Season 3, Episode 17: The Scientific Approach to Prompt Engineering (with Mike Taylor)
Jun 11, 2024
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Mike Taylor, co-author of a book on Prompt Engineering and founder of a growth marketing agency, discusses the importance of improving prompt engineering skills, approaching it procedurally and programmatically, and the challenges of running an agency. They explore the evolution of growth hacking, lack of statistical literacy in marketing, and the scientific approach to testing strategies in marketing.
Building systems to enhance LLM interactions is crucial.
Deep dives
The Evolution of Growth Hacking and Creative Testing
The concept of growth hacking emerged post-dotcom bubble, aiming to combine marketing and engineering expertise. However, the term got distorted as marketers adopted it for higher pay without the original systematic and scalable approach. Traditional and digital marketers now face challenges of speed and cloning of ad concepts impacting performance. Creative testing requires unifying concepts and themes for consistent brand identity while allowing variations within these boundaries.
Impact of Speed on Ad Concept Cloning
The rapid cloning of ad concepts due to speed and digital tools like Facebook Ads Library poses challenges to marketers. Once an ad takes off, competitors swiftly copy it, impacting performance. The instant availability of competitor ads demands strategic and agile responses to maintain differentiation and effectiveness.
Navigating Speed and Consistency in Ad Production
The shift from traditional to digital ad production requires marketers to balance speed and strategic consistency. Marketers leveraging trends like ASMR into ads demonstrate market awareness and brand adaptation agility. Speed of production, along with brand recognition, impacts the efficacy and response of ad campaigns.
Recognizing Opportunities in Rapid Marketing Evolution
In a landscape of quick ad cloning and evolving consumer trends, marketers must leverage tools and industry insights to stay ahead. Creative testing now involves adapting to speed, recognizing trends in organic and paid media, and strategically positioning ads to maximize reach and engagement.
Addressing Challenges and Opportunities in Digital Marketing
The digital marketing sphere presents challenges such as rapid competition and ad concept cloning, necessitating adaptive strategies. Marketers must blend consistency with agility, leveraging tools and consumer trends to drive effective creative testing and brand identity in a fast-evolving landscape.
In our conversation, among other things, Mike and I discuss:
How Prompt Engineering is a skill that can be improved upon over time;
The non-obvious ways in which prompt engineering can be approached in order to improve outcomes;
How Prompt Engineering can be approached procedurally and programmatically, and how companies should think about building systems that improve their LLM interactions over time;
Whether the growth hacking model has fallen out of favor;
The principal challenges of running an agency;
Whether marketing generally suffers from a lack of statistical literacy.
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast: