Feature
The Gist
- Refine the prompt. Clear, specific AI prompts enhance customer interactions and copy effectiveness.
- Harness AI power. Utilizing generative AI for marketing boosts engagement and tailors customer content.
- Iterative improvements. Continuously refining AI prompts leads to precise, impactful customer communications.
For customer experience (CX) and marketing professionals, effectively leveraging AI means mastering the art of prompt engineering. Crafting precise and effective prompts for generative AI models is key to guiding interactions and creating impactful copy. This skill is essential for generating marketing copy, email campaigns, advertising content, product descriptions and facilitating customer conversations through virtual chatbots.
This article digs into the top five prompt tips that every CX and marketing leader should master to ensure their interactions with AI are seamless, insightful and impactful.
Introduction
Customer experience and marketing professionals must continuously adapt to new technologies. Generative AI has emerged as a game-changing tool for creating compelling copy for ads, emails, websites and product descriptions. The effectiveness of AI-driven content creation relies on creating precise prompts. This strategic necessity guides AI to generate copy that resonates with audiences, drives engagement and enhances overall customer satisfaction.
For those who have yet to experiment with ChatGPT and other generative AI chatbots, it works like this: You are presented with a chat window, similar to those on Facebook, WhatsApp or your phone's texting app. You type a message in a field, and the AI application replies. For instance, what if one wished to know the capital of France? This would be an easy question to ask ChatGPT:
Question: "What is the capital of France?"
Answer: "The capital of France is Paris."
This is a straightforward question that requires no prompt engineering. The answer is simple and factual. What about a marketing-oriented question that would benefit from prompt engineering, such as:
"How can AI improve customer experience in retail?"
This question could be greatly improved for depth and clarity:
"Can you provide a detailed explanation of how AI technologies, such as chatbots and personalized recommendation systems, can enhance customer experience in the retail sector? Include examples from well-known retail brands that have successfully implemented these technologies."
The response from ChatGPT4o goes on for seven paragraphs. Prompt engineering can assist one in using generative AI to write marketing copy, product descriptions, advertising copy, definitions, shareholder briefings, job descriptions, stories, poetry, event descriptions and news stories — there is practically no limit.
Many generative AI chatbots are available to use for free, each providing CX and marketing professionals with varied and unique responses to well-crafted prompts. Here are some of the most popular AI chatbots based on Large Language Models (LLMs):
These chatbots offer diverse capabilities, making them valuable tools for enhancing customer interactions and creating impactful marketing content.
Related Article: Top 5 Free Prompt Engineering Courses
Top Uses for AI Prompts in Marketing and Customer Experience
Generative AI is transforming the realm of marketing and CX, providing businesses with innovative tools to enhance customer interactions and deliver engaging content. By using prompts that specify customer segments or individual data points, marketers can generate highly relevant email campaigns, social media posts and website content. For instance, prompting AI to create an email campaign for customers who recently purchased fitness equipment can lead to personalized messages that resonate with their new purchase, enhancing their experience and encouraging further engagement.
Another significant application is in customer support automation. AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants, often powered by custom-built LLMs trained on a brand's specific data, can handle a wide range of customer service tasks, from answering FAQs to resolving complex issues. Effective prompts guide these AI systems to provide accurate and helpful responses, improving customer satisfaction and reducing wait times. For example, a prompt directing the AI to assist a customer with their online order can ensure comprehensive support, including tracking shipments and processing returns.
Generative AI also excels in dynamic ad copy generation, a critical need in the fast-paced world of digital advertising. By generating variations of ad copy tailored to different audience segments and platforms, businesses can create engaging and relevant ads that drive higher engagement and conversions. Additionally, AI's ability to analyze large datasets makes it invaluable for market research and insights. Prompts can guide AI to compile reports, summarize findings and make recommendations based on customer feedback, helping businesses stay ahead of market changes and customer preferences.
For businesses operating in multiple regions, content localization and translation are essential. Generative AI can quickly adapt marketing materials and customer communications to different languages and cultural contexts, ensuring accurate and culturally appropriate content that resonates with local audiences.
Finally, AI can be a powerful tool for creative brainstorming and idea generation, helping marketing teams develop innovative campaigns and strategies. By prompting AI to suggest creative campaign ideas, teams can explore a variety of fresh concepts to inspire and guide their efforts.
Related Article: Prompt Engineering Basics for Marketers, Advertisers and Content Producers
Tip #1: Understand Your Customer's Intent and the Brand Voice
Recognizing customer intent is essential for crafting effective AI interactions. When AI systems grasp the underlying motives behind customer queries, they can provide more accurate and satisfying responses, leading to enhanced customer experiences and increased brand loyalty.
For example, a prompt like “Assist a customer experiencing issues with their online order, including tracking the shipment and processing a return if necessary” can guide the AI to navigate different support scenarios, offering comprehensive assistance and enhancing the overall support experience.
In addition, it is important to provide the AI with details about one’s customers. Be specific. For instance, if a brand’s customers have only basic computer knowledge, include that information in a prompt such as:
“The customers this information will be helping only have very basic computer skills. Be sure to include details such as how they can locate the Help section, how to use the web search functionality, and what to do if they are unable to find something on the site.”
Finally, ensure that the AI uses the brand’s voice in the content it creates. Understanding the customer's intent goes hand-in-hand with maintaining a consistent brand voice. Create prompts that not only address customer needs but also reflect the tone, style and personality of the brand. This consistency helps in creating a cohesive and recognizable brand presence across all AI-generated content, from marketing copy to customer interactions.
