Video Mini Course: Training ChatGPT on Your Brand Voice

One of the biggest concerns I hear from solo owners about AI marketing is that the content they get from ChatGPT just sounds too generic. I call this the "cookie cutter effect," and it’s bad news for brands. The absolute best way to avoid this problem is by training ChatGPT on your unique brand. You can learn my simple technique for training ChatGPT in just 10 minutes—it's super easy.

Let’s take a look at my approach for creating marketing prompts that you can scale over time. Our goal here is to create a very detailed marketing prompt template that you can use over and over again. That's where the efficiency comes into play; there’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time you write a new prompt.

The majority of what you include in a prompt—the target audience, the benefits of your product or service, your value proposition, the brand voice—all of these elements will be the same each time you start a new project. Eventually, you’ll have a nice little custom prompt library that you can pull from, saving even more time.

(To download the free prompt pack I provided in the link below, you’ll find ready-to-use templates to kickstart your AI marketing efforts across four core areas for solo owners: social media, email, content creation, and AI search.)

Let's start with step one: What do you want this marketing piece to achieve? For example, instead of just asking for social media posts, be specific about Instagram versus X. The AI tool will tailor it for that specific channel. For a video script, detail TikTok versus YouTube versus a corporate sales video. These different platforms require different approaches from the AI tool; you just need to provide that guidance.

As an example for step one, we’ll use organic dog treats for our prompting example throughout, because I really love dogs and it's super fun. The purpose of the prompt is to generate five unique Instagram posts to announce a new line of organic dog treats. Most of you are already doing this step and probably getting some pretty decent answers, but it could be better.

That's where step two comes in: Who are you trying to reach? I cannot emphasize enough just how important this step is for generating better results. If you can help the AI tool understand the distinctions of your specific target audience, it can then tailor the content much more effectively.

Think demographics, psychographics, pain points, interests, lifestyle, behavior traits. You get the idea. This is a key principle in marketing, and it's even more important when working with AI tools.

Now we start seeing the process of what I like to call layering the prompt. You start with the foundation from step one, and now we’ve layered in the target audience. This is the cool part: each layer of detail added to the prompt will help the AI tool craft a more engaging, more targeted, more personalized result, getting further and further away from sounding generic and cookie-cutter, which is the goal. Less cookie-cutter means better conversion rates.

Next, in step three, you provide all the relevant details the AI tool needs to successfully complete the project. What are the key features and benefits of your product or service? Do you have a unique value proposition you can include? Is this project for a specific event or a multi-channel campaign? If you have copy points you would like to include, list them here.

Do you have existing content or data you would like the AI tool to reference, such as a website or past marketing materials/socials? You can even provide data such as customer reviews for the AI to analyze, identify, and recommend common phrases that could be included in the marketing messages.

Here's the next layer in the prompt for our example: The treats are made with all-natural, human-grade ingredients, support digestive health, and are grain-free. We want to encourage people to visit our website to shop with those product benefits in mind.

Let's look at how we can take this one step further. A Unique Value Proposition is a statement that highlights the unique benefits a company offers that differentiates it from its competitors. It addresses the question of why choose your product or service over another company's. It's always been an important part of the marketing and creative process, but companies both large and small are taking a second look at their value propositions.

Why now? Because AI is rapidly changing buyer behavior, and companies need to reassess their overall marketing strategies to account for this major shift in the consumer environment. That's something you might want to take a fresh look at as you go through this process. 

Ultimately, if you can include a strong Unique Value Proposition in your marketing prompt template, that will be another layer to help improve your results.

Here’s an example UVP for our dog treat company: "The only organic dog treats crafted with sustainably sourced, nutrient-dense superfoods to boost your dog's vitality and coat health." This highlights both the organic nature and the inclusion of specific ingredients for health benefits, which, in turn, differentiates it from its competitors.

Next up, define the tone and style. As I mentioned earlier, the tone and style of your marketing content is very important for brand consistency and connecting with your audience. So tell the AI tool if you want the content to be informative, humorous, inspiring, authoritative, playful, or professional. What is the desired feeling or personality of this content? How should it sound?

We add this to our marketing prompt: "The tone should be friendly and enthusiastic, playful with a touch of warmth."

Again, this seems obvious, but when we type marketing prompts in a hurry (and believe me, we all do), it can get missed. Add it to your template, and it will always be there. Guide the AI tool to include a clear and compelling call to action that tells your audience what you want them to do next.

In this case, we’re going to say: "Include a clear call to action to 'Shop Now' and direct them to the website."

Another aspect to help improve your marketing prompts will be to add any special instructions, such as format preferences (a list versus a paragraph, bullets versus a narrative) or any length restrictions in terms of the number of words.

If this is a piece of content being used for SEO, you can provide the keywords here. You can also list items not to include.

So here's the example to add to our marketing prompt: "Keep the post under 150 characters and avoid using jargon like 'proprietary blend'."

Let's pause here for a moment and see what our prompt looks like so far. Here are the six layers we created:

1. Purpose
2. Target Audience
3. Key Information (and Unique Value Proposition)
4. Style and Tone
5. Clear Call to Action
6. Special Instructions
7. 
   

Your prompts may be more or less detailed than this depending on your overall marketing objectives or the scope of the project, but as you can see, this is a really good place to start.

Also, if you have examples of content that you like or that aligns with your brand, this can be incredibly helpful for the AI tool to understand your preferred style and creative ideas. This would be a great place to provide a sample of your brand voice too. You can simply link to your website, social media platforms, or share a specific piece of content that best represents the style you would like the AI to follow.

If you provide a detailed prompt like the template we're creating, the refinement phase should be fairly minimal. That's the great thing about this approach; it can help you achieve a better result with fewer regeneration cycles.

But as far as revising the prompt itself, you can definitely ask the AI tool to make specific adjustments, such as, "Make it more concise," "Change the tone to be more persuasive," or "Expand on the benefits of XYZ."

Something else I've noticed is if I give it too many corrections at one time, it seems to get confused and rework the entire piece when that's not what I intended or wanted. Consider leading it through the revisions a little slower, just focusing on one or two areas at a time. This will help avoid causing it to sort of veer off on its own and starting from scratch (unless, of course, that's what you're asking it to do).

If the wording is awkward or the information is not quite right, you can always provide an example and clearly point out the issue while suggesting how to improve it. Keep in mind: the more details you provide upfront, the less regenerating you should need to do.

I know this seems like a lot of steps for a single prompt, especially as we go through each step in detail here, but remember you’re creating a template which includes boilerplate information, such as brand voice, your target audience, and even your unique value proposition. 

Elements like these can be used over and over again for future prompts. Basically, you’re creating a custom prompting system that will become very efficient over time.

That's it for now! Don't forget you can watch this entire AI marketing course for free at the YouTube link below. You’ll build a step-by-step AI marketing action plan to go with your new marketing prompt template. Thanks for watching!