The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
ChatGPT can do a lot more than answer trivia questions. Marketers, writers, and business owners use it every day to draft content, brainstorm ideas, write emails, and automate repetitive tasks.
But not every use case delivers the same value, and the gap between a good prompt and a bad one can mean the difference between a usable output and wasted time.
This guide from WebFX breaks down 10 real ChatGPT examples across writing, marketing, research, and email, each with ready-to-use prompts so you can see exactly what works, what doesn’t, and how to get the most out of it.
Let’s start by covering the things ChatGPT is good at. Here are seven ChatGPT examples that show how it can benefit your marketing efforts.
One of the first things ChatGPT can do for you is help you write outlines for your blog posts and articles.
In this example, ChatGPT was asked to generate an outline of a blog post about the benefits of partnering with a financial consultant. The prompt also specified:
ChatGPT did a relatively good job at following instructions. This outline works as a good starting point for a blog post — it sets up a basic structure for the page and lists a few different benefits of partnering with a financial consultant, including the expertise and personalized solutions that a consultant would provide.
The outline is a good start, but it needs human editing. At the very least, it could provide some ideas for potential headers.
You can use ChatGPT in the same way when you approach your own blog posts. Make sure you’re still relying primarily on human writers, but consider using AI to assist those writers and generate suggestions for them.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to generate blog post outlines
Another way ChatGPT can benefit your writing is by assisting with headline generation. These headlines might be email subject lines, blog post title tags, or ad headlines.
In this example, ChatGPT was asked to create marketing email subject lines for a travel agency’s summer promo. The AI chatbot was given context with details about the special offers and different customer segments that will receive the email.
It’s standard practice to write clear prompts that also provide context to get better output from an AI tool.
Overall, this example shows that ChatGPT can be great for help with email subject line generation. While the headlines offered could use a couple of human tweaks, it’s a great start that can speed up your process.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to generate headlines
If researching a topic that’s new to you, ChatGPT can help provide synthesized information on the topic.
In this ChatGPT example, the prompt asked for information about a brand that recently opened nearby.
ChatGPT neatly summarized the competitor’s showroom strategy. Because it was asked for citations, it also provided links for fact-checking its summary.
This ChatGPT example also provided other details, including the new competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. It was also asked to offer starting marketing messages, and it provided a list.
Note that information from ChatGPT and other AI tools is a good starting point. Always perform further research using search engines and checking citations and legitimate websites.
Sample ChatGPT prompts for research
In addition to generating information, you can use ChatGPT to help you nail down the right tone.
In this example, ChatGPT was asked to come up with a social media post that advertises a new line of clothing. The prompt specified that it should use a voice that sounded informal while still remaining professional.
ChatGPT wrote a generic social media post, throwing in generic words that could be related to the sports mentioned. But the aim wasn’t to plan on using the post itself.
Instead, the goal in generating this text was to get a feel for that “professional, but informal voice.” And as far as voice goes, ChatGPT definitely delivered.
Taking after this ChatGPT example, you can also prompt it to respond with a tone that you’d like it to adopt. For example, if your brand is playful and cheeky, indicate it in your prompt.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to replicate tones
Another excellent capability of ChatGPT is summarizing long documents and technical papers. In this example, the AI chatbot was asked to summarize the key points of a report.
It was given context by specifying why the statistics and trends are needed. Of course, an AI tool’s summary is not a replacement for reviewing the document.
With the list of key points you have, you don’t start from scratch when reviewing a document.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to summarize research papers
When you’re stuck in the early ideation phase of a campaign, ChatGPT can generate a volume of concepts fast enough to break through creative blocks. The trick is giving it enough constraints that the ideas come back relevant instead of generic.
In this example, ChatGPT was asked to brainstorm five marketing campaign concepts for a midsize HVAC company launching a spring maintenance promotion. It was given these details: the audience (homeowners in suburban markets), the offer (discounted seasonal tune-ups), and the channels (email, paid social, local SEO).
The ideas included a ‘Spring Ready HVAC Check’ campaign with a seasonal urgency hook, and a ‘Don’t Sweat Summer’ angle focused on beating the peak-season rush. Not all five were winners, but two were strong enough to develop further, and the others sparked angles that hadn’t been considered.
The value here isn’t that ChatGPT gives you a finished campaign. It gives you raw material to react to, which is often faster than starting from zero.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to brainstorm campaign ideas
Business emails eat up more time than most people realize. ChatGPT can draft cold outreach, follow-ups, meeting recaps, internal announcements, and other professional messages in seconds, giving you a starting point that just needs your personal touch.
In this example, ChatGPT was asked to draft a follow-up email to a prospect who attended a webinar but didn’t book a demo. I specified the tone (helpful, not pushy), the key value prop to mention, and the CTA (book a 15-minute call).
The result hit the right balance. It opened with a reference to the webinar, mentioned a relevant benefit without overselling, and closed with a low-commitment CTA. A few tweaks to personalize it, and it was ready to send.
You can also use ChatGPT to refine emails you’ve already written. Paste in your draft and ask it to tighten the copy, adjust the tone, or make it more concise. This is especially useful for sensitive messages where word choice matters.
Sample ChatGPT prompts to draft business emails
As advanced as ChatGPT is, it’s still riddled with issues — some of which are fundamentally baked into the way the tool works.
Let’s go through each one.
AI tools like ChatGPT are prone to hallucinations. In AI speak, hallucinations are incorrect, inaccurate, or biased output generated by these tools. Training data, limited logical reasoning, or discriminatory data can cause AI systems to hallucinate.
In this ChatGPT example, it was asked for animated movies that feature a Jack Russell terrier. The second item on the list is incorrect, listing a hamster as one. Upon fact-checking, Rhino is indeed a hamster and not a dog of a specific breed.
Because ChatGPT is a general-purpose AI tool, it is trained with massive amounts of data that can mix up these small details. In fact, it has identified Rhino as a hamster in its second sentence, but added it to the list anyway.
Addressing this ChatGPT limitation: Double-checking ChatGPT’s results against trustworthy websites remains a necessary step. In this case, a quick search for “Bolt movie characters” revealed the error.
Like most AI tools, ChatGPT may respond with unfair or discriminatory statements. It goes to show that the quality of training data and algorithms directly impacts an AI system’s output.
In this ChatGPT example, it was asked for tips on how to improve one’s diet for a park’s blog. The first tip makes sense, but it recommended foods that may not be accessible to people from a lower-income household, discriminating against certain groups in the process.
Addressing this ChatGPT limitation: ChatGPT may provide biased responses for several reasons, which is why human review of its output is necessary. Businesses using AI tools for processes can mitigate this by auditing systems and diversifying data sets.
ChatGPT uses advanced models that can process massive amounts of data. Despite this ability, it has a limited ability to understand context and subtle nuances.
In this ChatGPT example, it was tasked to analyze running training statistics for weeks. Let’s go through some of the finer details it missed throughout its analysis.
ChatGPT is fed the day’s training program, including the rest and walk segments. These walking segments skewed the running efficiency metrics because they showed efficient vertical movement. Despite having this information, ChatGPT concluded that the athlete was running efficiently.
At one point, ChatGPT also provided insights factoring in the athlete’s lack of sleep. But the sleep data was for a different day — again, ChatGPT didn’t recognize that it was analyzing a training session for another day.
Addressing this ChatGPT limitation: This ChatGPT example shows that human oversight and critical thinking skills remain necessary when using AI tools. When drawing out insights using ChatGPT for marketing, verifying output with analytics tools and professional judgment is standard practice.
This story was produced by WebFX and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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