September 2

Leverage ChatGPT as Your Virtual Marketing Strategist

Blog

When you leverage ChatGPT, you can transform how your marketing team approaches content creation, strategic planning, and data analysis. 

Every marketing team I have consulted with is overwhelmed with work. 

Let’s face it, marketing as a profession typically requires taking on more work than is possible for the typical team. 

You are working with tight budgets and a highly demanding schedule. 

The good news is that once you begin to leverage ChatGPT, you can do more with less! 

From generating fresh content ideas to providing deep insights into market trends, ChatGPT brings unique insights and efficiency that was previously unattainable without a large team of experts.

Whether you’re a small team looking to maximize limited resources or a large organization aiming to manage expansive campaigns, ChatGPT offers the flexibility to scale operations up or down as needed.

Here are a few key ways you and your team can leverage ChatGPT as your virtual marketing strategist. 

Train ChatGPT With Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice is the personality that comes through in all your communications—it’s what sets you apart and makes your content recognizable. 

Before you begin using ChatGPT, you need to clearly define this voice.

Whether your brand is casual and friendly, professional and authoritative, or innovative and edgy, establishing these characteristics will guide ChatGPT in producing content that aligns with your brand’s identity.

Once you have defined your authentic brand voice, you can train ChatGPT. 

Start by feeding ChatGPT with examples of past content that best represents your brand voice. 

You can provide detailed instructions or specific language preferences that reflect your style, whether it’s a preference for short, punchy sentences or a more elaborate, descriptive approach. 

The more examples and details you provide, the better ChatGPT will be able to emulate your brand’s voice in its outputs.

Remember, consistency is key when it comes to branding, especially across multiple digital platforms. 

ChatGPT can help maintain this consistency by ensuring that the tone and style of your communications are uniform, whether it’s a social media post, a blog article, or an email newsletter. 

By keeping your messaging aligned across all channels, ChatGPT can help make your content instantly recognizable and trustworthy to your audience.

Here is an example prompt you can use:

Acting as an expert marketer in higher education, please create content that reflects our brand’s unique voice and style. Our brand is [describe your brand tone, e.g., professional and authoritative/casual and friendly/innovative and edgy]. We prefer [mention preferred sentence structure, e.g., short, concise sentences or detailed, descriptive paragraphs]. The tone should be [describe the tone, e.g., upbeat and positive/serious and informative]. Avoid [list anything to avoid, e.g., jargon, overly technical language]. Here are some examples of our past content for reference: [insert examples]. Use this style and tone in all the content you generate.

Leverage ChatGPT for Strategy Development

To truly leverage ChatGPT as a virtual marketing strategist, think of it as a collaborator you can use to speed up your creative processes—from brainstorming innovative marketing ideas to conducting in-depth analyses of market trends and competitors.

When it comes to generating fresh, creative marketing ideas, ChatGPT can be a valuable partner in all processes. 

Whether you need concepts for a new campaign, catchy slogans, or unique content angles, ChatGPT can help spark creativity by offering suggestions tailored to your brand’s unique style and objectives. 

It’s like having a creative team member who’s always ready to contribute fresh perspectives and discover new possibilities.

ChatGPT also excels in analyzing market trends and consumer behavior. 

By processing vast amounts of data and identifying patterns, you can leverage ChatGPT to provide insights that might not be immediately apparent. 

For instance, it can help you spot emerging trends, understand shifts in consumer preferences, and predict future behavior—all of which are critical for strategic planning. 

With ChatGPT in your corner, you can stay ahead of the curve and align with the market.

It can also evaluate your competitors’ strategies by analyzing their content, marketing efforts, and overall brand positioning. 

By understanding what your competitors are doing—what’s working for them and where they might be falling short—you can craft strategies that differentiate your brand effectively. 

Then, ChatGPT can suggest ways to highlight your unique selling points

Here is an example prompt you can use: 

Acting as an expert higher ed marketer, please help me develop a comprehensive marketing strategy for our brand. We need to brainstorm innovative campaign ideas, analyze market trends, and evaluate our competitors’ strategies.

  • For campaign ideas, provide suggestions that align with our brand’s [describe the brand style and objectives, e.g., innovative and tech-forward with a focus on sustainability]. Think of catchy slogans, unique content angles, and potential social media tactics. 
  • Analyze the latest market trends in [your industry] by identifying emerging patterns and shifts in consumer behavior that we should consider for our strategic planning.
  • Evaluate the marketing strategies of our main competitors [list competitors or describe them], focusing on what’s working for them and where they might be falling short. Offer recommendations on how we can differentiate our brand and highlight our unique selling points in the market.

Use ChatGPT for Content Creation

When you leverage ChatGPT for content creation, you can streamline the creation process and enhance the quality of your output.

The key lies in how you use ChatGPT to deliver messages that align with your marketing goals. 

For instance, you can input specific themes or topics, and ChatGPT will generate content that is relevant and tailored to the interests of your audience so the content you produce is both compelling and aligned with the expectations of those you’re trying to reach.

This can be anything from newsletters, social posts, blogs, or even email campaigns. 

One of the most significant advantages of using ChatGPT in content creation is its ability to enhance SEO optimization. 

With the right prompts, ChatGPT can help you create content that includes strategically placed keywords and phrases that improve your chances of ranking well on search engines. 

