A Marketer’s Quick Guide to AI Prompts
When using a high-tech artificial intelligence (AI) tool like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, you can’t just log on and expect it to be a mind-reader, delivering exactly what you need.
This is where many people end up frustrated, feeling like AI is useless and over-hyped. The truth is, your success in using AI begins and ends with your participation. It requires you to understand the most effective ways to prompt it.
Once you have this knowledge, you’ll be able to unleash the true power of AI that can benefit your business in many ways – from brainstorming ideas to crafting content, optimizing it for competitive domination and more.
Prompting doesn’t have to be confusing or complex. There are a few simple ways to prompt and redirect AI when using it, so let’s get you on the right path so you’re able to fully enjoy the assistance this tool can provide to you.
Following a Basic Prompt Process
There are some fundamental tips you should know about prompting AI when using it. Basically, it has the ability to understand human language and access to a training database (and sometimes up to date information) in order to form its output.
You enter a query or command and it delivers what it thinks you asked for. Therefore, you have to be detailed and clear about your needs. Entering a vague or unspecific query isn’t going to help you.
You should practice prompting AI with very basic commands to see how much additional detail is needed for whatever task you’re asking of it. For example, if you wanted ideas for a marketing campaign, you could prompt AI with: “Generate a list of innovative ideas for a social media marketing campaign promoting a new wellness product using TikTok.”
Tailoring Your Prompts for Specific Output
The next thing you need to know about prompting is to tailor the prompt with specifications about what you need. We’re not talking about the basic information in the fundamental prompt.
This is more about the formatting, the purpose, and more. Some details that will enhance your AI tool’s output include things like the goal of your request, the length of output you want, demographic and so on.
These are the other bits of information that will help AI give you a more precise answer. For example, if you were targeting a specific demographic like women who wanted to lose weight – or if you wanted a certain tone (empowering) or slant (easy and quick) for your social campaign, it helps to give AI this information.
Don’t overdo it, though. If you give too much detail, it can limit the ideas AI generates to something more restrictive. By practicing your prompts with AI, you’ll get a better understanding of how the process works – and sometimes, AI will prompt back asking you to include certain details or provide it with information that it needs.
You might prompt AI to create a blog post for you, but including a goal such as getting them to sign up to your list can make a difference in how the content unfolds and what kind of call to action it ends with.
The demographic details can affect the language used, the facts and style of the piece, etc. Even telling AI how many items you want or how long you’d like it to be can mean the difference between a single ideas or 300-word article and a list of 50 ideas or an 800-word article.
Advanced Prompt Techniques You Can Use
Moving on, you want to start to geta bit more advanced with your prompting. In order to achieve this goal, you need to understand conditional, sequential and context-based prompting.
Conditional prompts can be used to ensure AI’s output is one based on specific conditions you set forth before it replies. So if you’re a marketer looking to use ChatGPT to create an outline, you might use a conditional prompt like, “Given that [competitor product] is the #1 bestselling product in the marketplace, how can we set my info product apart with an outline that covers more or different topics this audience will desire?”
In order to reply, Ai has to take that condition into consideration first. Sequential prompting is when you break up prompts into bite-sized instructions rather than one long, broad prompt.
For example, you might want an overall marketing strategy to profit in the pet care niche, but you can break the prompts up where you first ask for trends in the niche, then ask for a competitive analysis, a demographic analysis, brainstorming of a unique topic, outlining and more.
When staying in the same Chat, it builds on the previous prompts and adds depth to its answers based on the current conversation you’re having with it – one you can log in and continue at any time.
Context-based prompts are a way of making sure AI understands your needs. So if you are in the weight loss niche, you might add context to the prompt by saying, “Help me create a brand motto while keeping in mind that my target audience is motivated by health issues rather than their appearance.”
Redirecting Through Prompts for Corrective Output
AI tools don’t always get things right – even when you provide it with the best basic and detailed prompts. Sometimes, you have to re-prompt or redirect it to get the end result you were looking for.
If the need arises to get AI back on track, there are easy ways to do it. Start by having custom instructions that AI knows to adhere to. These can be set up inside ChatGPT by clicking on your name then Custom Instructions.
Otherwise, you can clarify to AI where it’s gone wrong or what it needs to fix with the output it’s delivered. For example, if you wanted all paragraphs and no lists or bulletpoints and that’s what it delivered, you can simply say, “Redo this in paragraph format.”
Other ways you might have to redirect AI are in getting it to provide more depth or clarity in the content it produces, giving it a specific detail or fact to include, or even asking it to avoid certain topics.
There are times when you’ll notice AI keeps using the same topics or scenarios and you might want to prompt it with something like this: “Rewrite the piece and leave out any mention of eco-friendly products.”
Sometimes you’ll see the output and realize that you forgot to include a specific point like the demographic and that will make a difference. So you can simply redirect AI like this: “Rewrite the article and target a senior marketing audience.”
Let AI Guide You Through Your Prompts
AI has the ability to help you with prompts. This is a fascinating feature of tools like ChatGPT. If you need something, but don’t know how to ask for it, start by asking how to prompt it.
For example, you might say, “I want to get your help creating a social marketing plan for my YouTube channel. How do I prompt you for various aspects of this task?” When you do this, AI will break the tasks down and share example prompts with you.
So for instance, it will tell you that you can prompt: “Analyze the current stats of my YouTube channel [provide specifics] and help me set realistic goals for growth and engagement over the next year.”
If you spot a problem and need to redirect ChatGPT you can ask it the best way to do that. For example, you might say, “I notice you keep using analogies and flowery language in the content you create. What’s a good prompt to include to keep that out of your output?”
ChatGPT will tell you to include the following: “Please provide a direct, concise answer to [your question/topic] without using analogies, metaphors or decorative language. Focus strictly on clear, factual information.”
This is a collaboration and AI is here to help you make the most of your use of this technology. Any time you’re confused or hesitant, you can simply say, “I don’t know how to ask for the output I need. What can I do to learn how to prompt you for my needed output?”
It’s going to tell you everything it needs and how to work with it based on your initial prompts. Sometimes, you can even ask AI if it knows about something specific, such as a concept like curation or social listening.
It will respond with a confirmation (or denial) and let you know what it knows so that you can move forward. You might have a specific opinion and need to ask AI how to ensure it writes a piece of content from that particular viewpoint.
ChatGPT and other AI tools aren’t the kind of technology that leaves ordinary people left in a lurch because they can’t grasp complex tech tools. In fact, it’s been created with normal human language in mind – perfect to allow you to prompt it in the way you might talk to a living assistant who was on your payroll.