Prompt crafting

How to create kickass AI writing prompts for any marketing task

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.

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.

Table of contents

• How generative AI works (in 100 words or less)
• What’s prompt crafting– and how does it help you become a better marketer?
• The 4 rules of working with generative AI
  1. Adopt a “beginner’s mindset”
  2. Choose the right AI tool for the job
  3. Always, always, always fact-check
  4. For longform content, work prompt-by-prompt
• AI’s favorite foods
• A 5-question framework for AI writing prompts
  • Who?
  • What?
  • Where?
  • Why?
  • How?
• Turn your most commonly used prompts into apps
• Find your own prompting style
• Examples of AI writing prompts by marketing use case
  • Ideation
  • Research
  • Generation
  • Repurposing
  • Transformation
• Get cooking with WRITER

This section was written by WRITER using the following prompt:

“I’m a marketing leader with an interest in using artificial intelligence at my company. In 100 words or fewer, explain to me how generative AI works. Use simple words.”

How generative AI works (in 100 words or fewer)

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create unique content and data from scratch. It can generate images, videos, audio files, and written text. Generative AI works by analyzing existing content (known as a dataset), learning the patterns and structures that make up the content, and then creating something new based on those patterns. It uses algorithms and data to generate new ideas and solutions, making it a powerful tool for businesses. Generative AI can be used to create new marketing materials, generate new customer insights, and create new products.

... (remaining sections continue similarly based on headers and descriptions)