Where Does the Human in the Loop Fit for B2B Content Creation?

‍

As the Head of Content Strategy at Copy.ai, I've seen firsthand how AI is transforming the way we create content. With a background spanning roles at companies like Snipcart, OptinMonster, and Animalz, I've developed a deep understanding of what it takes to produce high-quality content at scale.

Over the years, I've honed my expertise in areas like SEO, lead capture strategies, and post-event nurturing campaigns. I've also had the privilege of working with both bootstrapped and VC-backed B2B SaaS companies, giving me a diverse perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the industry.

One of my passions is finding ways to automate workflows and leverage AI to make content creation more efficient. That's why I'm excited to share my insights on how AI is streamlining the content creation process and enabling teams to produce better content faster.

In this post, I'll be discussing three main ways that AI is transforming content creation:

1. How AI handles the initial drafting process, eliminating a major bottleneck
2. How AI frees up humans to focus on higher-value strategic and creative work
3. How AI enables faster, more streamlined content workflows from start to finish

By the end of this post, you'll have a clear understanding of how AI can help your team create more impactful content in less time, without sacrificing quality or creativity.

The Challenges of Manual Content Creation

Over the years, I've seen firsthand how traditional content creation workflows can be incredibly inefficient and time-consuming. The biggest bottleneck is always the initial drafting phase, which can take days of intensive work to complete for a single article.

Research shows that on average, it takes over 3 hours to write a 1000 word blog post, and high-quality posts often require 6 or more hours of effort when you factor in research and editing. That's a huge time suck, especially when you're trying to scale up content production to feed always-on marketing campaigns.

The problem is that this initial drafting work is highly labor-intensive, but it's also relatively low-value in the grand scheme of things.

You need the draft to get started, but the real magic happens in the editing and polishing phase, where you can hone the messaging and really make the content shine.

Unfortunately, when writers are spending so much time on the initial draft, they have less bandwidth for the high-impact optimization work that takes the content from good to great. As a result, content quality suffers, or production timelines get stretched out to accommodate all the necessary revisions.

Either way, it's a lose-lose situation.

How AI Streamlines Content Creation

I've found that AI can automate many of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming aspects of the content creation process.

Instead of spending hours or even days manually researching and writing first drafts, we now rely on AI to handle this heavy lifting. The AI assistant can quickly analyze top-ranking content on a given topic, identify key information to include, and generate a comprehensive initial draft in a matter of minutes.

This allows our human writers to focus their efforts on refining the messaging, editing for clarity and brand voice, and optimizing the content for our target audience. They can take the AI-generated draft and mold it into a compelling, publish-ready piece in a fraction of the time it used to take.

We're also able to put more emphasis on content promotion and distribution, since we're not bogged down in the weeds of research and writing. The team can spend their time building relationships, identifying key channels, and developing promotional assets to drive visibility and engagement.

Overall, the content creation process becomes much more streamlined and efficient with AI handling the most laborious steps. What used to take days or weeks can now be accomplished in a matter of hours, without sacrificing content quality or depth. It's been a game-changer for our team's productivity and output.

Benefits of AI-Powered Content Workflows

One of the biggest advantages I've seen with AI-powered content creation is the ability to dramatically compress timelines. What used to take days of intensive effort can now be done in a matter of hours. Through automating the most time-consuming parts of the process, like research and first drafts, we can turn around high-quality, comprehensive articles in as little as 1-2 hours.

This efficiency unlocks the ability to scale our content programs strategically.

With faster turnaround times, we can produce a much higher volume and velocity of content to feed our always-on campaigns and demand generation efforts. The increase in output is a game-changer.

But we're not sacrificing quality for quantity.

Our subject matter experts are still very much involved, providing strategic direction up front and reviewing and editing the AI-generated drafts to ensure the content is accurate, resonates with our target audiences, and aligns with our brand voice and messaging.

The result is the best of both worlds - we get the speed and scale of AI-powered content generation, with the nuance and quality control that only human experts can provide. It's a powerful combination that gives us a real competitive advantage in the market.

Final Thoughts: AI and Human Collaboration is Key

Traditional content creation workflows are highly inefficient, with the initial drafting phase acting as a major bottleneck that can consume days of intensive work. However, AI writing assistants can now automate many of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming aspects of content creation.

By handling the initial drafting quickly, AI eliminates this bottleneck and enables human writers to focus on higher-value work like strategic direction, editing, and distribution.

The end result is a streamlined process that compresses content creation timelines from days down to just 1-2 hours per piece.

For go-to-market teams, this AI-powered content workflow can be an absolute game-changer. It allows you to dramatically increase content output and velocity to feed always-on campaigns and demand generation engines. At the same time, human experts remain firmly in charge of the strategic direction, quality control, and brand voice alignment that's essential for creating content that truly resonates with your target audience.

While AI can automate the tedious upfront research and drafting work, it still requires human direction to be effective. The key is to view AI as a collaborative tool - one that augments human capabilities rather than replacing them outright. By leveraging the speed and efficiency of AI while retaining the creative oversight and strategic direction of human experts, marketing teams can unlock a powerful competitive advantage.

The combination of AI-driven efficiency and human-driven quality is the future of content marketing. It's a paradigm that allows organizations to strategically scale content creation in a cost-effective way, without sacrificing the caliber and impact of the end product. For teams that get this balance right, the ability to deliver high-quality thought leadership content at scale will be a true strategic differentiator in an increasingly crowded market.