By skyforbes 
Let’s go ahead and state the obvious: AI is going to change everything about how you and the people on your team create marketing content.
You’re here because you’re curious about this new technology that’s making daily headlines and has been the topic of every other post on LinkedIn and Twitter since late 2022.
You’re here because you’re a lifelong learner who sees generative AI as an opportunity to level up your marketing skills.
And you’re here because, as a marketing leader or member of a marketing team, your company is relying on you to figure out how to use generative AI to deliver business outcomes and stay ahead of the competition.
If that’s why you’re here, you’re in the right place.
What you can expect from this guide
This guide will provide you with the knowledge and skills you need to become your company’s expert on using generative AI for marketing content creation.
We’ll cover
- How generative AI works (without getting too wordy or technical)
- Important things to know about working with AI before you start
- The inputs AI needs to generate strong output
- An easy, adaptable framework for crafting AI writing prompts for marketing use cases
- Must-have prompts for any marketing task (with examples)
And throughout it all, we’ll give you “behind-the-scenes” looks at the prompts we used with WRITER to develop this guide.
From brainstorming to writing to developing campaign strategies, you’ll be able to use AI tools like WRITER to generate content that’s informative, engaging, and on-brand. You’ll also discover how to use AI to personalize content for audiences, optimize content for search engine rankings, and create relevant content that’s tailored to your target audience’s journey. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to partner with AI tools to accelerate any marketing task without risking quality.
What this guide isn’t
This guide is in no way meant to be the “final word” in prompt crafting. It’s still early days for generative AI — an industry that’s experiencing an unprecedented pace of innovation. We’ll update this guide as needed to reflect current standards in AI technology.
Nor is this guide meant to educate you in prompt engineering, which is a discipline used in training large language models. While prompt crafting is informed by data science and natural language processing (NLP), it’s not necessary for you to be a programmer to get excellent results from generative AI tools. In fact, that’s the point: LLMs are trained to “speak human” so humans don’t have to “speak computer” to get AI tools to do what they need.
That said, “speaking human” often involves complex nuances and cultural assumptions that many people, including marketers, take for granted. Whether you’re communicating your desired outcomes to another member of your team or an AI tool, such nuances can cause gaps between your expectations and the outcomes you’ll get.
That’s where prompt crafting helps: it bridges those gaps, so you can clearly communicate, without nuance or assumption, what you want from a generative AI tool – and get it.
Find your own prompting style
There’s no one “right way” to work with generative AI. Here are a few examples of prompting styles we’ve seen as we use WRITER and train our customers on the platform.
Prompting approaches
“One and done” approach
You write up a quick AI prompt; your AI tool generates output as a starting point, and you edit from there.
“Layered” approach
You start with a bare-bones prompt, see what you get, and fine-tune your prompt by adding more examples, context, and parameters (i.e., answering more of the 5 questions) until you get output you can work with.
“Collage” approach
You create a prompt loaded with context, parameters, and examples, spin up multiple generations with the same prompt, and take the best pieces of each output to assemble something new.
A quick note on expectations and AI ethics:
Note how each of the above approaches requires human feedback and direction either on the front or back end of the process. The amount of time you spend prompting an AI tool and revising its output really depends on the tool you’re using. If you have an AI tool that can read any data format and is trained on your company’s products/messaging/brand guidelines, you’ll achieve content quicker than with a free AI tool that only reads text and is designed for consumer use.
The most important thing to remember is that if it takes you more than a few minutes to perfect an AI prompt, or if it takes you hours to edit the content generated by AI, you’re probably using the wrong tool for the job.
That said, it’d be unrealistic – and a business liability – to expect your AI tool to generate content that can go to market without some human oversight.
At WRITER, we stand by ethical AI adoption and firmly believe humans should always be in the driver’s seat for publishing content that informs the public or has an impact on business outcomes. Our advice: given current potential brand and compliance risks associated with AI-generated content, if an AI company ever makes promises of generating “ready-to-publish” content, run away.
Examples of AI writing prompts by marketing use case
It’s time to demonstrate the power of an effective prompt. We’ve created hypothetical examples of well-made prompts for dozens of marketing use cases, using recognizable brands and companies. Give the sample prompts a try by signing up for a free trial of WRITER. Use your own company context — or use the 5-question framework to craft your own prompts.
Get cooking with WRITER
Consider this guide a starting point for you to explore infinite possibilities. When you and your team understand what AI tools need to deliver strong marketing output, there’s no limit to the places you can take your company.
If you’re worried that you’re ‘cheating’ as a writer or creator by using AI prompts to generate content, fear not: the best AI writing tools are fueled by YOUR ideas and YOUR voice. Communicating your ideas to an AI tool will make you an even more effective communicator, and will help you flex your creative muscles in ways you may never have done before.