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Natalie Lambert, founder and managing partner at GenEdge Consulting, a generative AI consulting firm, emphasizes the importance of training the AI on one’s writing style, and told CMSWire that your first prompt should be used to train the AI on how you write and what your style is:
"You are a writing assistant who takes on the writing tone, style, and voice of your human partner. Read the articles in the attached document written by me and summarize my writing style."
Lambert suggested the user should bring together 5-to-10 pieces of content they have written in a doc and upload it to the AI to read. This practice ensures all AI-generated content, from marketing copy to customer interactions, reflects the brand's unique voice, enhancing recognition and cohesion. Then, the user should add any writing requirements they have:
"Beyond this style, I use the Oxford comma and sentence case for all headlines, I like odd numbers of bullets, and I don't want any overly fluffy language. Do not use the following words: delve, transformational, revolutionary, etc."
Tip #2: Craft Clear and Specific Prompts
Clarity is crucial when crafting prompts for AI. Vague prompts lead to vague responses, whereas specific, detailed instructions result in precise and relevant outputs. When creating prompts, it's important to be as clear and specific as possible about the information you seek or the type of content you need.
For example, instead of asking the AI to “write about our new product,” a more effective prompt would be:
“Describe the key features and benefits of our new eco-friendly water bottle, highlighting its sustainability and unique design.”
This specificity helps the AI generate content that meets one’s exact needs, ensuring more effective and engaging customer interactions.
Ang Moramarco, digital engagement strategist for Harrisburg University, told CMSWire that when working with AI, she provides as much context as she can to proactively give it simple, clear and specific insights into her subject matter of interest and perspective on it.
"I ask it a direct question to begin with,” explained Moramarco. “Then, once I see what it comes up with, I continue to iterate back and forth with it, asking it to refine its output. This often gives me insights into how I can better phrase my questions and ultimately get what I’m looking for."
Tip #3: Emphasize Contextual Relevance
Providing context is essential for generating relevant and coherent AI responses. Including background information or specific details helps the AI understand the broader context, leading to more accurate and useful outputs.
For example, when drafting a marketing email, including details about the target audience, the campaign’s goal, and any relevant product information ensures the AI-generated content aligns with objectives and resonates with the target audience.
“Generate ad copy for a new line of eco-friendly products targeting environmentally conscious consumers on social media.”
This type of prompt provides the necessary context for the AI to produce engaging and relevant content.
Josh Thompson, CEO at Impact Health USA, a turnkey healthcare solution provider, told CMSWire that providing context within prompts helps the AI understand the customer's situation better. "This can include previous interactions, purchase history or specific customer details," he said.
For example, when creating prompts that will be used to engage with patients, he guides the AI to ask contextual questions, such as:
"I see you recently bought our XYZ product. Are you experiencing any issues with it?"
Thompson uses contextual relevance to enhance customer interactions, ensuring their AI-driven systems build deeper connections and drive meaningful improvements in the customers' journey.
Tip #4: Iterate and Refine Prompts
Prompting AI is an iterative process. Starting with a draft prompt and refining it based on the AI’s responses can help fine-tune the output to meet expectations. Testing different variations and tweaking the prompts until the desired outcome is achieved ensures that the AI-generated content is both effective and relevant. This iterative approach is crucial for achieving high-quality results.
For example, a prompt like ...
“Analyze recent customer feedback to identify common themes and suggest improvements for our loyalty program.”
... might require several iterations to ensure the AI provides comprehensive and actionable insights. Find aspects of the AI’s output that are appealing or unappealing. Provide feedback on what was disliked and specify preferred changes, then request a revised attempt.
“You said that customers should contact customer service, but you didn’t tell them how to do so. Please write it again, but include those steps.”
Refine the process until the output meets the desired standards. This approach is particularly useful when creating prompts for an AI customer service chatbot.
“Continuously monitor and refine your prompts based on customer feedback and interaction outcomes,” said Thompson. “This iterative process ensures that your AI system evolves and improves over time. Regularly review interaction logs to identify areas for enhancement.”
Tip #5: Leverage AI's Strengths
Generative AI excels at creative tasks, pattern recognition and large-scale data analysis. When creating prompts, leveraging these strengths can lead to highly effective outputs. For instance, asking the AI to:
“Create a catchy slogan for our summer campaign."
or
“Analyze customer reviews to identify emerging trends and sentiments.” ...
... allows the AI to use its capabilities to produce valuable content and insights. By focusing on the strengths of AI, CX and marketing leaders can enhance their strategies, deliver more personalized and effective content and ultimately build deeper customer connections and improve overall satisfaction.
Moramarco suggested that depending on the type of AI content one is working with, (i.e., text, visual images, recommendations, data analysis, or problem solving), different prompts are more appropriate to obtain the best results.
"If we use text generation AI, like ChatGPT as an example, you’ll specify a type of text, like a short story or social post, then summarize who your audience is and what you want to say in a few sentences,” said Moramarco. “When it gives you a response, you can iterate with the AI by asking it to refine the copy and continuing to add details.”
Moramarco emphasized that in the end, one should always re-read, proofread and edit the final product to ensure it looks and sounds authentic and accurate.
“As with humans, when you give the AI clear direction and prepare it for the project it’s about to take on, it can be very effective. As you practice and experiment, you’ll learn the methods that work best for you to collaborate with your AI tools," she said.
Final Thoughts
Mastering the art of prompt engineering is crucial for CX and marketing professionals in the burgeoning age of AI. By understanding customer intent, crafting clear and specific prompts, emphasizing contextual relevance, iterating to refine outputs and leveraging AI's strengths, leaders can harness the full potential of generative AI. These skills enable the creation of more engaging content, personalized customer experiences and data-driven insights that drive business growth.
