Using AI in marketing: a practical workflow

Choose a task with a visible outcome

Select a recurring task whose output your team can evaluate. Examples include grouping anonymised customer questions, drafting alternative page outlines or preparing questions for a campaign review. Define what a useful result looks like before choosing a tool.

Start with a bounded pilot. Keep a record of the original task, time spent, quality issues and corrections. This makes it possible to judge whether the workflow helps the team.

Research and customer understanding

AI can help organise notes and surface recurring themes in material you provide. Give it a clear question and identify which source material it should use. Ask for distinctions between direct observations and interpretations.

Check the themes against the original material. A useful exercise is to group common sales questions into buying concerns, product requirements and implementation questions. The team then chooses which concerns need a clearer answer on the website.

Campaign planning and messaging

Provide the audience, offer, objective, channel, brand style and constraints. Ask for a few different approaches with the reasoning behind each. Evaluate them against customer knowledge and the actual offer.

For example, a brief for a training campaign could specify the participants, skills to be learned, delivery format and sign-up action. The review checks whether the message answers the audience’s decision-making questions and matches what will be delivered.

Content and SEO work

AI can help structure a page brief, explore explanations and edit a draft. Supply verified service details, examples and sources. Keep the relationship between the page, the customer question and the next step visible.

Google’s guidance emphasises accuracy, quality and relevance when using generated content. Review factual statements, links, metadata and the final wording before publication. The content planning guide sets out the information a brief should contain.

Analysis and reporting

A model can help draft explanations of a table or suggest follow-up questions. Define every metric, the period, filters and known changes in collection. Check calculations separately and keep the source data available for review.

A useful output connects an observation with a question to investigate. When enquiries change, the review might examine landing pages, traffic sources, form function and changes in campaigns. Each explanation needs evidence from the underlying data.

Protect the information you use

Classify the material before uploading it. Use approved tools and follow your organisation’s policies for customer data, personal information and confidential documents. Check the tool’s current data handling and account settings with the responsible team.

Anonymised or synthetic examples are a practical starting point for a training exercise. Restrict integrations to the access required for the task and agree who approves outputs that will be published or sent to customers.

A reusable brief and review

A useful brief includes: the task, audience, desired action, approved facts, source material, format, tone and acceptance criteria. Ask the tool to identify missing information instead of filling it with assumed facts.

Review usefulness, accuracy, specificity, consistency with the brand and the time needed for corrections. Keep the successful brief and a sample reviewed output so the next team member can repeat the process.

Talks and training for your team

I speak about the practical use of AI in marketing alongside SEO and GEO. An event session can introduce the opportunities and workflow; a workshop can apply the approach to your own planning and content tasks.

See speaking topics or training and workshops. Tell me the audience, their starting level and what they should be able to do after the session.

Sources

• Google Search: guidance on generative AI content

Editorial policy · Experience