Last month’s webinar with AI expert and CIM Course Director Imran Farooq explored how marketers can write perfect prompts to get the most out of AI tools. If you missed the broadcast or want to catch up, this summary covers all the key talking points.

Farooq began the session by emphasising that AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are transforming marketing by enhancing productivity and creativity. However, he cautioned that the impact of these AI tools relies heavily on the effectiveness of our prompts. So how do we master prompting?

Farooq has a wealth of experience spanning over two decades, which gives him a unique and insightful perspective on the evolving dynamics of marketing, the integration of AI technology and the intricacies of customer journey mapping.

During the webinar, Farooq stressed the need for clear, precise prompts to achieve better outputs from AI.  He also shared advice on how to avoid common pitfalls such as vague prompting and blind trust in AI. He explored prompt engineering not as a technical skill, but as an essential marketing capability.

AI's impact on marketing

During the opening of the session, Farooq discussed a McKinsey report which explores the economic potential of generative AI, describing  it as a new productivity frontier.

Leveraging AI can enhance productivity and creativity in marketing, but it starts with effective prompting and the marketers who treat AI as a collaborator in thinking, not just an answer machine, gain a strategic edge. Farooq described AI as an engine and prompts as the steering wheel, showing examples to highlight the difference between good and bad prompts.

The six roles of AI

Farooq outlined the six different roles AI can play in marketing:

• Text generation

Use AI to draft blogs, reports, emails, social posts, landing pages, etc. It can you’re your messy notes or bullet points into clear, polished copy.

• Idea generation

Use it to brainstorm campaign ideas, angles, hooks, subject lines, offers or value propositions. It is great for breaking out of creative ruts or removing the fear of a blank page and getting multiple idea directions quickly.

• Research assistant

AI can summarise long reports, PDFs, analytics exports, articles for you to help you quickly extract key points, compare documents, or get overviews of unfamiliar topics.

• Thinking partner

You can treat AI as a sparring partner for strategy and decisions, not just a writer. You can ask it to challenge your assumptions or generate counter‑arguments to help you prepare for pitches, etc.

• Teacher

Use it to teach or clarify complex topics in different ways for different audiences.

• Editor

Provide AI with your draft and ask it to improve the clarity, structure or grammar, or adjust the tone for different audiences.

Farooq encouraged attendees to think of prompting as a conversation starter with AI, to go from using it as a content machine to a partner in thinking, writing, and decision making across your marketing work.

Designing effective prompts 

The difference between those who feel overwhelmed by AI and those using it to enhance their work isn’t talent, intelligence, or even experience; it all comes down to how you communicate with it. Understanding this highlights the importance of designing prompts with clarity and precision, which provide better outputs, right from the start.  

Context and purpose are essential in creating effective prompts. In the live session, Farooq explained the three key elements of a strong prompt:

1. Intent
2. Context
3. Desired format

He encouraged attendees to focus on having a conversation with AI to master prompts and advised people to use their experiences and insights to create unique prompts.

Common pitfalls in prompt engineering 

Farooq also identified common pitfalls in prompt engineering, such as treating AI like a search engine and having blind trust in AI outputs. He warned against vague prompting and confusing speed with clarity.
Marketers should experiment with AI tools and not to be afraid of making mistakes. Don’t treat prompts as a ‘one-off’, but as a loop.

Top Tip: You can’t expect a prompt to provide a perfect outcome first time, be ready to review and refine, and then ask again.

People also often ignore the emotion and audience, they tell AI what to say, but not how it should make an audience feel. Skipping specificity about audience, situation, and desired emotional outcome results in flat, forgettable content.

Advanced prompting techniques 

The session also covered advanced prompting techniques, such as using AI as a thinking partner and pushing boundaries. Farooq also explained how to use AI to make better decisions, challenge assumptions, and explore failure models. He showed attendees how to use these techniques with examples including asking AI to compare options and explore counterarguments.

Using AI can enhance creativity and strategic thinking, and master prompters push AI into reasoning mode, evaluating and contrasting your work rather than providing generic listings.

Measuring the impact of prompts 

The webinar outlined various metrics to consider when measuring the impact of AI prompts on the performance of your marketing work, such as financial metrics (cost savings, revenue uplift), quality metrics (error rate), and soft metrics (customer satisfaction).

Farooq encouraged webinar attendees to focus on both the quantitative and qualitative impacts of AI.

Top Tip: Continuous improvement and refining of prompts based on feedback and results will enhance your AI outputs and overall efficiency.  

Bias awareness and ethical considerations 

Farooq encouraged attendees to ask questions about assumptions AI makes, look at whose voice may be missing, and the cultural biases AI makes.

There is also a need for transparency, intellectual honesty, and data responsibility in AI projects. Marketers should be upfront about where AI tools have been used and also ensure their prompts and AI tools do not include sensitive or confidential information. AI can be a helpful tool, but it should not be blindly trusted, and we should always keep a human in the loop.

Final thoughts 

The webinar concluded with Farooq sharing some final tips on prompt engineering, emphasising the importance of experimentation and continuous learning. He urged attendees to share their prompts and insights with their teams to build a shared library which can be really useful for helping teams to learn and grow together.

Leveraging AI can enhance productivity and creativity in marketing, and the better your prompts are, the better outputs you will receive. Treating prompting as a conversation and refining as you go will help you create effective, unique prompts. Marketers who combine strong fundamentals and domain knowledge with thoughtful prompting get better strategy, sharper execution, and more distinctive content compared to those who just copy and paste from generic prompt lists.

To level up your prompt engineering and learn how to use AI to write clearer, more consistent content, reports, proposals and communications, book your place on CIM’s Prompt Engineering for Marketers training course now.