Ah no, not another article on AI! The internet is awash with commentary on the ‘potential’ impact of AI on the media industry. But often, these discussions float in the realm of the abstract, leaving you wondering how to actually apply AI in your daily work. Fear not! Here, I’ll share some practical, actionable ways to incorporate AI into your routine, enhancing your efficiency without the need for a team of coders or a crystal ball.
Real-World Applications
1. Campaign Copywriting Made Easy
Staring at a blank screen, trying to craft the perfect promotional email? AI can help generate creative, engaging copy in seconds. Simply type a prompt like, “Write a cheerful email offering 20% off our annual subscription,” and there you have it! You’ve got a draft to polish. Need tone adjustments? Ask for a more formal or casual version.
2. Smarter Campaign Structures
Rather than starting from scratch, AI can help structure your campaigns based on proven approaches. Tools can guide you through creating comprehensive sequences – from welcome emails to follow-ups and reminders. Just describe your campaign goals and let AI suggest an effective structure.
Example:
“Design a 6-week email campaign sequence for onboarding new customers to our title. Include educational content, feature highlights, and engagement triggers. Goal: drive users to read more content across a wider range of topics. Target audience: medium business owners.”
3. Formatting for All Channels
You know the challenge of formatting copy for email, social media, and web. AI can save hours here. Provide your content and ask for adjustments: “Turn this email into a snappy tweet” or “Reformat this blog post into bullet points for LinkedIn.”
Example:
“Transform this product launch announcement into formats for the following channels: X (280 chars), LinkedIn (professional tone), Instagram (casual, engaging), and an email newsletter…..”
(Do also consider providing a sample of the output you are looking for)
4. Proofreading and Polishing
Skip the tedious editing rounds. AI tools can check grammar, spelling, and even improve flow. Whether it’s refining tone or making text more exciting, a quick pass through AI can take your copy from good to great.
Example:
“Review this customer success story for clarity, engagement, and professional tone. Then enhance it to be more compelling while maintaining authenticity.”
> Inside FT’s AI-powered story-finding
5. A/B Testing Variants
Want to test two subject lines or ad headlines? Ask AI to create variants. You’ll have options ready for testing, without the mental strain.
Example:
“Create 5 different subject lines for our Black Friday sale email. We’re offering 20% off all annual subscriptions. Target audience: wine enthusiast. Include a mix of approaches: urgency-based, benefit-focused, and curiosity-driving variants.”
6. Analytics Made Digestible
Do spreadsheets make your eyes glaze over? AI can help summarise data trends and insights in plain English. Whether it’s identifying top-performing campaigns or spotting a dip in engagement, AI makes sense of the numbers for you.
Example:
“Analyse these campaign metrics and explain key insights in plain English: what’s working, what isn’t, and what we should change. Focus on open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Include three actionable recommendations. Explain your thinking step by step”
Do You Need a PhD to Use AI?
Absolutely not. Many tools are plug-and-play or require only a basic understanding to get started. Think of AI as your virtual assistant: capable, resourceful, and never asking for a coffee break.
Tips for Better Prompting
AI sometimes gets criticized for hallucinating and making things up. However, you can minimise these issues by how you ask the questions; through better prompting. There are many prompting techniques available, but these two are super simple and very effective at improving the quality and accuracy of your outputs.
Few-Shot Prompting
Give the model some examples of the output you are asking for. This can make an incredible difference and remove ambiguity about what you are after.
Example:
Show Your Work Technique
Try adding “Show your work” or “Explain your thinking step by step” at the end of the prompt. This not only improves the quality of the output but also helps to check the quality of your input and if you have made any errors.
Get the model to create a prompt for you.
If you have a long chat with an AI model, and want to capture the conversation in a single prompt that you could then re-use, consider asking the model to create a prompt for you. This will, in essence, summarize your conversation.
Creating a Prompt Library
Get organized. Writing good prompts is an iterative process, and you want to capture what works. I store my prompts in an Airtable that I have linked via API to an AI service. I can then easily test and iterate, and I have an automatic store of both the questions and the answers that I can reference later.
Privacy
Many of the AI tools today have privacy tools that allow you to control how your questions and answers are stored and used. Be wary that the default settings may not give you the best protection, especially if you are not on one of the paid plans. The old adage “if you are not paying for a product, you (and your data) are the product” rings true here.
For OpenAI policies, their help article is helpful and explains how you can opt out. Avoid using any personal (PII) data in any of your conversations.
Conclusion
There are of course many other advanced ways to use AI, from propensity models to audience segmentation and analysis. AI isn’t here to replace you; it’s here to make your life easier. From brainstorming campaigns to analyzing data, it’s like having an extra pair of hands (or ten). And the best part? No heavy lifting required. So why not give it a try and reclaim some of your precious time?
Ready to take your AI Automatons a step further? Drop me a message on LinkedIn.
