As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, businesses can use it to take on an increasing number of tasks. A number of AI tools in the market can help with writing, marketing, sales, and automation. One of the most popular is undoubtedly ChatGPT, which has become a valuable toolfor automating and improving numerous digital marketing activities.
This article explores the different ways businesses use AI tools to generate income, and how to use ChatGPT to make money by increasing efficiency on your team.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses natural language processing technology to analyze text-based inputs and generate human-like written (and visual, in the case of ChatGPT Plus) responses. ChatGPT is based on a large language model (LLM) called Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT). Both GPT and the ChatGPT AI tool were developed by the company OpenAI, and ChatGPT was first released to the public in November 2022.
Ways to make money with ChatGPT
- Write blogs
- Write social media posts
- Write a script
- Translate content
- Conduct keyword research
- Support sales outreach
- Provide customer service
- Brainstorm ideas
- Conduct market research
- Make ChatGPT your personal assistant
There are multiple ways to make money with ChatGPT as an ecommerce business owner: You can use it to create content for a range of applications, support keyword or market research, and increase the efficiency of your internal team. Here are business ideas and activities that ChatGPT can help you with:
Write blogs
ChatGPT boasts impressive content creation abilities. Although you’ll need to employ a human writer in the editing process (both to ensure accuracy and to adjust content for brand voice and tone), you can use ChatGPT to write high-quality content such as a blog post from start to finish.
Using ChatGPT to write blog posts can significantly cut down on your marketing and content writing budget, and you can use these blog posts to attract visitors to your site, thus boosting website traffic, sales from ad placements (if you have them), and online sales made on your website.
Write social media posts
Creating social media content is a time-consuming activity, but ChatGPT offers a great way to speed up the process. You can use ChatGPT to generate copy for social media posts or to adjust copy for use on specific social media platforms. Simply provide it with source text and ask it to adjust the length and style.
Here’s a sample of AI-generated posts, with different styles and word counts for different platforms:
Write a script
ChatGPT 3.5 is a text-based application, meaning you can’t use it to generate images or video content. It also doesn’t analyze visual content, write video descriptions, or transcribe audio. However, ChatGpt can be used for writing scripts for videos, podcasts, or radio spots. ChatGPT can also help you format scripts according to standard conventions, edit existing scripts, or make scripts more punchy. Starting with AI-generated content and customizing it for your brand can help your creative teams work efficiently and give you multiple options to choose from.
By using ChatGPT to write your content marketing scripts, businesses can lower their marketing and content budgets, and use the content they create (podcasts, social media videos, YouTube tutorials, etc.) to boost traffic and, ultimately, sales.
Translate content
ChatGPT can process text in multiple languages, which means you can use it to translate content and navigate any language barriers you may encounter in your work. You might use it to translate marketing content for an international conference or assist customers in a language in which your team isn’t fluent.
You can also provide translation context. For example, you might ask ChatGPT to translate a medical text so that it’s easier for a general readership to understand. Translating your content can help you reach new audiences and expand your consumer base.
Conduct keyword research
You can use ChatGPT to support your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy by asking it to identify the most popular keywords associated with a specific subject. You can also ask it to find long-tail keywords. For example, for the topic “skijoring,” ChatGPT identifies 20 keywords, including “skijoring harness,” “skijoring leash,” and “cross-country skiing with dogs.” It also recommends long-tail keywords including "winter dog sports for small breeds, “skijoring training tips for beginners,” and “skijoring with multiple dogs tips.”
ChatGPT can create keyword-optimized content or rework existing content to feature specific keywords. In the long term, your optimized content can attract more organic traffic to your website, generating more sales.
Support sales outreach
ChatGPT can help you quickly create and personalize marketing emails related to sales outreach activities, such as making introductions, offering discounts to customers, or requesting a meeting or call.
Here’s an example of an outreach email generated by ChatGPT. Note that the more information you provide in your prompt, the more tailored your answers are likely to be:
Provide customer service
Open AI can augment your customer support team in many ways: For example, it can generate human-like text responses to frequently asked customer questions that your support team can review and adjust for accuracy and tone. You can also use ChatGPT to automatically create summaries of your customer support conversations or process customer service information to identify the most common issues.
Helpful customer service can have many benefits, and since it helps with customer retention and reduces cart abandonment, it can lead to an increase in your bottom line.
