Have you tried using generative AI in your digital marketing, but found that it behaves more like “spicy autocomplete” than real intelligence?
Try using disconfirmation questions. Here’s how.
The power to disconfirm questions
Disconfirmation questions challenge what you already believe or believe to be true.
Rather than asking questions that match your ideas, disconfirmation questions encourage you to question and explore different possibilities.
Contrast this with confirmation questions, which seek validation and reinforce existing perspectives.
Notice the difference between these two questions and the answers they will get:
Confirming: Do you agree that this new feature will greatly improve the user experience?
Unconfirming: What potential pitfalls or challenges might arise from implementing this new feature and how might it affect the user experience?
The way you ask a question has a big impact on the answer.
In a Wharton Study, participants were asked to play the role of a salesman selling a used iPod. They were told that the iPod had crashed twice in the past, erasing all the music stored on it.
The researchers wanted to see what kinds of questions would lead salespeople to reveal the problem. Here are the experiment questions:
When asked, “What can you tell me about the iPod?” less than one in 10 sellers disclosed the problem. More than 10 times more salespeople disclosed the accident when asked, “What problems do you have?”
I borrowed this experiment to see how ChatGPT would change its responses based on the questions I asked. Here’s how it went:
Petition A: “I would like to buy this used iPod. What can you tell me about it?”
ChatGPT’s response: “…iPod models vary in terms of features, storage capacity and generation. Please provide me with the necessary details or any identifying information about the iPod so that I can better assist you.”
After confirming that it is a language model and informing me that they would need more specific details, the response is a vague overview of the differences between iPod models.
Compare this answer with the one you provide for a question you don’t confirm:
Petition C: “I would like to buy this used ipod. What problems does it have?”
ChatGPT’s response: “…I do not have access to specific information about the individual iPod you are referring to. However, when buying a used iPod, it’s important to be aware of potential problems that could arise. Here are some common problems that could affect a used iPod:
To minimize risk, consider buying from reputable sellers with good ratings or warranties, if available. Also, ask the seller about any known problems or defects the iPod may have before making a final decision.”
The second prompt didn’t provide any additional information, but the answer gave me a plan of action to make sure I have a working iPod.
Like the marketers in the original Wharton study, ChatGPT seeks to answer the specific questions we ask.
This means that we can influence the quality of the responses we receive based on the directions we provide.
Asking generative AI disconfirming questions can lead to more transparent and useful answers.
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How disconfirmation questions can benefit your digital marketing strategy
While disconfirmation questions are useful in most professions, they are especially valuable in digital marketing, where the volume of data and lurking variables can easily lead to wrong conclusions.
Using disconfirmation questions in your marketing strategy can help you:
Avoid confirmation bias actively looking for evidence that contradicts your initial assumptions or interpretations.
Discover hidden patterns digging deeper, exploring outliers and considering alternative perspectives.
Test assumptions taking a more rigorous approach to data interpretation.
All of this leads to more accurate data and conclusions, leading to better results.
Building a practice of asking high-quality disconfirmation questions also contributes to professional growth, such as:
Critical thinking skills: Develop a more balanced and objective perspective as you seek out ideas and viewpoints that contradict your current understanding.
Innovative innovation: Challenge conventional wisdom and question the status quo to find innovative ideas that would otherwise have been overlooked.
Strengthening the ability to solve problems: Build a more holistic and complete analysis of a situation to identify new angles and possible solutions.
When combined with generative AI, the benefits of disconfirming questions are even more powerful.
That’s because you can use generative AI as a brainstorming partner, giving you guidance and answers to otherwise rhetorical questions. AI can help you:
Identify different perspectives: Generative AI can provide new and diverse perspectives that you may not have considered.
Overcome mental blocks: Get help with fresh ideas, alternative points of view, and unexpected connections.
Collaborative iteration: Use AI iteratively, ask follow-up questions and challenge responses, and bring your own judgment and expertise to the conversation for productive and interactive dialogue.
Let’s look at the specific areas of digital marketing where you can combine disconfirming questions and generative AI for powerful results.
How to uncover untapped marketing opportunities with disconfirmation questions
To get the most out of your prompts and questions, it’s important to start with a clear understanding of the problem. When problems are well defined, they are easier to solve.
So, before creating your prompts and questions, take the time to fully understand the problem and its details. This will help you develop effective questions and inquiries that lead to meaningful solutions.
Landing page disconfirmation questions
The success of your PPC ads depends on a high-converting landing page, but landing page development is often a separate discipline from digital marketing.
If you work on landing pages, these questions can help you in the process.
If you’re not directly responsible for the landing pages or don’t feel comfortable rating edits, you can provide high-quality feedback as an added value.
Here’s how to use generative AI to identify improvements to increase conversion rates.
First, paste the content of your landing page into the request box or use a connect to connect directly to the page. Then ask disconfirmation questions, such as these sample prompts:
Request: “What’s missing from the landing page that could prevent a customer from buying?”
ChatGPT may provide feedback on specific elements (such as product descriptions or CTA buttons), usability and navigation, value propositions, social proof and trust signals, and persuasive content.
Request: “What elements or features of my landing page might confuse or mislead visitors, and how can I clear them up?”
ChatGPT can analyze your page’s message clarity, message hierarchy, navigation, consistency and reliability, as well as the potential for information overload and provide recommendations for improvement.
Audience disconfirmation questions
Many preconfigured audience insights requests address strictly demographic data, such as asking about the age range of your target market.
What if instead you ask disconfirming questions like:
Request: “What are some potential biases or assumptions I may have about my audience and how can I challenge them?”
ChatGPT can help identify potential behavioral assumptions about your audience, such as their decision-making process, cultural or linguistic biases, psychographic assumptions (such as motivations and needs), and demographic assumptions.
Request: “What are some reasons why my audience might not be interested in my product or service, despite its benefits and features?”
ChatGPT can help you consider factors such as misaligned value propositions, brand awareness (or lack thereof), targeting effectiveness, competitive landscape, communication gaps, and price and affordability.
You can also use disconfirmation questions to identify new target audiences (“Could there be a different demographic that would benefit from our product/service that we haven’t considered?”), or to evaluate specific audience segments (“How could our marketing? messages are perceived differently by various segments of our audience?”).
Customer disconfirmation questions
Managing digital marketing and managing customer expectations are two different skill sets. Fortunately, ChatGPT can help with both.
Request: “What potential objections or concerns might my client have about my marketing strategies and how can I address them in a clear and effective way?”
ChatGPT can help anticipate and solve problems your clients may have with strategy, messaging, measurement, reporting, positioning, brand identity or budgeting.
Request: “Can you think of any reason why my client is unhappy with my current communication approach and how I can improve it?”
No one is a perfect communicator. ChatGPT can reveal issues with clarity, frequency, personalization, channel selection, feedback methods, and use of visuals to make your customer communication more effective.
Drive innovation in ChatGPT with disconfirmation questions
The best way to use generative AI is through collaboration.
Combine your own knowledge, creativity, and experience with the power of debunking questions to drive high-value discussions, get better results, and grow professionally.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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