anywhere possible, where now you know, you can, as long as you're kind of working on the same time zone, you can go literally anywhere in the whole world.

Kerry Guard: With async, and, you know, between video and loom and Asana, and zoom, and all the things I mean, we work across five different time zones. And you've seen the right systems and processes feel to do that. And technology is definitely at the backbone of making that happen.

Kathryn Strachan: It's true. I would hear stories of people who travelled and like, even 10 1015 years ago, and their families would have to send mail to a post office where they thought they might be in a few months time. I mean, you can't work like that, obviously. So being able to take your work wherever is suited for you and being able to move around and take advantage of the Internet and email these things that we take for granted. Now. I mean, can you imagine not having Wi Fi or email are? Yeah, advances in technology that certainly made our lives easier and better and allowed work to be more of an integration rather than like a, you must be here to work.

Kerry Guard: It's true, that's definitely true. It's going to be interesting to see where AI and chat CBT and things like that sort of take us as new tools, you know, come out of it that try and I don't want to say fake feeling and empathy. But I know that that's already sort of in the works. There's tools out there to detect if it's aI written, there's tools already out coming out to not necessarily combat it, but to offset it, which is awesome. You know, it's gonna be interesting to see where it goes.

**Kathryn Strachan:**Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely

Kerry Guard: the potential. Thank you so much, Kathryn, I'm so grateful for your insight into how you're thinking about it as a copywriter. I think there's a lot of questions around. I feel like you sort of took you, you didn't take the air out of it. But like, you brought us back down to reality. And I think we needed some grounding. And so I'm grateful for this conversation. Thank you so much. Before we close out I do have a call my people first questions a chance for people to get to know you beyond being the marketer that you are if you're ready. Yeah, go for it. Here we go. First one. Have you picked up any new hobbies these last? Well, I mean, you started your business, the middle of the pandemic, but are right before the pandemic, but maybe outside of your business. Have you picked up any other hobbies?

**Kathryn Strachan:**Yeah, I mean, I recently got back into skiing. So I grew up at the bottom of the ski mountain and grew up as in my early 20s was a ski instructor at one of those big resorts in Northern California. And about three weeks ago, went skiing in the Alps for six days and literally today have booked another like five day trip in Italy in a couple of weeks time. So I would say my newest hobby is but it's not a new hobby because I've been doing it my whole life as well. My newest regained hobby, I should say is skiing.

Kerry Guard: I love it. Love it. And what a great place to be next year to be able to go do that. I mean, the how I don't know if we mentioned this but Catherine's in London. So that's why Yeah. The second question, were you, Catherine, if you could travel anywhere in the world, which sounds like you're about to with this while the ski trips. But if there's anywhere else you'd want to go, where would you go and why? Um,

**Kathryn Strachan:**I don't know, I'm going through a little bit of a weird phase at the moment where I'm not travelling too much, because I spent all of last year on the road travelling Latin America. So my family and I, we travelled all over Latin America for a whole year, we were moving to new hotels every three, four days. And we saw literally all of it. So we feel a little tired of travelling now. So I was going to go to Indonesia in March, but actually, I've decided that I want to do things a little bit different this year, and keep my feet on the ground and stay in London and be settled for once rather than hopping about and travelling here, there and everywhere and spending months at a time and beaches in Bali. And you know, wherever else, instead, I'm going to do something radically different and stay in one place.

Kerry Guard: It sounds you sort of got your can't travel for two years bug out of your system last year with going all out. So that's awesome.

**Kathryn Strachan:**I overdid it a little bit.

Kerry Guard: I take a break and and settle back in until you get the bug again. That's great. Um, last question for you is it sounds like your team's remote. Are you all in London.

**Kathryn Strachan:**I'm in London. But my team's fully remote. But we travel as and when we need to. So we're all going to well, about five of us are going to Brighton tomorrow to see one of our clients. And we run workshops in person in London and host client events and do lots of things here in London. But the team is fully remote as well. So it does mean that you know we have to travel sometimes, but it's a nice model, because we don't need to be in London every day.

Kerry Guard: I love it. Thank you so much Kathryn. I'm so grateful.

Kathryn Strachan: Thank you for having me.

Outro

That was my conversation with Katherine if you'd like to learn more about Katherine or copy house, please check out the show notes links are below what a great episode okay conversation

Katherine, thank you so much for joining me!