Brainstorm ideas
Ask ChatGPT to help you generate content ideas to kickstart the content creation process. An empty page can be daunting when you’re brainstorming, and ChatGPT can help you get started by providing lists of ideas to choose from.
For example, the prompt “Please generate ideas for an organic apparel company’s blog” returned 12 blog ideas, including titles and descriptions, such as “The Benefits of Organic Cotton: A Deep Dive into Sustainable Fabric,” which explores “the environmental and health benefits of choosing organic cotton over conventional cotton for clothing.”
Conduct market research
ChatGPT can help provide valuable insights into your target audience so you can optimize your advertising and marketing strategies to drive sales. For example, you can ask it to identify the largest consumer groups for a specific product or to provide information about the needs, values, and shopping behaviors of a specific demographic. Having a clearly defined target audience can help narrow your marketing efforts and make your advertising and marketing dollars more effective.
ChatGPT can also help you identify competitors in your space (and cut down on market research costs). Note that ChatGPT’s information has a cut-off date (for example, GPT 3.5 is trained on data that stops in January 2022), so the information provided may not be entirely timely.
For example, when asked which demographics purchase the most luxury sleepwear, ChatGPT returns a list of six traits, including “affluent consumers,” “ages 25 to 55,” and “urban dwellers.” When asked to identify “competitors in the luxury sleepwear space,” it references 10 companies, including La Perla, Sleeper, and Agent Provocateur and provides a one-sentence description of each.
Make ChatGPT your personal assistant
Although ChatGPT can’t pick up your dry cleaning or get you coffee, it can save you money by handling a number of functions you or your team members might otherwise have to do: You can use the AI tool to do time-consuming research, conduct analysis, and write code in a number of programming languages.
To get the most out of ChatGPT, try treating it as a personal assistant. Before you take on a labor-intensive task yourself (like summarizing IRS updates to a tax policy for your clients or creating an email invite to your holiday party), see if ChatGPT can do it for you. The more tasks you can do in less time, the more money you can save.
Tips for using ChatGPT to make money
- Augment your staff (and get their buy-in)
- Take time to personalize for your brand
- Always double-check information
These three tips can help businesses use the AI tool’s ability to quickly create high-quality content and make money using ChatGPT:
Augment your staff (and get their buy-in)
ChatGPT can’t replace your customer service, creative, or administrative teams—but it can make them more efficient. Consult your teams on what tasks can be most effectively optimized by using AI tools, and make sure your employees are well-trained and understand how to use them. You may also want to create policies around how to use ChatGPT and other chatbots. For example, you may decide not to disclose any confidential information or client information in the prompts.
Take time to personalize for your brand
ChatGPT’s content is inherently generic—it predicts textual sequences based on content that already exists, not based on your specific brand personality and offerings. That means that if you replace all of your content with AI-generated text, you might sound polished, professional, and clear, but you won’t sound distinctive.
Give your team updated brand guidelines so they can personalize and customize the AI-generated content. You’re also more likely to get answers that work for your brand if you provide more detailed prompts; specifying word counts, style, product names, etc. can help make the output more suitable for your needs. For example, try saying “Write me a product description for a white button-down shirt with flower-shaped buttons. Make the tone fun, use exclamation points, and keep the word count between 15 and 30 words.” This prompt is likely to produce a better response than one that simply asks for “a product description for a white shirt.”
Always double-check information
ChatGPT can make mistakes, and its information is not always up to date. It can also make up authoritative-sounding claims that are completely fabricated (these are called hallucinations). Since ChatGPT doesn’t provide links to sources, it’s important to fact-check all AI-generated information.
Just like humans, AI tools may be biased. Checking all content to prevent bias makes your content better and prevents discrimination (however unintended) against any communities or groups of people.
How to use ChatGPT to make money FAQ
Is ChatGPT free to use?
ChatGPT, trained on GPT-3.5, is free to use. ChatGPT Plus, which uses GPT-4, a more advanced model, costs $20 per month.
Do you need specific training to use ChatGPT?
No. You don’t need any special training to use ChatGPT.
When should you avoid using ChatGPT for your business?
Avoid using ChatGPT to manage sensitive financial or client information, dispense legal or medical advice, or to make decisions that otherwise require discretion and expertise.
