How to Create Marketing Content with AI (That Actually Sounds Good)

You've probably tried asking ChatGPT to write a blog post. And you've probably been disappointed. The output is grammatically perfect, vaguely helpful, and sounds like it was written by someone who's never actually run a business. Full of phrases like "in today's fast-paced digital landscape" and "leverage synergies to drive results."

That's not good marketing content. Good marketing content sounds like a real person sharing real expertise. It has opinions. It has personality. It says things that a generic template never would.

The problem isn't AI — it's how most people use AI. They type a vague prompt, accept the first draft, and publish. That's like hiring a writer, giving them zero context about your business, and expecting great work.

Here's how to actually create marketing content with AI that sounds good enough to put your name on.

Start with Your Brand Voice

Before you generate a single word of content, you need to define what your brand sounds like. This is the step that separates "obviously AI-written" from "wait, a person didn't write this?"

Grab 5–10 pieces of content you've already created that you love. Past emails to customers, social posts that got engagement, website copy you're proud of, even text messages where you explained your business to a friend. These are your voice samples.

From these, extract the patterns:

• Sentence length: Do you write short and punchy, or longer and more detailed?
• Formality: "We'd love to help" vs. "Let us assist you"
• Humor: Dry? Self-deprecating? None?
• First person: "I" (personal) or "we" (company)?
• Jargon: Do you use industry terms or plain language?
• Values: What do you always come back to? Quality? Speed? Honesty? Value?

This voice profile becomes the foundation for every piece of AI-generated content. When we set up a content AI employee at Stoke, the voice profile is the first thing we build — and we test it extensively before anything gets published.

Blog Posts: Your Secret SEO Weapon

Blog content is one of the highest-ROI marketing activities for small businesses, and one of the first things that gets dropped when you're busy. An AI content employee can produce 2–4 blog posts per week that are optimized for search and written in your voice.

Here's the process that works:

1. Topic selection: The AI identifies topics based on what your customers actually search for. A plumber's AI might generate posts like "Why Is My Water Heater Making a Banging Noise?" or "Tankless vs. Traditional Water Heaters: A Homeowner's Guide." These are real questions real customers Google.

2. Outline creation: Before writing, the AI generates an outline. This is your checkpoint — you can redirect the content before a full draft is written.

3. First draft: The AI writes the post in your voice, incorporating relevant keywords naturally. No keyword stuffing. No "as a [your industry] professional, I know..." filler.

4. Your input: This is where human expertise shines. You add the real-world anecdote about the customer whose water heater exploded at 3 AM. You add the local detail about hard water in your area. You add the opinion that your competitors won't share. These details make content genuinely valuable.

5. Final polish and publish: The AI formats, adds meta descriptions, and publishes. Total time from you: 10–15 minutes per post.

Businesses that publish 2+ blog posts per week see 3–4x more organic traffic than those publishing less than once a week. Over 6 months, that compounds into a significant lead source.

Social Media Captions

Captions need to be short, attention-grabbing, and platform-appropriate. The AI adapts — conversational and story-driven for Instagram, community-focused for Facebook, professional hot takes for LinkedIn, local-relevance updates for Google Business. Every post has a purpose: engagement, education, social proof, or conversion.

Email Newsletters

Email lists convert at 3–5x the rate of social media followers, but writing a biweekly newsletter takes 2–3 hours most owners don't have. An AI content employee curates from your blog posts and customer stories, writes the intro in your voice, and formats a clean, mobile-friendly layout. Your review time: 10–15 minutes. For a channel that delivers $36 in revenue for every $1 spent, that trade-off is easy.

The Quality Check

Here's the honest truth: AI content needs human review. Not because the AI writes poorly — it doesn't. But because the best content includes things AI can't generate on its own:

• Personal experiences and anecdotes
• Contrarian opinions based on real expertise
• Local knowledge and community references
• Emotional resonance that comes from actually caring about your customers

The workflow isn't "AI writes, you publish." It's "AI writes, you add the human parts, then publish." That combination is better than either alone.

Get Started

Content marketing is a long game, and the sooner you start, the more it compounds. An AI content employee gives you consistent, on-brand output without the 15–20 hours per week it would take to do it yourself.

Book a free consultation and we'll show you what AI-generated content would look like in your brand's voice.