How to use AI to get more value from tgm
(With AI prompts you can copy, paste and customise)
As humans, we love a binary, black-and-white answer. Whole foods = good. Ultra-processed food = bad. The reality is usually a more nuanced shade of grey — and that’s certainly the case when it comes to AI.
Yes, generative AI has its limitations and raises its share of ethical questions, but it’s also a powerful tool for organising information, exploring ideas and improving productivity. What it can’t do is replace the strategic thinking, creativity, human insight, personal connections and local knoledge that underpin effective marketing (that’s where we come in!).
The better prepared you are when a project begins, the less time we need to spend uncovering and defining objectives and the more time we can spend creating solutions that help you achieve meaningful results. AI can help you arrive at the starting line with greater clarity, confidence and focus.
Here are some practical ways to use AI before engaging with tgm.
- Define and Refine Your Goals
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is jumping straight to solutions. “We need a new website.” “We need a rebrand.” “We need some social media.”
But before deciding what you need, it’s important to understand what you’re trying to achieve. AI can help you evaluate your current objectives, identify gaps in your thinking and refine broad ambitions into clear, actionable goals. The clearer your business objectives, the easier it is to develop marketing activity that supports them.
Try a prompt like:
“Act as a business strategist. Based on the following description of my business, assess whether my current objectives are strategic, measurable and actionable. Identify any weaknesses, suggest improvements and recommend the three objectives that would have the greatest impact on business performance.”
Or:
“Based on this description of my business, what business challenges and growth opportunities should I be paying attention to over the next 12 months?”
- Let AI Interview You
One of the hardest parts of preparing a brief is knowing where to start. Many business owners have valuable insights, ideas and aspirations sitting in their heads, but struggle to get them onto paper. AI can act as a facilitator, helping you organise your thinking before we ever sit down together.
Ask AI to interview you:
“Act as a senior brand and marketing strategist. Interview me one question at a time to uncover my business goals, customer insights, competitive advantages, challenges and project requirements. Once you’ve gathered enough information, create a briefing document I can share with my agency.”
- Use AI as a Sounding Board
You don’t need a polished brief to start a conversation with AI. In fact, one of the best approaches is to simply start talking.
Try something like:
“I’m not sure exactly what I need. We’ve been in business for 20 years. Our website feels outdated. We get lots of referrals but not many enquiries online. We’re attracting the wrong types of customers and we’re struggling to recruit staff. Help me organise my thoughts.”
Or:
“Act as a senior marketing and brand strategist. Ask me questions one at a time to help me get what’s in my head onto paper. Challenge my assumptions, identify gaps in my thinking, and at the end create a clear briefing document for my creative marketing agency outlining my business challenges, objectives, audience, opportunities and measures of success.”
- Uncover Insights Hidden in Existing Information
Most businesses already have valuable information sitting in documents they’ve created over the years. Business plans, annual reports, sales reports, customer surveys, workshop notes, website analytics and CRM data can all contain useful insights.
Instead of letting those documents gather digital dust, you can use AI to identify common themes, opportunities and challenges.
Try:
“Review these documents and summarise the key business challenges, opportunities and strategic priorities that a marketing agency should understand.”
- Clarify What Kind of Help You Need
Sometimes the hardest question isn’t “What do I want?” It’s “What’s the best way to achieve it?” AI can help you move beyond assumptions and identify the root problem you’re trying to solve. For example, what appears to be a website problem may actually be a positioning issue. What feels like a marketing challenge may be a customer experience issue.
Try asking:
“Act as a marketing strategist. Based on the following business challenges and objectives, help me identify the root problem I am trying to solve and recommend the most appropriate type of marketing support.”
Follow it with:
“What outcomes should I expect from this type of project and how should I measure success?”
This can help you approach conversations with greater clarity and focus.
- Show Us What’s In Your Head
We know design and marketing, but you know your business. Sometimes it’s difficult to describe the look, feel or personality you’re aiming for. AI can help you articulate ideas that are hard to put into words. This can help communicate your preferences more clearly and provide useful inspiration during the briefing process.
For example, you could upload examples of websites, brands, advertisements or imagery you like and ask:
“Analyse these examples and identify the common themes, visual styles, colours, tone and design elements that appeal to me.”
- Create a Draft Agency Brief
Once you’ve gathered your thoughts, clarified your objectives and uncovered useful insights, you can ask AI to bring everything together into a draft brief. The brief gives us a stronger starting point and helps ensure we’re asking the right questions from day one.
Try:
“Based on everything we’ve discussed, create a concise briefing document for a creative marketing agency. Include:
- Business overview
- Current challenges
- Business objectives
- Target audiences
- Key messages
- Opportunities and risks
- Measures of success
- Questions that still need to be answered.”
What AI Can’t Do
AI can help you think more clearly and prepare more thoroughly, but it can’t replace customer research, strategic thinking, creative expertise, local knowledge and personal connections or human judgement.
AI can only work with the information you provide. It doesn’t know your customers, understand your market or validate your assumptions. That’s where customer research, strategic thinking and experienced marketing professionals still play a critical role.
The best outcomes happen when AI-generated insights are combined with experienced designers, marketers and strategists who know how to turn ideas into effective solutions.
If you’d like to discuss how we can help you achieve your business objectives, we’d love to chat. Give Andrea a bell on 027 477 6912 or email andrea@tgmcreative.co.nz and let’s kōrero about how we can work together.
