It’s likely that you’ve heard rumblings about ChatGPT over the past few months. It’s impossible to scroll through LinkedIn or other feeds without reading accolades, predictions and trepidation about what the generative AI app means for the future.
A little background: ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, uses a language processing model to predict responses to queries. Its responses are remarkably human-like and take only seconds to generate. And unlike a Google search, it serves up answers and clear and straightforward sentences instead of a list of links to resources.
That means you can ask ChatGPT to answer a question from a particular point of view, generate a list of ideas, or even write copy and watch the answers type themselves out on your screen.
While the capabilities of ChatGPT may not be relevant for every industry out there, the tool has the potential to support home furnishings manufacturers in certain areas and free up time for members of your team to spend on more strategic tasks.
Though, it’s important to note that ChatGPT isn’t meant to replace human research and expertise altogether. No matter the use case, you’ll want to make sure there is someone providing oversight to any work you ask of it and not taking ChatGPT’s outputs as gospel.
Here are three ways home furnishings manufacturers might want to consider taking ChatGPT for a spin.
1. Use ChatGPT to generate ideas for more robust product information.
When it comes to product information online, it’s the more, the merrier. Robust product information helps ensure products get discovered on websites and gives customers the confidence to convert.
But knowing what information to gather can be challenging, whether because you’re selling online for the first time, you’re very familiar with the product firsthand or you’re relying on little information from the factory.
A useful prompt for ChatGPT is to ask it to play a role and offer the perspective for that role—for example, that of a customer:
This provides a decent starting framework for the type of product information you’ll want to make sure you have for that category—but it’s nothing revolutionary. You can ask ChatGPT follow-up questions to get more specific or closer to what you’re looking for:
That’s not a bad list of questions to make sure a product detail page has answers to. It can also provide inspiration for writing a product’s romance copy or creating visual assets.
The outputs of ChatGPT are only as good as its prompts, so it’s worthwhile to experiment with different inputs to see what each yield. You can also provide ChatGPT feedback, whether through a follow-up prompt, the thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating or asking it to regenerate a response.
2. ChatGPT can help write copy for product descriptions and more
Romance copy—the few colorful sentences on the product page that describe an item and sell its possibilities—can be a trying project if you don’t have a copywriter on your team. But not only is romance copy required on most retail websites in order to publish product, it also is a pivotal piece of content to help convert a shopper. ChatGPT can help bring a product’s features and benefits to life by writing that romance copy from the features and benefits you provide it with.
Using AI for product descriptions is hardly a new technology, but the capabilities of ChatGPT make it an especially useful tool for writing projects like this. Here’s an example:
Not too shabby for a first pass, but ChatGPT’s conversational nature lets you continue to prompt it with additional feedback to really zero in on the tone or voice you’re looking for. You can also ask it to regenerate the response for an additional variation using the same information.
Aside from the writing itself, you can also ask ChatGPT to:
- Generate compelling ideas for what to highlight in a product’s romance copy
- Ask for suggested keywords to optimize product descriptions for search
- Create variations of existing product descriptions for different retailers or audiences, or just to refresh current copy
You could also use ChatGPT’s writing capabilities to jump-start writing your brand story, copy about a product collection or other copy to support marketing efforts.
As we mentioned at the beginning, there should still always be a human involved to review anything written by ChatGPT and edit as needed. The tool provides a fairly solid foundation for copywriting if you don’t have an in-house resource or otherwise struggle to get the copy that’s needed to publish product on your retail partner websites—but always plan to QA!
3. Let ChatGPT streamline market research
ChatGPT can summarize information simply and succinctly, making it an easy way to research certain topics without clicking through a long list of links or sorting through a ton of data.
Try asking ChatGPT to:
- Summarize or analyze customer feedback (you can put any info/copy you want it to review right into the chat box)
- Identify relevant trends in your industry or category
- Understand a new market or a specific audience
Here’s a really simple example of asking ChatGPT for ideas on how to reach a particular demographic:
From there, you can add follow-up prompts to zero in on one idea or tailor it to what information you’re looking for.
Again, use these as a jumping-off point, not an end-to-end solution. You know your business best, and ChatGPT can’t replace human research and expertise.
Tips for giving ChatGPT a try
If you’re ready to give ChatGPT a go, here are a few tips to make the most of it:
- Experiment with your prompts. Its competencies may not be apparent on the first try, so be patient to find what works. Iterate your prompts, be as specific as possible and provide feedback to see what it can really do.
- Figure out the benefit for your brand. What pain points or gaps do you have in your business that ChatGPT might fit into? Maybe your product description copy is lackluster or takes too long to create. Maybe its translating your product info from showrooms to digital. Determine where ChatGPT could improve your processes and work to create a place for it.
- Don’t let it do all the work. Have we hammered this one home? While ChatGPT is pretty incredible, AI still needs to balance technology with a human touch. Don’t over-rely on the automation.
ChatGPT is an innovative tool that has the potential to play a role in your home furnishings business. Manufacturers who are willing to learn and experiment with it may find it useful to better understand their customer, write conversion-focused copy or prime product information for online sales.
