A Quick Guide to Dynamic and Consistent Output
Ben • March 23, 2024

One of the keys to great Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) output is starting with simple prompting concepts. Many new, and even experienced users, get lost in simplistic or complex prompts and grow frustrated with their results. It’s important to remember that AI uses “natural language” prompting. Simply put, talk to AI like it’s a human being. Just like in the workplace, the more clear and direct you are with your expectations to a coworker, the more likely you’ll receive consistent on target results. 

Following a few simple guidelines, but understanding them well, will help you get more out of your AI coworker. 

Personal Driven Prompts : Who do you want AI to emulate? A marketing director, professional software coder, attorney, compliance officer. Let AI focus in on a skill set. 

Providing Examples : Humans inherently follow directions better when they’re given specific directions to follow. A recipe, if you will, leads to a better outcome compared to a simple shopping list. 

Clear Logical Steps : Sticking with the recipe analogy, clear steps to a process leads to stronger results compared to chefs guessing or combining steps that need to remain separate. 

The key to maximizing AI’s potential lies in the art of prompting — following these guidelines will automatically improve your output. 

The Persona-Driven Approach

Imagine directing AI to adopt the persona of a marketing director discussing financial products, as opposed to a PhD in finance dissecting complex economic theories. The distinction in output can be stark, highlighting how persona-specific prompts can align AI’s responses more closely with the intended audience or task. This method is especially powerful in settings where the tone, style, and content must vary significantly based on your target audience or purpose. For instance, in a banking context, tailoring prompts to reflect the perspective of a consumer banking head can yield insights and advice that resonate more effectively with the target audience.

Practical Tips:

  • Persona-driven prompts ensure output that aligns with you or your audience’s expectations. 
  • This approach helps with the creation of specialized content that caters to distinct segments of your market or organization.
  • Your persona can take many forms: a role, like Head of Compliance for a bank. A person, like chef Anthony Bourdain. A time period, like someone living in 1890 in Wisconsin. 
  • Simply give AI direction on the role it should play and you’ll be amazed at the improvement in your results. 

The Recipe for Success: Providing Examples

Providing AI with clear examples to follow is akin to handing someone a recipe. This method significantly enhances the AI’s ability to generate output that meets specific standards or follows a desired format. For example, if your goal is to create a report with a particular table layout or to draft minutes from a meeting with specific formatting requirements, providing a sample template or example as part of your prompt can guide the AI to replicate this format accurately. This “recipe” approach ensures consistency and reduces the need for repeated adjustments or clarifications.

Practical Tips:

  • Utilize templates or example formats to guide AI’s output, ensuring consistency across documents and reports. Tell AI to use the example as a template for its output. 
  • Use a tool like ChatGPT Plus’s feature to upload documents. Upload a document to act as a template and reference this specifically in your prompt. 
  • Tailor your prompts to include specific instructions or examples based on well accepted formats in your industry. 
  • Input examples of what not to do.

Structuring Output with Numbered Steps

When tasks require a sequence of steps or when dealing with complex information that could potentially confuse AI, structuring your prompt with numbered steps can be incredibly effective. This technique not only organizes the AI’s output but also clarifies the process it should follow, leading to more coherent, consistent, and usable results. Whether you’re drafting procedural documents or seeking to outline a multi-stage project plan, incorporating numbered steps in your prompts can significantly improve the clarity and actionability of AI-generated content.

Practical Tips:

  • Provides clear direction to AI by explicitly listing steps to follow, such as step 1, step 2, step 3, and so on. 
  • If you’re not seeing consistent results, create more steps or be more explicit with your steps. 
  • Sometimes, AI operates more logically than we anticipate. Refining your prompt to be more linear, and less reliant on natural language nuances, can enhance consistency.

Sample Prompt

As the head of our cleaning products marketing department, craft a comprehensive strategy document for our upcoming product launch. The audience for this document is our internal marketing team, including content creators, social media managers, and our PR team. Here’s what I need:

Follow These Steps: 

1. Introduction: Start with an overview of the market landscape for eco-friendly household products, emphasizing recent trends and consumer behavior shifts.

2. Target Audience: Detail our primary and secondary audience segments, using our personas “Eco-conscious Emma” and “Sustainable Steve” as examples.

3. Marketing Strategies: Provide a bulleted list of strategies, including digital advertising, influencer partnerships, and community engagement events. Use the format I’ve uploaded in our previous campaign for “GreenClean Initiative” as a guide for each strategy description.

Ensure the tone is optimistic yet realistic, mirroring the style of our quarterly strategy reviews.

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