How to use AI for your content strategy, the essential basics explained for long term success
Dear CEO CMO, this is what you need to know in 2025 to update and improve your content strategy
Did you know 50% of people recognize and engage less with AI-generated content? And that 51% of marketing want to work with it but lack knowledge and training?
If you want to use AI for your content marketing strategy and are looking for a head start, this is what you need to know and apply.
All have these principles in common:
- The strategic advantage comes from people who work with AI, not from AI itself
- To stand out and be noticed, you must dare to show your true, authentic colors. Don't hide in the middle, being afraid to alienate audiences.
- Successful usage of AI means prioritizing brand identity and ethics over efficiency, quality over quantity, and long-term brand storytelling and growth over short-term vanity metrics
There is no quick hack, no cutting corners, you also don't need more content, the cost savings are different than you think, and why your employees keep quiet that they use AI. Lastly, how to be accountable and give clarity in the C-suite.
How to use AI in your content strategy
But first, how and where in the content marketing strategy you can use AI. Give or take, these should be the elements of your strategy:
- Brand identity and business objectives: who are you and why do you do what you do. Align this with your business objectives
- Research: SWOT, audience, competitors, content audit, SEO, analytics, sales data and seasonality
- Define goals, topics, and how to realize them: why do you produce content, what's your story, and how do you measure the results
- Planning: calendar, reuse strategy, production planning. Align with your resources and processes. Is it feasible
- Production: ideate and create, create your assets to fit distribution not for the sake of distribution
- Distribution and paid promotion: include a-synchronicity between channels to get more bang for your buck
- Reporting and KPIs: C-suite reporting and vanity metrics for daily management
You can use AI in all phases. There's no golden rule on what to do and how to do it.
The only rule is not to prompt your way into a content strategy.
- An AI-generated content strategy will get something generic, and this very probably will not move the sales needle in the long term
- Do you want to upload all your insights and data to AI to get the strategy? Really?
- Strategy is a craft for a reason. Creating something different takes a somewhat dirty, twisted mind. Often, it's the unpredictable uncommon connections made that make you stand out and create measurable impact
The magic is in your strategic thinking, and AI helps you. AI is not to replace human innovation and creativity.
Below, the top 5 articles on content and AI, in random order.
1. AI and (ghost)writing
Make AI content feel real and high-quality with five steps: define your brand voice, set AI to match your style, write clear prompts, use AI for ideas (but stay in control), and always edit before publishing.
→ AI and (ghost)writing, a 5 step framework for high-quality, authentic content
2. Make your content stick
To make your content memorable, repeat key messages 5 to 7 times. This repetition helps move information from short-term to long-term memory. Republish and repurpose existing content to reinforce your message without creating new material each time.
→ Master the rule of 5 to 7: make your content stick
3. AI and GPTs for proofreading
Improve your content by using AI tools like ChatGPT for proofreading. These tools can help identify and correct errors, suggest improvements, and ensure your writing is clear and engaging.
→ AI and GPTs for proofreading and improve the quality of your content
4. Define your tone of voice
To make your content sound like you, start by collecting a few pieces you've written that show your style. Use ChatGPT to analyze these and define your unique voice. Then, set this voice in ChatGPT's 'Custom Instructions' for consistent responses.
→ How to use ChatGPT to create content: define your tone of voice
5. 2 step guide for 'Custom Instructions'
Get better answers from ChatGPT with less effort. By using 'Custom Instructions' and the 'for canvas' tool, you can shape responses to fit your needs. This saves time, improves accuracy, and makes editing easier.
→ Improve your ChatGPT output: a 2 step guide for 'Custom Instructions'
Frequently asked questions about content and AI
- How can I use AI to create content?
There are two ways. The common quick and dirty, which results in generic mediocre content; prompt-and-go. And the more thought-through process where you spend a lot of time on the strategic framework and processes, AI configuration, and operational workflow. Which results in AI-powered high-quality engaging content.
Of course, every leader wants quality over speed. But it takes effort; please realize this takes seniority, serious budget, and time.
- How much time and budget can I save by using AI for content?
If you follow the process above, you can create content in 25% to 33% of the time and 2x as fast. Please note that these are our savings. And realize that we invested heavily in the setup upfront.
- How to be authentic when using AI?
This is simpler than you think. Add your tone of voice to your prompts, or bake this into your AI tool configuration. ‘How to use ChatGPT to create content: define your tone of voice’
I always get the feedback that my content is so recognizable me, as if you hear me speaking when you read my copy. However, all my content is AI-powered. I configured ChatGPT in such a way that AI's response sounds like me, and I have to spend little to no time editing.
More relevant reads
These might help you improve your content even more.
- Books to read to improve your marketing and content skills
- LinkedIn algorithm secrets. All you need to know, and what I didn't
- How I got 42,000+ readers and 2,000 subscribers with 8 hours a week
- 2025 Content trends; humanity as a counterbalance for AI and social media fatigue
- Get better AI results. The why and how elements of a good prompt, explained by example
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Sources
Everything Content newsroom (yes, it's mine), Study reveals how consumers interact with AI-generated content vs human-made
Confessions of a Content Strategist
Someone tells you it's AI-generated. You've already decided: low effort, low quality. And you haven't read a word yet.
You're not entirely wrong. A lot of AI content is bad.
But you're wrong about why.
Scanning copy for em dashes like they're evidence of AI? Let's be honest about what that is. It's lazy. The same kind of lazy as writers who let AI write for them without thinking. You're just doing it from the other side of the …
The AI problem isn't awareness. It's that nobody at the top knows where or how to start. So they don't. AI isn't a tool problem. It's a thinking problem. And it can only be solved from the top.
Now, they accept what …
The market is drowning in content. And marketing's response is to make more. AI made it cheaper, so the assumption became: produce more, reach more, grow more.
But volume was never the problem to solve. And ‘more’ has never been the answer.
Using AI for content production can save you up to 40% of your time. This sounds like the magic trick to lower the costs of your content team, right?
Well, sorry to bring the bad news; it isn’t.
→ Yes, …
How much content do you need? It’s much less than you think. About 10% of your content drives 90% of your traffic. If that isn’t 5-95 by now, thanks to AI overviews now replacing clicks in Google search results.
We’re in …
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