It’s the buzzword that’s everywhere – you’ve seen it in news articles, social posts, etc – everyone is talking about AI as the hottest thing changing the game when it comes to business. But not many people are talking about how you can do that.

You have many different things that demand your time and while you can see the potential of what this might do for your business, where are you supposed to find the time to make it happen? And if you do carve out the time, how can you be sure it’ll help you with what you’re trying to do?

We  have been early adopters and developers in Artificial Intelligence when it comes to the digital marketing services we offer and every time the newest, hottest tech crosses our desk we give it the same test. Which we’ll explain to you today.

We’ll also show you some actionable steps on how you can adopt the one that’s setting the world on fire – Large Language Models like ChatGPT – for your business.

Testing What The Tool Can Do For Your Business

Think of ChatGPT (or any of these tools, but for this post, we’re going to use it as a proxy for any AI tool you can think of) as a machine you want to invest in for your business. That investment, like any others you make for your business, needs to do one of two things for you:

1) Solve a problem

2) Create an opportunity

Hiring new staff can create an opportunity for scaling your business. Replacing that old printer can solve the problem of not being able to scan/copy things correctly. Moving to a new office creates more floor space for inventory.

Return on Investment

Each of these investments has an associated cost, along with the expected benefit – the Return on Investment. These tools are no different. When looking at these, you need to start with that and work backward to the tool. Understand the potential return you need so you know what kind of investment to make.

Every new AI tool or technique we adopt has to pass this test before we even entertain it; will it make for a return on our investment? Remember, even time is an investment – you’ll have to pay for that staff member’s time to learn and use the tool like any other – that cost needs to be recouped somewhere.

Let’s use an example.

Think about how important a review is for your business.

You could at least think of a rough idea of its value. Even if you can’t define it in exact dollars, you know that your customers shop based on features but buy based on reputation – more reviews mean more sales. So you will be able to at least put an approximate value on a review you’re able to get.

So if this AI tool can generate a new review for you each month – just 1 each month – you can have a good idea of what kind of impact and value that has on your business. If you have 12 reviews on Google right now, you’ve doubled it by this time next year.

Examples Of Effective Prompts

ChatGPT, and LLM tools like it, can help you with this, but only if you can use it correctly. So if you put in a vague prompt, like this:

“write an email for our roofing company asking a customer for a review”

You get a response like this:

Hi [Customer Name],

I hope this email finds you well.

I’m writing to you today to ask for a small favor. We would be so grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave us a review on Google, Facebook, or Yelp.

Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us. It helps us to understand how we’re doing and what we can do to improve our services. It also helps us attract new customers looking for a reputable roofing company. We know you’re busy, so we’ll make this quick.

Here are the steps on how to leave a review:

Go to [Google/Facebook/Yelp] and search for [Your Company Name].

Click on the “Reviews” tab.

Click on the “Write a Review” button. Share your experience with us.

Click on the “Submit” button.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. We appreciate your business!

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Not very compelling or detailed. But, if you get more detailed in your question, you can get a better response:

“we’re a roofing company that wants to get a review from a customer. please write a short email that’s less than 2 paragraphs asking for this review and grateful for them being able to consider us. mention that we solved a major problem for a customer, that we walked their dog for them, and they said that our team was fantastic.”

And the response:

Dear [Customer Name],

I hope this email finds you well.

I’m writing to you today to follow up on our recent roofing project.

I wanted to take a moment to thank you again for choosing our company, and to let you know how much we appreciate your business. We were so happy to be able to help you solve your major roofing problem, and we were glad to go above and beyond to provide you with excellent service. We were especially touched that you mentioned that we walked your dog, [Dog’s Name], while we were working on your roof.

We know that our customers’ pets are important to them, and we always make sure to treat them with the utmost care. You also mentioned that you thought our team was fantastic.

We are so grateful for your kind words. We are always striving to provide our customers with the best possible service, and it is so rewarding to hear that we have met your expectations. We would be honored if you would consider leaving us a review on Google.

Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us, and it helps us to continue to provide our customers with the best possible service. We know that you are busy, so we would be happy to provide you with a link to our Google Business Profile so that you can leave a review at your convenience. Thank you again for choosing our company. We look forward to working with you again in the future.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

That’s much better. Not perfect, but we can work with that.

How To Use

This So with these prompts and responses, you’re able to cut down a lot of time on asking for reviews from customers. By delegating someone in your company to be the AI Czar that oversees this, you can set up a system where your staff use this tool to help grow your business.

With this example, you’re able to take a cost to use this tool and assign a value to what it does for your business. This means that in the future if another AI tool comes along that says it can do a lot more for your business, you’ll be prepared to evaluate it. You’ll have this exact scenario, along with the value it generates for your business, to measure and see if it’s worth the change in investment.

How to Maximize These Tools

Here are 3 things to keep in mind when it comes to maximizing tools like ChatGPT.

1) Brainstorming Stage  Think of these tools as a very eager intern who wants to do amazing work but knows next to nothing about your business. So when you’re writing these prompts, the more detailed you can be, the better (as you saw above.)

2) Creating the Prompt Establish clear parameters and be very specific. What’s the word count? Do you want bullet points? What’s the audience you’re trying to target? What does your business do? Is this for an email or social post? Etc.

3) Using the Results Always view the results as a first draft. Keep an open mind on what you get back and look to refine it. You can either refine it by clarifying the prompt with the tool, respond to it by asking it to summarize the response, expand on something, etc. Or you can take it as a first draft and write it yourself.

Email: harrison@vectradigital.com

Call: (239) 309-0623