Enterprise Content AI Implementation Success Story

Is artificial intelligence a marketer’s archnemesis or can it be your new best friend? Is it worth the effort to learn all the AI do’s and don’ts? Can you trust the results?

Our clients and colleagues are using AI to kickstart their writing, streamline their processes, and back up their hunches. It’s a great support tool, though the consensus is that it can’t provide the all-important authenticity that makes your messages resonate.

Savvy strategists like Patrick Kelly at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, use AI to offload some tasks that often bog down projects. Patrick is having great success adopting AI support tools and using the time he’s saving to enhance Harper’s stories and complete more content strategy initiatives.

Here are three use cases Patrick is sharing with content teams nationwide through conference speaking engagements and workshops. Contact Patrick Kelly on LinkedIn.

#1 Refresh Certificate Content with Fresh Job Data

ChatGPT might be the most recognizable AI content platform but it’s far from the only option. You’ll find AI content generators developed specifically for marketing, SEO, image optimization, language translation, video narration and transcripts, and web analytics.

Challenge for Harper College: Turn languishing partial-credit program pages into vibrant user- and search-friendly content.

Harper’s plan:  Use Google Gemini, formerly known as Google Bard, to generate copy for job-specific courses and certifications, e.g., truck driving, coding in Python, prepping as a veterinary assistant, or earning a real estate license. Patrick tested and chose Gemini because he had confidence Google’s search expertise would prove valuable.

AI-supported results: Harper’s web traffic showed significant SEO gains. The site clicks increased 76% overall, with an increase of 170% in unbranded queries. The trucking page was up 28%, the Python coding page was up by 52%, and the top performer was the Real Estate page, gaining an astonishing 331% uptick in clicks.

What Harper College learned:

• Start with light writing on general topics. AI content should be brief and straightforward – look for ways to expand on existing content or combine multiple sources.
• Understand your audience. Specify the optimal reading level for your users. In general, an eighth-grade reading level works for most websites.
• Help the AI learn exactly what you need. Instead of “two paragraphs about becoming a real estate broker,” use prompts like “search-optimized webpage about training and job outlook for licensed real estate brokers in Illinois.”

#2 Build Structured Base Content in Half the TIme

Academia and healthcare websites rely on a foundation of structured, list-able content. For example, course descriptions, degree lists, and condition pages. Producing that kind of content starts with objective SEO data gathering and analysis—a perfect task for AI, with a little help from student employees.

Challenge for Harper College: Humanize the school’s 70+ career pages. Patrick’s team had the bare-bones details but needed to round out the content with meaningful, career-focused context.

Harper’s plan: Use Jasper.ai and thoroughly tested spreadsheet formulas to generate content options for narrative, search-friendly descriptions of career paths and job outlooks.

AI-supported results: Student workers completed basic content assignments quickly, even though most were not trained web content writers. That efficiency helped the team eliminate about 3.5 hours of foundational work per page, giving Patrick’s professional writing team more space for creative editing. The new content showed an increase of 217% in clicks for overall search, and a 358% increase in unbranded queries! See the Health Information Technology Careers page as an example.

What Harper College learned:

• Structured output requires structured input. Identify your specific content needs and the data you need to make it happen before you start using AI.
• Spreadsheets can guide organization. Content creators can use spreadsheets to house all the key data points they need for AI prompts and as holding places for outputs.
• Test and streamline the process before handing it off. A bit of trial and error can eliminate confusion and bottlenecks in workflows and processes when everyone is deep in the trenches.
• AI can be a valuable training tool. Structured content using documented processes is a great way to hand off to student workers or interns who don’t have the time for extensive onboarding or long-winded instructions.
• Keep your options open. Free AI platforms are a great way to learn, but paid platforms built by subject matter experts might be a better investment of your time.

#3 Highlight & Name New “8-Week Classes” Initiatives

The Harper College use case: Create a report highlighting programs where all the classes can be taken in eight-week formats and come up with a name for marketing the new “package” to prospective students.

Harper’s plan: Use Gemini to assess the data and generate the report. Then use Gemini to analyze those results alongside web traffic data to suggest initiative names that would generate the most traffic.

The results:  In addition to the naming suggestions, Patrick was also able to provide stakeholders from the academic departments with the rationale for each.

What Harper College learned:

• Use AI to explain the why. This is a huge plus for stakeholders who look for strong data to drive their decisions.
• Use the AI results as a starting point. Add your organization’s branding, tone, and voice to make it unique, or use it to guide decision-making discussions.
• Take advantage of AI to synthesize multiple data sources. Wondering why you’re suddenly getting traffic to a specific page?

AI can be useful, but strategy and storytelling matter most.

Colleagues like Patrick Kelly demonstrate that there’s no need to shy away from incorporating AI into your content production. As Sabra Fiala, AVP of Marketing at Stamats, summarizes, there are abundant ways that institutions can use AI to “innovate, empower, and positively impact lives” through content strategy.

We can quickly deliver highly effective SEO content using streamlined and documented processes, reaching audiences faster and with greater precision than ever before. That said, there’s a difference between content production and content creation. It takes strategic thinking and our deep instincts as communicators to create compelling stories for user journeys.

With all those hours saved, we’ll have more time to explore, refine, and imagine – and that’s where the magic of content strategy happens.

Related reading: 3 Rules for a Better SEO Linking Strategy