Should you use ChatGPT and other AI for your school marketing?
If you haven’t seen it already, ChatGPT is taking up much of today’s news cycles in a number of industries, including tech, healthcare, education, and more.
Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT (or “Generative Pre-Transformer”) is a machine learning language model that is trained on an exceptionally large dataset of information to communicate with humans based on prompts the human enters in a chat box. The tool is designed in a dialogue format, encouraging open communication and conversation between users and the AI. If you haven’t played around with it yet, you should! You can ask ChatGPT nearly anything, even how to explain quantum computing to a kindergartner. ChatGPT and other AI tools are taking the world by storm, now especially in marketing, for their unique capabilities to support marketing staff in developing copy, improving SEO strategies, and more. Not to mention, ChatGPT is currently free to use!
While ChatGPT is trendy right now, it’s important to note that it’s not the first time AI is being used to support marketing and website development! In this blog, we’ll dig into how ChatGPT can support your school marketing, what other tools are out there, and touch on what AI’s limits are in developing content for marketing and website copy.
So, what can ChatGPT do for my school marketing?
In short, plenty! Here are just a few ways ChatGPT or other AI tools could support your school’s marketing strategy.
- Developing emails with personalized communication— Sick of writing long, hyper-detailed emails to your current and potential school families? Not to worry. ChatGPT can actually be trained on a set of personalized emails with your school’s messaging and voice, and can be customized to the interests and background of prospective school families.
- Keyword research for SEO— One of ChatGPT’s many uses in marketing is helping you conduct keyword research to boost your SEO strategy. The tool can help compare keywords, perform search intent analysis, and help you develop a complete keyword strategy.
- Developing promotional copy— Often, catchy and concise copy can be difficult to think of, especially if you’re in a hurry. Luckily, AI can whip up promotional copy for brochures, social media posts, posters, some website content, and more in no time.
While tools like ChatGPT are proving to be helpful in marketing strategy, it is important to note that no one knows your school’s messaging, branding, and target audiences more than you and your team. So, while ChatGPT will generate extremely human-like content that may work for your messaging, know that this might not always be the case and content the tool produces should be edited to match your voice and used on a case by case basis.
Other AI tools to try
ChatGPT isn’t the only AI on the market that can support your small school marketing. If you’re looking to try out an AI tool to supplement your current marketing tactics, here are a few options outside of ChatGPT:
- Copysmith: Copysmith is another AI tool with very similar capabilities to ChatGPT, but it is tailored to marketers. In the example below, we asked Copysmith to write an introductory email to new parents with children attending a Montesorri preschool.
As you can see, the email is pretty vague and would definitely need to be tweaked with the correct information (customized directly to your school, of course), but it does provide a good foundation to an introductory email! Command copy isn’t the tool’s only function— you can also have content (blogs, press releases, campaign content, website copy, and more) edited, enhanced, rewritten in a different tone, etc. Outside of content, you can also generate social media content, build website landing pages, and more.
You can try Copysmith for free with a free trial, but plans run fairly budget friendly with beginner plans priced at $19/month, and professional plans at $59/month. Check out their full pricing details and play around with the tool!
- Jasper: Jasper is another generative AI tool geared towards marketers. Not only can it develop content like blogs, reports, emails, and stories, but it offers a ChatGPT-like dialogue technology called “Jasper Chat” that conversates naturally with humans. On top of those capabilities, it can generate high-quality art used in promotional materials, ads, and more. Check out their Jasper Art demo on Youtube!
As another added bonus, Jasper is offered in 29 languages. Jasper’s pricing plans are arranged monthly and annually on a sliding scale based on how many words you generate each month. For example, 50,000 words a month with Jasper’s annual plan is $49 a month. There are two plans, “Boss” and “Business,” and both are customized to your needs.
How and when should I use an AI tool to support marketing and SEO for schools?
As we’ve said, AI can help you develop strong pieces of writing for your marketing campaigns and blog— check out this portion of a blog post we had ChatGPT develop below on the topic of “How to create a website for preschool,” with no human edits:
When creating a website for a preschool, there are several important things to consider. Here are some key factors to keep in mind:
- Simplicity and ease of use: Your website should be easy to navigate, and the information should be presented in a clear and concise manner. This is especially important for parents who may be busy and trying to quickly find information.
- Safety and security: Since you’ll be dealing with young children, it’s important to ensure that your website is secure and safe for both children and parents. Be sure to follow best practices for data protection and privacy, and consider adding security measures like SSL certificates.
- Clear and concise messaging: Your website should communicate the values, goals, and mission of your preschool in a clear and concise manner. Make sure that parents can easily understand what sets your preschool apart from others, and why it would be a good fit for their child.
- Responsive design: It’s important to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices, as many parents may be viewing your website on their phones or tablets. A responsive design will ensure that your website looks great and is easy to use on any device.
- Engaging content: Your website should have engaging and informative content that is relevant to parents and children. Consider including photos, videos, and testimonials from parents and students to help give potential families a sense of what life is like at your preschool.
- Contact information: Be sure to prominently display your contact information on your website so that parents can easily get in touch with you. Consider adding a contact form, email address, phone number, and physical address to make it easy for parents to reach out.
Overall, the key to a successful preschool website is to make it easy to use, engaging, and informative. By following these guidelines, you can create a website that effectively communicates your preschool’s mission and values, while also making it easy for parents to learn more and get in touch.
Pretty good, huh? That being said, AI shouldn’t be used to create all of your marketing content. ChatGPT and other AI tools of this nature are great for developing ideas and getting content started, but they shouldn’t be the main developers of your school website’s marketing copy.
Google’s advanced algorithm will most likely detect longer pieces of content developed by AI. The search engine purposefully ranks unique, human-generated content. With that in mind, using these AI tools to generate SEO meta descriptions, alt text and SEO titles are great ideas to take some extra work off your shoulders but still keep you in the creative driver’s seat for writing compelling content.
As we’ve said above, AI tools like this are great for setting the foundation for your content, generating new ideas, doing SEO research and more, but ultimately it does have its limits. We definitely recommend playing around with ChatGPT and other AI tools listed above to see how they can support your marketing team in elevating your small school!
Contact Us
AI isn’t the only resource available to help take your school website and marketing strategy to the next level— contact us for a free 15 minute consultation on how we can support your small school and help you achieve the website of your dreams.