Greg Kihlström advises Fortune 1000 companies on MarTech, CX, and Digital Transformation, and hosts The Agile Brand Podcast.
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It is hard to escape the hype around generative AI. Many heard this term for the first time as ChatGPT was gaining popularity, but it is now ubiquitous in both brand-new platforms as well as many of the products marketers have already been using for years. That said, using generative AI well takes more than simply typing in a prompt and hoping for the best. It takes a solid approach, coordination across your existing processes and teams, and the right platforms for the job.
In this article, I’m going to talk about the factors to consider when adopting generative AI so that you and your teams can go beyond simply jumping on the bandwagon and instead become power users.
Set the ground rules first.
From all the hype there is about the benefits of generative AI, you would probably think that it must be a good fit in every situation. But as with anything, there needs to be a solid understanding of its benefits and drawbacks so that teams can utilize it effectively and avoid any unintended risks. Thus, it’s essential to establish clear ground rules for its use.
In the scope of marketing, this includes defining the specific goals and objectives of your campaign, identifying the target audience and their preferences, and determining how the technology will be used to support those objectives.
Marketers should also consider the potential risks and challenges associated with generative AI, such as the risk of bias in the training data or the potential for over-personalization, and develop strategies to mitigate these risks. Additionally, it’s important for marketers to establish clear guidelines on when generative AI should not be used, or where there are legal, ethical or other regulatory concerns about its usage.
By setting these ground rules and understanding the limitations of generative AI, marketers can ensure they are using the technology effectively and responsibly to achieve their goals.
Use it at the right time in your workflow.
Generative AI is most effective when it is integrated into the workflow at the right time. For example, marketers can use generative AI to help develop initial concepts or ideas, or to help refine and iterate on existing drafts. By leveraging generative AI at these stages, marketers can create a wider range of options and explore more innovative and effective campaign ideas. Additionally, generative AI can be used later on in the process to create multiple variations of content once a concept and campaign idea has been finalized.
By incorporating generative AI into the workflow at the right time, marketers can streamline their creative process, reduce the time and effort required to develop high-quality content and increase the likelihood of success.
Find the right tool for the job.
While generative AI can be a powerful tool for marketing teams of all types and sizes, it’s essential to find the right tools for the job rather than simply relying on what may be easy to access or readily available.
There are numerous platforms available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the specific use case. For example, some platforms may be better suited for specific types of content generation like social media posts, while others may be more effective for image generation or other purposes like video, design layouts and more. To get the best results, marketers need to take the time to evaluate potential generative AI platforms and choose the one that is best aligned with their campaign goals and target audience.
It is also important to note that legacy applications and platforms are now rapidly adopting generative AI features, so you may want to take a second look at tools you are already using for new features that won’t require you to adopt a brand-new platform.
Get better at writing prompts.
If you want to up your generative AI game, you and your team need to be great at writing prompts. A well-crafted prompt guides the generation of high-quality, relevant and engaging content that resonates more effectively with a target audience. By providing clear and specific direction, marketers can help the generative AI platform understand what they are looking for and produce content that meets their needs. Strong prompts can also help to mitigate the risk of bias in the generated content and ensure that the final product is consistent with the desired tone and style.
So, take the time to learn what makes a good prompt and experiment with different approaches. Make sure to share your learnings as a team as well, so all can benefit. Some team members may be naturals at this (as some people seem to be better at conducting search engine queries than others), so find ways to teach and train on how to create prompts, because this is a skill all can benefit from.
Make sure it augments but doesn’t replace the human aspect.
Finally, let’s not forget our humanity in the race to utilize the latest artificial intelligence. While generative AI can be an amazing tool, there are good times to use it and less useful ones. Don’t think of generative AI as a replacement for people but as an augmentation to their abilities.
Therefore, generative AI used as a starting point, an idea generator or as a way to generate multiple ideas based on something existing can work really well. This means that the human teams working with it can lend their strategy, creativity and common sense to ensure that AI-generated content makes sense and will help achieve the desired results.
Upping your generative AI game involves being thoughtful at many points in the process. Understanding how important this set of tools can be is not enough. You need to make sure your teams are knowledgeable, using the right tools, and have some guidance on when and where they can use generative AI to be most effective.
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