Email series prompt

Here’s a prompt to use in your LLM of choice to create a three-part email marketing series

Email marketing can be incredibly effective at inspiring action in your audience. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are capable of creating content suitable for email marketing in a matter of seconds. It makes sense then, to use an AI tool like ChatGPT to help us write compelling emails to our audience to help grow our businesses.

But it’s not that simple.

And you’ll know that if you’ve ever tried to co-create a marketing campaign with ChatGPT. We’re going to give you the exact prompt to use to give you a first draft of a compelling three-part email series.

Why a three email series?

The first reason your marketing email may have failed is because it was just that – one email. Very few people take action the first time you email them, especially if you’ve not emailed your list in a while. You’re asking A LOT of that single email to engage your audience, resonate with them, capture the imagination, and inspire them to act there and then.

That’s why the minimum number of emails to send in a series or wave of emails is three. Some marketers use many more than this in the same email series.

Problem, agitation, solution

The problem, agitation, solution framework is a tried and tested marketing framework that is effective for emails. We first need to identify and highlight a problem our audience faces to bring their awareness to it, showing we understand their challenges.

Then we agitate that problem, expanding on all the friction or challenges that underlying problem creates for that person in their life or business. For many audience members, they might not realize the full impact of the problem or that an alternative reality truly exists.

Now it’s time for the solution. This is how you or your product solves that problem, removing those points of friction and helps them live a new reality.

Prompting ChatGPT

It’s not only having a three email series in place, though. ChatGPT needs to understand the strategy, your business and your audience. Your prompt needs to be clear, well-structured and contain key details for ChatGPT to work with.

The below prompt can be copy and pasted into ChatGPT, or your LLM of choice. All you need to do is complete the information required in the square brackets.

You’ll almost certainly need to modify the output to better suit your style and needs, but it will save hours of thinking and writing time. You can always reprompt the AI to make more general changes before you make manual edits.

Marketing email prompt

“You are a world-class email marketer and copywriter. You will write a 3-part email series for me.

The first email will focus on a specific problem (P) that a member of our target audience faces. The second email should agitate (A) this problem, emphasizing its impact and urgency. The third email will present the solution (S) to this problem.

Each email must function as a standalone piece, following its own PAS (Problem-Agitate-Solution) arc. However, the primary focus of emails 1, 2, and 3 will be on P, A, and S respectively, all centered around the same theme introduced in the first email.

The target audience for my business is [describe your target audience in detail].

My business helps them by [explain what your business does and the value it delivers].

Each email should be compelling for my target audience, resonating deeply with them, and positioning my business as aligned with their values. Start the email with a simple greeting, such as “Hi”.

Then use a hook as the first line—a short, compelling sentence that entices the reader to continue by piquing their interest, surprising them, or creating an information gap.

The next sentence, on a new line, should build on this, providing more context for the main body of the email.

The main body of the email should consist of 3-5 lines or bullet points that explain the problem, agitate the problem, or promote the solution to the problem, depending on which email in the series it is.

Following this, there should be a concluding sentence that inspires the reader or suggests how my business can help them. Sign off in a style in-keeping with the contents of the email.

These emails should not be salesy in tone, but should primarily interest and add value to the reader. My preferred writing style is [describe your writing style and tone]. Avoid using the words evolve, embark, landscape, dynamic, tapestry, realm, delve and elevate.

The problem I would like to focus on for this series is [describe a prominent problem or challenge members of your audience faces].

Write these three emails.”