AI for Small Businesses: Creating Creative Texts
In the second post of our blog series "AI for Small Businesses," we focus on the core competence of GenAI chatbots: generating new, creative texts. For an explanation of what "GenAI Chatbots" actually means, please see our introduction. This series is aimed at small businesses that want to test the capabilities of GenAI in everyday business without investment. For this reason, we focus on generalist GenAI chatbots that are offered as a service.
Caution! When using chatbot services, adhere to two principles:
- Never disclose confidential or sensitive information to chatbots. Your inputs could end up in training data or evaluations and be accessed by other users.
- Check GenAI texts for their plausibility and appropriateness. GenAI chatbots are not subject matter experts. They make up things that neither match reality nor your requirements.
For the examples in this post, we will use ChatGPT. ChatGPT offers a free version that you can use without any investment. Play around with our use cases and the shown prompts or experiment yourself with this tool to see if it can help you in everyday life!
Digression: What is "Prompting" and what impact does it have?
Before we get to our practical examples, let's briefly focus on the theory: how do you actually get a GenAI chatbot to give you the right information? In short: You ask it clearly and in as much detail as possible.
The request you make to a chatbot is called a "prompt" (the associated activity is "prompting")
A prompt can have the following components:
- Instruction: What do you want to achieve with your prompt? The more specific your request, the more specific the answer will be.
- Context: What is the background of your request? For example, if you make a request about "physical therapy," it makes a difference whether you are a professional athlete, therapist, or layperson.
- Format: In what form do you want your response? You can have your product description generated as a haiku, if you wish.
- Tone: In what style should the response be formulated? Your text can be created in a congenial, casual manner, or formal and scholarly.
- Limitations: What is your focus, and what do you not want to see as part of the response?
Here is an exemplary prompt that asks a GenAI chatbot to explain "prompting":
| Component | Text |
|---|---|
| Context | Imagine you are an AI expert creating content for a beginner's guide to artificial intelligence. |
| Instruction | Explain the concept of prompting in AI chatbots. |
| Limitations | Cover the definition, importance, and main components. |
| Format | Keep your explanation under 200 words. |
| Tone | Use simple language suitable for a beginner audience with little to no prior knowledge of AI or chatbots. |
Good to know: GenAI chatbots are, by design, geared towards conversation. Talk to the chatbot to iteratively improve the response! Now that we've clarified that, let's look at the use cases.
Storytelling
GenAI excels at generating creative and coherent stories. This might not seem particularly useful for business day-to-day, but besides idea generation (which we will discuss in the next post), stories also have applications in illustrating products and services. For instance, we have "collaborated" with ChatGPT to create the character of Henriette Müller, who accompanies you through our website.
A practical example in detail: To illustrate some use cases of GenAI, we will, with the help of ChatGPT, invent a company. The nursery business "GreenGrow" created during this process will accompany us for the rest of this series. We used the following prompt:
Imagine you are writing a blog post aimed at making the topic of GenAI chatbots accessible to a general audience. Invent a small business to illustrate how small companies can use GenAI chatbots in their daily operations. Describe the business, especially the daily work routine of the employees. Use no more than 100 words. Describe only the business, not the use of GenAI.
ChatGPT-Answer: The fictional company "GreenGrow," a small organic herb gardening business, consists of a team of ten employees. The daily workflow includes the care of herb plants, customer consultations, and the handling of orders. The employees share the tasks, working both in the greenhouse and in customer service. The work atmosphere is dynamic, with a strong focus on sustainability and customer proximity. Despite the high workload, the team remains motivated and collegial, supported by a flat hierarchy and open communication channels.
Creating Marketing Content
In our fictional company GreenGrow, employees use ChatGPT to create efficient and appealing product descriptions. Instead of spending hours writing text, they upload the manufacturer's product data sheets, and ChatGPT generates detailed, customer-specific descriptions. This saves valuable time that would otherwise be invested in manual writing, allowing employees to focus more on customer service and the greenhouse.
A practical example in detail: below you will find a prompt to generate the product description of organic fertilizer. Note in particular that the prompt specifies the target audience and the sales argument through instruction and context. You can find the PDF we used in our prompt here.
Upload: StyriaFert-AT-Datenblatt-BIO-NPK.pdf
I have a PDF file with basic information about our new organic fertilizer. Take on the role of an agricultural expert and use this information to create an appealing and comprehensive product description. The description should include an introductory description, general application and dosage recommendations, and a concluding sentence highlighting the ecological benefits of the product. Encourage customers to choose this sustainable product. Use no more than 100 words for the description. Respond exclusively with the product description. Choose wording that appeals to enthusiastic hobby gardeners.
ChatGPT-Answer: Discover STYRIAFERT BIO-NPK, our organic fertilizer from sustainable agriculture. With a balanced nutrient composition of 4% nitrogen, 3% phosphate, and 2.5% potassium, this product efficiently promotes growth, root strength, and harvest quality of your plants. Easily applicable with a spreader, it shows visible effects after just one week. Ideal for various types of cultivation, it contributes to long-term soil fertility and sustainably supports humus formation. Choose STYRIAFERT BIO-NPK – for a rich harvest and a healthy planet.
Translating Specialized Language
When you hear "translate," you probably think of translating into the languages of different nationalities — a use case that GenAI indeed handles well. However, translating between domain specific languages is also a valid application for GenAI.
For example, our fictional company GreenGrow wants to submit a grant application for the development of a new, sustainable biofertilizer. The company can sell the sustainability and novelty of the product well to their customers and investors, but not in the formal and factual language of a grant application.
To still create a first draft, GreenGrow employees describe the new development as best they can and send this text to ChatGPT. Then, they upload the call for proposals as a PDF and ask ChatGPT to make suggestions for individual sections. A corresponding prompt might look like this:
You are an experienced scientific employee in applied research. You want to apply for a grant for the product we have already described to you in previous messages. We have uploaded the call for proposals to you as an attachment. Now create the text for section 2.1.5. In particular, discuss why the product represents an innovation over the state of the art. Do not invent new information about the product and use only the data we have given you. If you need more information, ask us. Use factual and formal language, clearly and precisely formulated. Use a maximum of 200 words.
Conclusion and Outlook
In the second post of our series "AI for Small Businesses," we have examined the most obvious application of GenAI chatbots: generating creative texts. This capability of GenAI can help you make your products and services more tangible to customers, efficiently and quickly create product descriptions, or translate text into other (specialized) languages. However, always remember the two principles of dealing with chatbot services.
Stay tuned for our next post, where we will explore a more advanced application of GenAI: idea generation and elaboration.