7 tips for scalable AI in marketing (without losing brand voice)

AI? Serious business growth? Scale your marketing efforts faster? In this fast-paced digital marketing landscape? Count us in!

But wait, now we sound like 89%* of companies on the internet.

Enter: These 7 tips to helping you scale your AI marketing, without losing your brand voice. (Phew.)

*this statistic is completely and utterly made-up but sounds about right judging by my LinkedIn.

1. Prompt like a pro

   
   Behind every great AI output, is a great input.
   
   Clear, thoughtful, and full-of-context prompts give your AI the information it needs to deliver on-brand content that's actually useful. So no, don't go asking for "a blog about product launches"—give it personality, structure, and examples.

   ❌ Bad prompt:
   
   “Write a blog about product launches.”
   
   Why it misses the mark: Too vague. No audience, tone, structure, or purpose. You’ll likely get generic fluff in return (and who wants that).
   
   

   😐 Okay prompt:
   
   “Write a 500-word blog post about how to plan a successful product launch.”
   
   Why it’s better, but not great: You’ve added a topic and a word count, which helps. But there's still no brand voice, no target audience, and no clear CTA or point of view.

   
   ✅ Good prompt:
   
   “Write a 500-word blog post for marketing leaders at mid-size B2B SaaS companies on how to plan a successful product launch. Use a confident, insightful tone—like HubSpot or HBR, following our brand guidelines. Highlight common launch pitfalls and include a call-to-action to download our product launch checklist.”
   
   

   Why it works: It gives the AI tool context, tone of voice examples, structure, and a CTA. It’s specific, strategic, and scalable.
   
   

   Think of your AI tool like a freelancer. You'd never just tell them to "write something—you'd save everyone's time by explaining the audience, tone, goals, and examples to follow. AI needs the same.

   Check out our guide on how to write (much) better AI prompts

2. Prompt-sharing is caring

   What's even better than nailing your own AI prompts? Sharing your winning AI prompts.

   Create a shared space where your fellow marketers (and other departments too, if you're feeling really generous) can find, use, and tweak prompts easily. Whether it’s a Notion doc, a Google Sheet, or a dedicated Slack channel, make it easy for your team to:

   • See what worked well for you

   • Add their own improvements

   • Apply prompts across use cases and campaigns

   The more accessible your prompt knowledge is, the faster and more consistent your outputs will become—even across teams or regions.

   Don't know where to start? Our series, Using AI across your content lifecycle has a bunch to share for each marketing use case.

3. Get better at AI system instructions

   System instructions are like your AI’s internal compass. Make 👏 the 👏 most 👏 of 👏 them.

   Many tools (like ChatGPT’s custom instructions or Optimizely One's AI features) allow you to set system instructions or rules for tone, format, banned phrases, and more. These guidelines stay in place across any prompts you give the tool, meaning fewer corrections, better consistency, and a little less context needed in your prompt (just because it's already in the 'backend').

   Use AI system instructions to:

   • Define your tone (eg. bold, witty, no jargon)

   • Specify compliance guidelines, quotes or phrases to avoid, and provide alternatives

   • Set dos and don’ts (eg. no clichés, avoid passive voice)

   • Outline formatting preferences

   • Provide reference material (eg. link to your brand guide)

   Get the rest the best practices on how to write AI instructions here, including examples of AI instructions behind the scenes at Optimizely.
   
   The way we look at it is like you're onboarding your AI. But instead having to sit down for 47369 hours to watch 43 videos, go through 9 different documents, then read the website, blog, and brand guidelines to their very core, AI will devour all this content in a matter of seconds.

4. Put AI on autopilot (and let it work while you sleep)

   When it comes to your workflows, AI works best when it's properly baked in... not just bolted on.

   Instead of collaboration problems and copy-pasting between tools (🚨 headache alert), integrate AI directly where your content lives: your CMS, your content marketing platform, your digital asset management system, your experimentation platform.

   There are automation opportunities in a bunch of things across marketing, like:

   • Auto-generating meta descriptions or SEO tags

   • Drafting campaign briefs from templates

   • Repurposing blog posts into social content

   These small workflow upgrades add up to huge time savings, especially at scale. Oh and guess what? Optimizely Opal does all of that and more—that's why we call it an infinite workforce.

5. Connect the dots with streamlined data access

   You've definitely heard this one via your LinkedIn newsfeed before but your AI is only as smart as the info you fuel it with. So, what better than to making that info more readily available?

   If your content creators have to dig through drive folders, brand decks, and spreadsheets to find the “right” messaging, that’s a sign your AI (and your team) needs better access to your source of truth.

   And the solution? Connect your AI to approved data and documents—style guides, product descriptions, performance data, keyword data—so it pulls from the right places automatically.

   No more clicking, pasting, or praying it gets the messaging right.

6. Test, tweak, repeat

   AI isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. It’s set-it-and-iterate.

   That means what works today might not work next month. As you scale, keep a feedback loop in place by doing things like:

   • Collecting examples of what works (and what doesn't)

   • Revisiting prompt performance quarterly

   • Refining system instructions as your brand voice evolves

   • Encouraging teams to leave feedback on shared prompts

   AI improves when you do—so build a culture of testing and tuning (it's 100% how you get ahead of the game).

7. Never, EVER compromise on quality

   Speed is all well and good, until it's 1) not really performing and 2) risking your brand's reputation.

   Even the best AI tools in the biz need human oversight and yes, that means AI can't take our jobs just yet.
   
   

   Make sure all workflows with AI-integrated into them have review checkpoints, whether through human QA, AI scoring tools, or a final editorial pass before publishing.

Don't let the bot get the better of your brand

AI can absolutely help you scale your marketing faster, smarter, and more efficiently. But the brands that win? They’re the ones who don’t lose their voice in the process.

With the right prompts, smart systems, and a commitment to quality, you can grow your marketing engine, and still sound unmistakably you.

Find out the dos and don'ts of using AI for a strong brand voice here.

Want to see how Optimizely helps team scale AI marketing, without skimping on brand voice? Check out our Hype to Hero video series with quick insights.