Study Guide: Alex for Marketing Professionals
Your personal reference for applying Alex to marketing strategy, content, and campaign work. Ready-to-run prompts, core use cases, and a practice progression for marketers.
What This Guide Is Not
This is not a habit formation guide (see Self-Study Guide for that). This is a domain use-case library — the specific things Alex can do in your marketing work, and how to do them well.
Core Principle for Marketers
The biggest risk in marketing + AI: generic output. AI defaults to average because average is “safe.” Marketing that converts is specific, opinionated, and audience-aware.
To get specific output from Alex, you must give specific input. Brand voice, persona detail, product differentiators, the specific emotion you want to trigger — all of this must be in your prompt. If you don’t give it, Alex will invent generic substitutes.
The pattern that separates effective marketing AI use from ineffective: treat Alex as a strategic sparring partner first, copy generator second.
The Five Use Cases
1. Campaign Strategy and Brief Development
When to use: Building a campaign from scratch, or when an existing campaign isn’t performing and you need to rethink it.
Prompt pattern:
I'm developing a campaign strategy for [product/service/launch].
Target audience: [describe in detail — role, pain points, buying stage].
Campaign goal: [awareness / consideration / conversion / retention].
Key differentiator we want to land: [what makes this product the right choice].
Tone: [professional / provocative / warm / urgent / educational].
Build a campaign brief covering:
- Core message (one sentence)
- Supporting messages (3)
- Channels and format recommendations
- Call to action
- What success looks like
Follow-up prompts:
Play the role of a skeptical CMO reviewing this brief. What's weak?
How would a competitor attack this messaging? How do I make it more defensible?
2. Audience and Persona Analysis
When to use: When you need to sharpen your ICP understanding, explore a new segment, or pressure-test a persona assumption.
Prompt pattern:
I'm targeting [audience segment] with [product/service].
What I know about them: [describe their role, context, pain points, objections].
Help me build a detailed persona analysis covering:
- What they're trying to achieve in their role
- What's getting in their way
- What triggers them to evaluate a solution like mine
- What language they use (that I should use, not corporate-speak)
- What makes them say no
Follow-up prompts:
What assumptions about this audience am I most likely wrong about?
How does this persona differ from [adjacent persona] in terms of what they need to hear?
3. Messaging and Copy Development
When to use: Developing value propositions, website copy, ad copy, email sequences, or landing page content.
Prompt pattern:
I need to write [copy type: value prop / email subject lines / ad copy / landing page headline] for [product/service].
Audience: [describe].
Core message: [the one thing they need to believe].
Brand voice: [describe with adjectives and an example if you have one].
Constraint: [length / word count / format requirements].
Follow-up prompts:
Give me 5 alternatives — each with a completely different angle (emotional / rational / fear / aspiration / social proof).
Which of these five would you bet on and why?
Test this copy against these objections [list them]. Where does it fail?
4. Content Planning and Editorial Strategy
When to use: Building a content calendar, planning a thought leadership series, or designing a nurture sequence.
Prompt pattern:
I'm planning [content type: blog series / email nurture / LinkedIn thought leadership / podcast topics] for [audience].
Goal: [build trust / generate leads / retain customers / recruit talent].
Cadence: [weekly / biweekly / monthly].
My company's perspective on [topic — what we believe that others don't]:
Build a 3-month content plan with topic ideas, angles, and the specific audience outcome for each piece.
Follow-up prompts:
Which three topics in this plan have the most SEO / search demand potential?
Where is this content plan too safe? Where should I take a stronger position?
5. Post-Campaign Analysis and Optimization
When to use: After a campaign completes or at a performance checkpoint — before the next planning cycle.
Prompt pattern:
I'm analyzing results from [campaign].
What worked: [metrics / qualitative observations].
What didn't: [metrics / qualitative observations].
Hypothesis for what drove the gap: [your current thinking].
Help me structure an analysis covering:
- What the data tells us vs. what it doesn't tell us
- Root cause hypotheses for underperformance
- Specific changes to test next cycle
- What we should stop, start, and double down on
Follow-up prompts:
What's the alternative explanation for underperformance that I haven't considered?
Translate this analysis into a 5-bullet summary for the executive team.
Your First Week Back: Practice Plan
| Day | Task | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Use the Messaging Development pattern on copy you currently have in draft | 20 min |
| Day 2 | Run Audience Analysis on your current primary ICP — pressure-test your assumptions | 20 min |
| Day 3 | Build a Campaign Brief for an upcoming initiative | 25 min |
| Day 4 | Try the Content Planning pattern for your next editorial quarter | 20 min |
| Day 5 | Save three useful prompt patterns with /saveinsight | 10 min |
Month 2–3: Advanced Applications
Brand Voice Library Build a brand voice reference in Alex that you can call in every session:
/saveinsight title="Brand voice: [Company/Product]" insight="Voice: [adjectives]. Tone: [formal/casual/etc]. We say [example]. We never say [counter-example]. Audience: [description]." tags="brand-voice,[company]"
Competitive Positioning Keep competitive intelligence in Alex and use it for messaging decisions:
/saveinsight title="Competitor [name] positioning" insight="[Their core claim. Their audience. Their weakness. How we're different.]" tags="competitive,[company]"
Continue your practice: Self-Study Guide — the 30/60/90-day habit guide.