Most people type a request. The people getting good output write a brief. The difference is not talent or secret keywords: it is five parts that appear, in some form, in nearly every prompt that reliably works.

1. Role

Open by naming the expertise you want, specifically.

You are an experienced B2B copywriter who writes short, specific cold emails.

Not "you are a helpful assistant" — that is the default. The role sets vocabulary, structure and the standards the assistant holds itself to before it writes a word. "An NHS clinical auditor", "a pedantic staff engineer who has been paged at 3am", "a Year 6 teacher explaining to a class" all produce measurably different answers to the same question.

2. Context

Give the assistant what it cannot know, and mark it clearly so you remember to change it:

My offer: [ONE SENTENCE]
Ideal customer: [TITLE, COMPANY TYPE, SIZE]
What I know about this prospect: [NOTES]

Vagueness in, vagueness out. Almost every disappointing result traces back to a context slot that was left generic, or left as a placeholder.

3. Task

State exactly what you want produced, including how many and in what form. "Write 3 variations" beats "write some options". "A table with these four columns" beats "summarise this".

4. Rules with numbers in them

This is the part people skip, and it does most of the work.

Under 120 words each. Subject line under 6 words, lowercase. One problem, one line of proof, one low-friction ask. No superlatives, no jargon, no exclamation marks.

"Short" means nothing to a model that has read a million pieces of marketing copy. "Under 120 words" is a constraint it can check itself against. Negative rules matter just as much: naming the clichés you do not want is the fastest way to remove them.

5. Self-critique

End by making the assistant turn on its own output:

Then list the single assumption in each draft that would make it fall flat.

Or: "Name the weakest claim here and what evidence would be needed to support it." Or: "What would a sceptical reader push back on first?"

This is what separates confident filler from something worth editing. Models are far better at spotting the flaws in a draft than at avoiding them while writing, so give them a second pass to do it.

Before and after

Before:

write a cold email to a marketing director about our software

Four paragraphs of "I hope this email finds you well", no specifics, straight to the bin.

After:

You are an experienced B2B copywriter who writes short, specific cold emails.

My offer: scheduling software that cuts rota admin for care homes
Ideal customer: operations directors at care groups with 5-40 homes
What I know about this prospect: they posted about staff turnover last week
and run 12 homes across the North West

Write 3 cold email variations. Under 120 words each. Open with a specific
observation about them. One problem, one line of proof, one low-friction ask.
No superlatives, no jargon, no exclamation marks. Subject line under 6 words.

Then list the single assumption in each that would make it fall flat.

Three sendable drafts, and an honest note on where each one is guessing.

The point of a prompt pack

You can write this yourself every time. Most people do not: they type the one-liner because the full brief takes four minutes they do not have at 4pm on a Thursday. That is the entire value of a pack: the four minutes are already spent, the brackets tell you what to fill in, and the discipline is baked in.

Browse the packs if you would rather start from a tested version than a blank box.