By focusing on SEO-friendly writing, you ensure your content is discoverable by those searching for topics related to your brand. In addition, ChatGPT is helpful when creating GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) content, which is content focused on answering common user questions. 

Moreover, ChatGPT excels in personalizing content for different audience segments. 

Whether you’re targeting prospective students, alumni, or partners, ChatGPT can help you tailor your messaging to address the specific needs and interests of each group. 

This level of personalization used to be difficult to achieve. 

Now you can tell ChatGPT the message you want to give your audience, what their demographics are, and how you can help them, and it will craft content that resonates within seconds. 

Talk about a time saver! 

Here is a quick prompt you can use: 

Acting as an expert higher ed marketer, I need help creating content that aligns with our marketing goals. For our upcoming [newsletter/blog post/social media campaign], generate content focused on [specific theme or topic, e.g., the benefits of sustainable practices in education]. Ensure the content is compelling, informative, and resonates with our target audience of [describe your audience, e.g., prospective students interested in environmental studies]. Include SEO optimization by integrating keywords like [list keywords] naturally within the content to help it rank well on search engines.

Measure Success with ChatGPT

ChatGPT can do more than just generate content—it can also be a powerful tool for measuring the success of your overall marketing efforts.

For instance, you can use ChatGPT to analyze engagement rates on social media posts, click-through rates on email campaigns, or conversion rates from landing pages. 

By setting up specific prompts, ChatGPT can help you compile and interpret this data, giving you a clearer picture of your marketing effectiveness.

One of the most powerful uses of ChatGPT is in real-time data analysis. 

Rather than manually sifting through analytics, you can prompt ChatGPT to pull together the most relevant metrics and even suggest potential adjustments to improve performance. 

For example, if you notice a drop in conversion rates, you can ask ChatGPT to identify patterns or anomalies in the data, and help you pinpoint issues quickly. 

This allows you to make data-driven decisions on the fly, so your marketing remains agile and effective.

Here is a prompt you can use: 

Acting as a higher ed marketing and data-analysis expert, I need help analyzing the success of our recent marketing efforts. Review the data I’ll provide, which includes engagement rates for social media posts, click-through rates from email campaigns, and conversion rates from our landing pages. Based on this data, identify any patterns or trends that suggest how well our strategies are performing. Highlight areas where we are doing well and areas that may need improvement. Suggest potential adjustments to improve performance, particularly focusing on [specific metric, e.g., conversion rates]. Provide actionable recommendations to help us optimize our marketing efforts moving forward.

Ethical Considerations

When it comes to using ChatGPT, there is a lot of buzz around transparency. 

But is it really necessary to disclose every detail about AI-generated content? We don’t typically go out of our way to label stock photography or mention when we’ve used tools like Grammarly to proofread content. 

So why should AI be treated differently?

The push for excessive transparency often stems from misunderstandings about what AI actually does. 

Some believe AI operates like a search engine, scraping and memorizing data from the internet. In reality, AI functions through complex pattern recognition based on the data it was trained on, not by memorizing or reproducing specific content.

That said, ethical considerations still matter, particularly when it comes to avoiding biases in AI-generated content. 

AI models can inadvertently reflect biases present in the training data, which could lead to content that unintentionally excludes or misrepresents certain groups.

You should approach AI-generated content with the same critical eye you would apply to any other content, ensuring it aligns with your brand’s values and resonates with a diverse audience.

The bottom line? 

Use AI tools responsibly, just as you would any other tool in your marketing arsenal.

Transparency should be about upholding your brand’s integrity, not about providing unnecessary disclaimers.

Ready To Embrace AI? 

If you’re ready to level up your marketing with AI, the Caylor Solutions 6-Session AI Masterclass is just what you need. 

This course is all about making AI work for you. You’ll learn practical ways to integrate AI into your daily tasks, and by the end, you and your team will have the tools you need to stay ahead of the competition while saving time and resources.

Email Zach at coffin@thehigheredmarketer.com to learn more!


Want to Improve Your Digital Marketing Results?

Then you’ve got to know how to write for the web. That’s why we want to send you our popular ebook: Writing for the Web: 7 Secrets to Content Marketing Success for Education Marketers!

With this helpful resource, you’ll learn how to:writing for the web ebook

  • Grab your reader’s attention immediately
  • Pull your reader’s attention deeper into your content
  • Write so that Google (and other search engines) find you easily
  • Increase your website’s conversion rates

In short, you’ll be able to write the copy that makes your digital marketing strategy work for you. Download your copy today!

Featured image by rabia via Adobe Stock

Download Your Copy Today!

Fill out the following form to get instant access to our ebook, Guide to Planning an Education Website Redesign

Caylor Solutions eBook

Download Your Copy Today!

Fill out the following form to get instant access to our ebook, #Hashtags: Your Social Media Secret Weapon

Download Your Copy Today!

Fill out the following form to get instant access to our ebook, Writing for the Web: 7 Secrets to Content Marketing Success for Education Marketers

Download Your Copy Today!

Fill out the following form to get instant access to our ebook, Marketing on a Shoestring Budget.

Download Your Copy Today!

Fill out the following form to get instant access to our ebook, 25 Ideas for Great Admissions Content.

Looking for other higher-ed content and resources from Caylor Solutions?

Subscribe to The Higher Ed Marketer podcast today!

Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher