The 4-Layer Prompt Structure That Actually Works
Jimmy Kim and Chase Diamond break down a four-layer prompt structure: Context, Task, Constraints, Output Format. They show how to use it for subject lines, SMS under 140 characters, and full campaigns, then A/B test the results against human-written copy.
Chapters
It's not AI, it's the prompt. Write a subject line that creates curiosity and drives open is better than just write a subject line.
AI doesn't have the curse of knowledge that we have, right?
100%. I think that we overthink things and AI just executes on the framework. Asking for explanations on the changes is key. This way I'm learning what makes this copy better.
You do need to be specific— who, what, why, how— those types of constraints.
Don't expect perfection on your first prompt. You have to use follow-up prompts Refine. Always edit AI output, never copy and paste directly.
So AI really is a tool, not a replacement.
From the open to the click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow and your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far, or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah.
What is up, everyone? Welcome back to Send It, where we discuss anything and everything retention marketing, specifically in email and SMS marketing in e-commerce. My name is Jimmy Kim, and I'm here with my co-host.
Chase Diamond.
All right, Chase. So I know we're both on the road right now, or on the road as we're living a little bit remote, but we wanted to continue this pod and make sure we did lots of great content. So excuse the lighting or the angles or some of the sound stuff, but we're still gonna bring you quality content. Chase, look, so we've been talking about AI and email marketing. Last week you did this like cool presentation. If you haven't checked it out, we highly recommend you go check that out. It's a really strong presentation with screen shares and stuff that Chase did that I think people are enjoying right now. But today I wanted to take this one step deeper and get into the weeds and I want to talk about prompting here.
I like that.
Yeah. So, you know, what do you think about prompts, man?
I think, dude, prompts in my opinion are everything. You know, I think most people are obviously using AI and I think unfortunately most people are using it wrong.
Yeah, I think that's completely true right now. They're typing out things like, write me an email about a sale and wondering why the output is, well, frankly garbage.
Right, and then they conclude, well, AI doesn't work for email marketing, let's call it a day.
Well, here's a secret or here's a truth I guess. It's not AI, it's the prompt.
Exactly right. You were talking about garbage. It's garbage in, garbage out. If you give AI a lazy prompt, you're gonna get a lazy output back.
100%. So today on this pod here, we're gonna be sharing really about actual prompts, the ones that we use every day to generate subject lines, body copy, campaign ideas. Let's talk about all of it.
And more importantly, we're breaking down why these prompts work because it's not about copying our templates word for word. Uh, maybe that's a good starting place, but it really is more about understanding how you actually structure the prompts.
Yeah.
Cuz let me add one more thing to that. Cuz once you understand how to build a good prompt, you can start to create your own for just about any situation, not just email marketing.
Exactly. So let's start with the fundamentals. Um, a question for you. What do you think makes a good prompt versus a bad prompt?
Okay. So I think what I see most people do is they treat AI like a search engine. Ultimately, they ask a question and expect almost a perfect answer.
Yeah, I agree with you. I think AI really is more like the smart intern or team member that just needs a bit of context.
Yeah. So here's what I've kind of determined with a prompt. It comes into like 4 layers basically. You got context, tasks, constraints, and then an output format. What do you think about those?
Yeah, I like that. Uh, let's break that down.
Okay. Yeah. Let's start with the first one, which is the first layer, which is context. You need to tell AI who you are, uh, who you are talking to and what you're trying to accomplish.
Do you mind giving me an example of like what bad context versus good context looks like there?
Yeah, dude. So bad context is something like write an email, for example.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, That's not even context, right? You're just giving a command.
Right. And that's what most people do. However, good context is something like, I'm a direct-to-consumer coffee brand targeting busy professionals who care about quality. We're known for bold flavors and sustainable sourcing.
Right. So here you're giving the AI more of like, I guess, your brand positioning, right?
Exactly. Because without AI, without that, AI has no idea what tone to use, what to emphasize, or even who your audience is basically.
And I'd add to that, you also probably want to include like the customer's current state. You know, for example, like our subscriber just joined our email list after reading a blog post about cold brew, right?
Yes, yes, exactly. Because that tells AI where the customer is in their journey.
Right. And the email you'd send to someone who just discovered you is going to be frankly a lot different than someone who's bought from you 3 times, right?
Yep. So now that we've established that, it brings us to the second layer, which is the task. What specifically do you want AI to do? And this is where people get vague, right? They say write an email when they should say something like write a subject line for replenishment email.
Right. So you really need to be specific here about the output. Subject line versus body copy versus SMS message.
And I would add to that, you also want to be specific about the goal. Write a subject line that creates curiosity and drives open is better than Just write a subject line.
Right. Because with this, you're telling AI what your definition of success actually looks like.
Yeah. And there, this is the third part, constraints. And a lot of people miss on this because this is where you set boundaries.
Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, I'm talking about things like length, tone, what to avoid, formatting requirements, things like that.
Can you drop an example?
Sure. Here we go. Keep the subject line under 50 characters. Use conversational tone, not corporate. Avoid using words sale or discount and don't use emojis.
Got it. So you're telling AI what not to do, which is really just as important as telling them what you want them to do.
Exactly. This is where you encode your brand voice. It's not, it's, it's if, okay, okay. If you're in a brand and you're using like things like use humor and, and be slightly edgy, that might be one way to do it. Or you can be like a luxury brand and say maintain elegance and sophistication, right? You want to kind of give it the tone that you want. And you wanna box it so they know and understand that.
Yeah. So what you're essentially saying is constraints here are gonna shape the output so it's specific to match your actual brand voice or tone.
Yeah, that's right.
It's Chase here. I hope you're enjoying the pod, but I wanna get just 30 seconds of your time real quick to tell you about one of our sponsors who let us make this great podcast. So first I wanna start with a question for you. Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank page waiting for inspiration to strike? Your marketing campaigns don't have to suffer when your creativity runs dry. Omnisend has recently launched their most powerful AI update yet, and it is awesome. Its AI completely transforms how you can create and send your next marketing messages. And here's really what's incredible. Their AI doesn't just write your emails, but it actually helps you write really compelling subject lines, preheader text that are geared to increase your open rates and ultimately build customer segments in a heartbeat. And just whisper to the AI who you're targeting, and it's gonna figure out all the complex segmentation for you. That way you have no more guessing games. But hey, wait, it gets better. Their AI writer actually now proactively suggests improvements to your copy, and it's gonna adapt to your brand's unique voice and tone while following email marketing best practices. And their personalized product reminders use your browsing behavior to serve up exactly what each of your customers wants and needs to see. And their campaign booster automatically resends emails to people who didn't open or engage with them, which helps lift revenue by an average of 13%. And now with over 150,000 very happy customers already dominating their markets using Omnisend's email, SMS, and push notifications. So stop wrestling with writer's block and start letting AI do the heavy lifting for you. Visit omnisend.com and experience the future of marketing automation. Let them know that Jimmy and I sent you. And now back to the pod. Cool, cool, cool. Um, and then the 4th layer, right, is the output format. And right, like I guess you were talking about this before, this would essentially be like, how do you want the response structure? Is that right?
Yeah, there's— this is huge for productivity because instead of asking for one option, you want to ask for multiple variations.
And what does that actually look like?
Okay, so here's another prompt idea. Generate 5 subject line ideas or 5 subject line options for each. Provide the subject line, the psychological trigger it's using, and why it might resonate with Busy professionals, for example. Got it.
Makes sense. So you're, you're not just getting outputs, you're getting actual explanations, right?
Yeah, because the explanations help you evaluate which one to use and it also teaches you what works too.
Love it. That's super smart. So the format might be a table or it could be a numbered list or it could be maybe even separate sections, right?
Yeah. And let me add to that, if you can even say present option 1 first and show 4 alternatives, use different psychology approaches, for example, in the prompt, that is going to drive a better output so you can really make an educated decision around that. All right, can we jump over to tactical side right now? I'm talking about subject lines. I think this is where most people start with AI, wouldn't you agree?
Yeah, I think it's a good place to start because subject lines are pretty easy to test and fairly high leverage.
Yeah, so let's share some actual prompting. I'll go first and then you can give me an idea, but this is what I like to do when I'm creating one because I just did this this morning. I'm a, for example, brand description. So I'm going to say I'm a coffee brand who serves just like I said earlier. And we're emailing to an audience segment who it is, people who just opted in recently, for example, about a campaign goal to help them make their first purchase, for example. The subscriber context, where they are in their journey and what they care about, right? So you want to put the subscriber context. So you're just telling them, please generate 7 subject line options that A, create curiosity without being in clickbait, is under 50 characters, use a specific psychology trigger such as urgency, curiosity, or social proof. Like I'd fill that in and match a tone description tone that I might put in for it. So for each option, explain why psychological principle is— what psychological principle is being leveraged and why it might work for this audience.
Dude, love it. Essentially you're asking For the explanation. And I think that's actually the key here.
Right, right. Because then you can see what the AI is thinking and you can actually learn from it.
And I think you said 7 options, if I'm not mistaken. Why do you feel like 7's that sweet spot?
It's because I like variety. Because if you ask for 3, they tend to be similar. If you ask for 10, you get a lot and some are filler. And 7 seems to be the sweet spot when I'm working with AI.
Cool. Yeah, I like that. It makes a lot of sense. And you're, you're specif— you're kind of specifying, right? Like psychological triggers, which I think is super important as well.
Yeah, because if you don't, AI will default to the generic stuff. It'll just kind of make its own decision. But if you use the word like scarcity or use curiosity gap, you get a lot more interesting outputs, I found.
For sure.
Chase, what about you? What, what, what do you like to do when you're thinking about this stuff?
Yeah, so here's kind of a, a take for you. So I like to give AI examples of what's worked before. So, I'm X, Y, and Z brand selling ABC product to audience. So I am, let's say I'm wearing Built. So I'm Built selling t-shirts to men that are 25 to 45. Let's just say we found that these subject lines perform well for us. So I would look at the last 3 campaigns or whatever I'm trying to test. If it's automations, automations, and I would copy and paste or screenshot the actual examples. Alongside how they actually perform. So within Omnisend, I would go in there, see what was sent from Built, and look at the performance and provide that to Claude or ChatGPT, etcetera. And then what I'm gonna say is now generate 5 new subject lines for this same campaign type. Maybe it's a 4th of July sale, maybe it's a new product launch, whatever that looks like.
Mhmm.
And you need this to follow similar patterns, but give me fresh angles. So Here are a few of the constraints that you mentioned. 40 to 60 characters, conversational, not salesy. Please do not use emojis and do not use these overused words. And I have like a list that I would upload and I wanna see 2 curiosity ones. I wanna see 2 urgency ones and I wanna see kind of one value-driven one.
Okay. That's, you know, I think that what I heard from your side that I really like and a lot of people aren't doing enough of is you're training it with your own data.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Because if you show AI what's already worked, it can really do a great job at pattern matching and creating variations based off of historical data.
And, you know, I talked about psychological triggers before, and what you're doing here is you're categorizing by psychological approach like curiosity, urgency, value, etc.
Yeah, that's right. So you get diversity in your options instead of just 7 or 5, whatever it was, variations of the exact same idea.
Yeah. And if we want to narrow it down a little bit more and you already know you want to create, for example, a curiosity-driven subject line, the way I might approach it is create 7 subject lines that use curiosity gap technique. Each should hint of valuable information without revealing it, make the reader think, I need to know this, avoid being clickbaity or misleading, relate to a specific topic like coffee brewing mistakes, for example. And then the big key here is you want to say format. Present each subject line, then explain what information gap you're creating. That is a prompt that I like.
Yeah. And this I think works because you're not just saying be curious, you're actually defining what that means to you.
Exactly. Because you're teaching AI this specific technique ultimately.
Yeah. So question for you, have you tested kind of AI-generated curiosity subject lines versus your own?
Yeah, I do. And I test them all the time and honestly they perform pretty similarly. Sometimes AIs are even better because they're just less obvious.
Yeah, that's interesting. And I tend to agree, I've found more or less the same. AI doesn't have the curse of knowledge that we have, right?
100%. I think that we overthink things and AI just kind of executes on the framework.
Exactly. Alright, so let's now move to kind of campaign ideation. I think this is where AI is fantastic and really can help save a lot of time.
Yeah. Okay. So because coming up with fresh campaign angles Every day is hard. You sit there and you tend to stare at a blank page for like 30 minutes sometimes.
Right. But I think with the, the right prompt, AI can generate 20 ideas in a matter of minutes.
Yeah. And then you just pick 2, 3 of 'em and then you refine on them, right?
Absolutely. So here's like a quick kind of campaign ideation prompt, um, for, for those listening. So I'm planning email campaigns for, you know, the brand and product. Our audience is X, Y, and Z, males, females, whatever that looks like. We've recently covered these topics. So here are some of the recent campaigns we've sent, product launch, flash sale, some kind of holiday. Please go generate 15 fresh campaign ideas that are relevant to, you know, our season, event, and trend that we're in. So spring, summer, fall, et cetera. Please avoid repeating recent topics that we've already covered. I need a mix of promotional as well as educational content. And I need this to appeal to X, Y, and Z kind of customer motivation. So whatever your customer customers are interested in, motivated by, that's what you need to insert there. And then taking that further for each idea, provide a campaign hook and angle. One sentence, primary goal. So is this awareness? Is it education? Is it conversion focused? What is the suggested email structure, right? So how many emails, what each covers, and then the key psychological trigger being used.
No, I love that. That is a great prompt and I hope the listeners kind of listen to that because there's a lot to what you just basically said. And that's one long prompt that it is because you're basically setting the framework and then you're asking for the structure too. It's not just an idea basically, right?
Exactly. Because an idea without a plan is frankly just a thought. I, I want to know how to actually execute this.
Yeah. And you're explicitly telling it to avoid recent topics. I think that was a big key there that prevents that repetition problem that AI ultimately does.
Yeah. Otherwise, it's just going to remix what you've already done.
Yeah. Okay. So let me give you an idea of a prompt that I like. So here's one that I use that I want to lead to like a customer pain point, one that I think a lot of brands would probably list. Our product, for example, solves a certain problem. We all know what our problem is. List 10 specific pain points or frustrations of our target customer experience related to a category— weight loss, fat loss, hair loss, whatever it might be. For each pain point, describe the frustration in the customer's words. Suggest an email campaign angle that addresses that problem. Recommend whether it should be educational or promotional and rate the urgency level from high, medium, and low. What do you think about that one? All right. Before we keep going, I want to touch on something every company runs into at some point, creative bottlenecks. You need more variations, more angles, more hooks, and you need them faster than your team can realistically produce them. This is where SuperScale comes in. It's an AI agent built specifically for social marketing. You connect your Meta, your TikTok, and your Google accounts, and it gives your brand context, your ICP, and your past learning, and it pulls its performance data from your campaigns alongside insights From your competitors' ads. From there, you can give it a single prompt, like taking your top-performing creative, and generate multiple new hook variations in different formats and deliver them ready to go. They also have full prompt library and tutorials on their site, which is helpful if you're just getting started. They're trusted by brands like Taxfix and SumUp. You can check them out at superscale.ai. I've got the link below. All right, back to your show.
Dude, I love this. Super smart. You know, you're forcing AI to think from the customer's perspective first, which is the key.
Yeah. And it's because the best campaigns start with a real problem, not with what can we promote this week. I think that is the problem that most brands face today.
And by asking for urgency level, you're prioritizing which campaigns to build first, which helps you focus.
Spot on, man. High urgency pain points become like inter— immediate campaign ideas while low urgency ones, they kind of get pushed onto the backlog.
Absolutely. So a quick one for seasonal planning, right? So it's current month, whatever the month is, May, June, July, et cetera, generate 8 campaign ideas for product category. Let's say, you know, men's t-shirts or women's t-shirts, whatever that looks like, that align with upcoming holidays in the next 60 days, seasonal changes. So what does the weather, activities, routines look like? Any kind of relevant cultural moments or events. And then any kind of natural purchase cycles for this specific product. And then for each of these ideas, please give me a hook. So kind of the subject line style, timing, which is when should I actually send this, the offer strategy if applicable, and then what's the angle, the educational, inspirational, or promotional? Hmm.
Very cool. I think this prompt will help you plan ahead instead of scrambling week to week.
Yeah, I think the key here is running this prompt at the start of each quarter.
I think you mentioned this, Chase, but do you give AI your historical performance data too?
Yeah, I definitely do sometimes. You know, like these campaigns performed well last year. I'm giving kind of the list and some screenshots and then I could ask things like, what similar angles could we try this year?
Yeah. Okay. So you're basically remixing winners, right?
Yeah. And you know, why reinvent the wheel if we know to a certain degree what works well, right?
It's true. It works often. And I know plenty of brands that have done that in the manual sense. Now you can do it with AI. All right, let's, let's talk about body copy because I think this is trickier than subject line because you need a lot more nuance ultimately. What do you think?
Yeah, I agree with you. And I think this is where brand voice really matters. A bad prompt will give you generic corporate sounding copy.
Yeah. Okay, so let's, let's share some structure prompts. You want to go first?
Yeah, I'll go first. So in terms of like a full email draft prompt, so, uh, write an email type. So for example, a post-purchase educational email for, uh, Built, who has, uh, men's premium t-shirts, ages 25 to 45, or whatever that looks like. Uh, context is customer purchased this product this long ago. So this shirt 2 months ago. The goal is, um, some kind of specific outcome. So teach them how to get better results. Brand voice. So describe tone with examples. So essentially, right, like you're feeding it all the context that I mentioned, and then you're gonna ask for this structure. So give me a subject line under 50 characters, a preview text under 90 characters, an opening hook that's 1 to 2 sentences that acknowledges where the prospect or customer is, the main content, which is gonna be focused between 3 to 4 different short paragraphs. And I need a really crisp, clear, specific call to action. And then lastly, right, we have the constraints. So conversational, like you're talking to a friend, focusing on you language, not we, including one specific tip or insight and keeping sentences short. So 2 to 3 sentences max, and please avoid using these phrases. And again, that's the list of overused words. And I want 2 versions of this. I want one warm and friendly, and I want one that's more kind of direct response and punchy.
Okay, dude, I love that you're asking for 2 tonal Variations here.
Yeah, I think sometimes you don't know which tone will land better until you actually see both.
Yeah, that makes total sense because, because you're being super specific about the structure, the paragraph length, the sentence structure, etc.
Right. And if you say something, write an email, you might get a 7-paragraph essay.
Which of course we know nobody reads.
Exactly. And AI doesn't even want to write those because no one's going to read them.
Yeah. Okay. So let me give you an idea of how I think about body. Here's a prompt that I've written, but I want AI to improve on it. Okay. So I'll start off with something like this. Here's my email I drafted. Like, I like to handwrite things, so I'll draft like a handwritten thing first. Okay. And then what I'll say is improve this by making the hook more compelling, by adding like a curiosity or urgency, whatever I'm trying to accomplish out of it. I'll tell it to cut out all the fluff. Every sentence should serve a purpose, basically. Get rid of the weird words that I added because I'm humanizing things, right? Strengthen the call to action to be more specific because I tend to be a little generic with my CTAs. And then I tell it adjusting the tone to be more conversational, more authoritative, more playful, and whatever. And then I say, show me the revised version with tracked changes or notes explaining what you changed and why.
Yep. So you're using AI as an editor in this instance, not just the writer, right?
Yeah, because I like writing. I don't mind writing emails and I tend to do that. And asking for explanations on the changes is key. This way I'm learning what makes this copy better.
And this is how I use it a lot as well, is I write the first draft and then AI helps make it a home run.
Yeah, same, same. Because AI is better at tightening like the process than it is than creating it from scratch basically.
Yeah, look, today I think it's a better editor than writer, but we know how quickly that can change.
100%.
So, um, cool. I think here's one for teaching AI your brand voice. So we're gonna say, here are 3 emails that we've sent that represent our brand voice well. We're gonna share the, the text or the screenshots of the actual emails, 1, 2, and 3. Um, analyze these emails for me and describe common phrases or, uh, linguistic patterns Sentence structure preferences, tone characteristics. Is it formal, casual, funny, serious, et cetera? How do we address the reader and what makes this voice distinct? Then write a new email about this topic using the same exact voice.
Ooh, I like that one. This is smart. You're showing AI examples first and then asking to almost extract patterns, which I'm a big fan of.
Exactly.
Because if you just say write in our brand voice, AI doesn't actually know what that means.
Yeah, but if you show 'em examples, it under— figures out the pattern and does like kind of almost like a pattern match, right?
Yep, exactly. And then I'll save like the kind of voice analysis AI generates and reuse it in future prompts. It's a great hack.
Yeah. Okay. So you're building a voice profile that you can reference later, which is what the key is with all things LLM and AI.
Yeah, exactly. You know, write this email using voice profile from, you know, this chat and this date, whatever that looks like.
Very solid. All right, let's talk about SMS a little bit because SMS is a great use for AI. So because SMS is different from email, you have way less space to work with, but it also allows you to be really tight.
Yeah, it's all about efficiency. Every single word counts.
So you have a favorite SMS prompt structure?
Yeah, yeah. Here's what I use. So write an SMS message for this campaign in this school. Here's the context, audience, who they are, what we want them to do, which is a specific action. Current situation. Is this abandoned cart? Is this a replenishment? Is this a campaign? What does that look like? Here are the requirements. The max is 140 characters, including spaces. Start with an attention-grabbing first line. Include one clear CTA. Use conversational language, no emojis, or if you want Maybe suggest 1 or 2 at max. Include kind of shortened link placeholder, which is like the, the link. And then generate 5 variations using different psychological approaches: urgency, value, curiosity, personal, and then kind of something that's more direct.
Ooh, I like that you're forcing variety out of the AI by specif— specifying the psychological approach that you're taking.
Yeah. With SMS being so short, you really do need to test different angles to see You know, what's gonna resonate.
And, and also just to add, specifying character count, I think that's really critical.
Right. If you don't, AI's gonna write something 200 characters, 300 characters above, and then you're gonna have to cut it back.
Yeah. Okay. So it, it kind of reminds me of the preview text a little bit, which is also something we didn't talk about, but it's very much like SMS, short and important. So this is what I used to, I, I like to create when I'm thinking about this thing. So I'm like, I'm sending an email with this subject line. So I'll give them my subject line I'm using. Write 5 preview text options under 90 characters that are complementing the subject lines without repeating it. Create additional intrigue or value. I think this is really important. Works well even if it's cut off at 60 characters because we know that happens on mobile. And you want to use sentences, not title case, right? For the option, note that the psychological principle you're using, curiosity, urgency, benefit, social, blah, blah, blah, right? So that's like my preview text one that I think applies really well also for SMS.
Yeah, I think this and preview text in general is just so underrated. I think most folks are just letting it default to the first line of the email.
Which is usually, if you view an email in your browser or something like that, useless, right?
Right, but I think a good preview text can literally boost your opens by 10, 20%.
Yeah, and just like SMS, it's the same thing, but you treat it like a second subject line. You have to treat it with a lot of intentionality.
For sure. All right, let's close this with some advanced tips and common mistakes to avoid. Let's go back and forth, yeah?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll go first. So first tip I'll give is don't expect perfection on your first prompt. You have to use follow-up prompts to refine.
And what does that look like to you?
Yeah, after AI gives you an output, you might say the tone is too formal, make it more conversational, or this is good, but make the hook stronger.
Got it. So you're iterating.
Yeah, exactly. This is where conversation— this is like a conversation. It's not just like a one-shot request. And that's something you have to remember with AI.
Yeah, and I think this actually is quicker and more efficient than typing the perfect master prompt entirely upfront.
Right. You get 80% there and with the first prompt, and then you refine it to 100% with a few follow-ups.
Absolutely. Uh, the second tip would be save your best prompts as actual templates.
Real quick one for you. Big news. Commerce Roundtable is hitting the road this June with Retention Roadshow. We're hitting 4 cities, New York, Miami, LA, and Austin. And here's what's really cool. This is a half-day workshop-style event built specifically for retention marketers. That's you. We're talking about tactical sessions with email, SMS, AI, and lifecycle. This is the stuff that moves the needle on repeat purchasing and LTV. And these will be small rooms. We're talking 75 to 100 people max. There won't be any fluff or high-level theory. This is really walking into the practicality. Plus, You're gonna walk away with strategies that you can implement that week. Plus, we're gonna include breakfast, lunch, and of course, plenty of networking to have real conversations with the great people around you. Look, tickets are limited because of the room sizes, so you can go over to commerceroundtable.com/roadshow. We're gonna put the link below and use this code SENDIT to get $25 off a ticket. It's not very expensive anyways to go. Again, we're coming to New York, Miami, LA, commerceroundtable.com/roadshow, code SENDIT. Come hang out with me, come hang out with Chase, hang out with a bunch of retention marketers. Back to the pod. Yeah, dude, I have a doc where I'm just creating prompt after prompt that I love that worked really well that I continue to reuse constantly.
Same. And I version them. So subject line prompt V3 after I've refined it, kind of mastered it.
I like that because a good prompt is kind of like intellectual property these days. They're really valuable.
Yeah, I think more people should treat them that way. You're right.
Yeah. Okay. So here's another tip from me. Always edit AI output. Never copy direct— copy and paste directly.
Yeah, I think this is where most people go wrong. I'd say 80% of the way there is kind of what AI gets you, but you do need to finish that final 20-ish percent.
What do you think about the final 20%? What do you think that is really when listeners are kind of tuning in? What do you think the 20% is?
I'd say that's personality, uh, brand-specific kind of inside jokes and references, um, ensuring that the product accuracy is legit and then kind of some of the emotional nuance.
Yeah. Because as you, we both know, AI can be very generic and you have to make it a little bit more specific.
Yeah. And you have to catch mistakes cuz sometimes AI will make things up. They'll make up facts, features. They tend to hallucinate a little bit.
Yeah.
Especially with product details. Sometimes you, Just start chuckling because you have to double-check what they think about it.
Agreed. Uh, and then a common mistake is also being just way too vague in your actual prompts.
Yeah. The number one problem I see with all AI users, write a good email, is not a prompt.
Right. You do need to be specific. Who, what, why, how, those types of constraints.
And look, if you're not getting a good output, 90% of the time it's because your prompt was too vague. And I want to continue to reiterate that.
Exactly. So before blaming AI, ask yourself, did I actually give it enough context to work with?
Yeah. All right. Another mistake, not testing AI output against human-written content.
I like that. Will you expand on that?
Yeah. People assume AI is better or worse without actually testing it. You should be A/B testing AI subject lines against a human subject line.
I know we talked about this a bit before, but what have you found here?
Well, my answer is not going to be happy for anybody, but it depends. You know, for straightforward stuff, replenishment emails, abandoned carts, AI often matches or beats the human.
Yeah. So AI is basically, you know, for brand storytelling, you know, highly creative prompts, campaigns, like what do you see there?
Well, I think that's where humans tend to win because, or at least human-edited AI wins basically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So AI really is a tool, not an end-all be-all replacement.
Yeah, that's one thing people need to continue to remember because you use it when it's strong and supplement— use it where it's strong, but you have to supplement where it's weak. All right, all right, all right. I think we've gone into a lot and I bet you we're spinning some heads here right now, but let's do a quick recap, right? So we talked about first, we talked about good prompts have 4 layers, context, Task constraints and output format, right? What about, what do we talk about on subject lines here?
For subject lines, you need to ask for multiple variations with different psychological explanations. I mean, for campaign iteration, you do need to include kind of audience context as well as like recent topics so that way you avoid kind of repetition.
Okay. And then we talked about body copy, right? So you want to be specific, structure, tone, length, and you use AI In my opinion, better as an editor on your drafts, not just a writer from scratch.
Yep. And you need to save your best prompts as templates so you can iterate with follow-up prompts and always edit the AI output before actually pressing send.
Yeah. And the last thing I would say we recapped was testing, right? A/B testing, AI versus human. You've got to make sure you're testing and you need to learn what excels and where you need to stay involved so you can learn how AI works with you as a marketer and then how it becomes your marketing assistant. With that being said, guys, that's a wrap. AI prompt engineering for email marketers. If you found this useful, please, first of all, share us your prompts. If you've got great prompts, share with us, connect with us on social, or drop it in the comment section below. If you know someone who needs to listen to this, please share it, like it, comment, all that fun stuff. We hope to continue talking a lot more about this stuff because this is the future. We hope you enjoyed this pod. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you on the next one.
Cheers.
From the open to the click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow and your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far, or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it.
