Email Marketing prompts

Write subject lines.

EMAIL CONTENT: [WHAT IT CONTAINS]
AUDIENCE: [WHO SUBSCRIBED AND WHY]
EMAIL TYPE: [newsletter / promotion / announcement / transactional / re-engagement]
SENDER NAME: [WHAT APPEARS AS THE FROM NAME]
CURRENT OPEN RATE: [IF KNOWN]
WHAT THE EMAIL DELIVERS: [BE HONEST]

Produce:

1. TEN SUBJECT LINES, varied across these approaches:
   - The specific thing inside
   - The question the reader has
   - The number or detail
   - The plain descriptive
   - The curiosity gap - but only where the email genuinely pays it off

   For each: character count, and a note on the mobile preview, which cuts around 35-45 characters.

2. PREVIEW TEXT for the top three. This is the most wasted asset in email marketing - most senders let it default to the first line of the body. It should extend the subject, not repeat it.

3. THE DELIVERY CHECK - flag any subject line likely to trigger spam filtering: excessive capitals, multiple exclamation marks, 'free', 'act now', 'limited time', currency symbols, or misleading 'Re:' and 'Fwd:' prefixes. Those last two also destroy trust when opened.

4. THE HONESTY AUDIT - for each, does the email deliver what the subject implies? Mark any that overclaim. A subject line that wins opens and loses trust reduces every future open rate, and the damage compounds.

5. THE FROM NAME - it affects opens more than the subject line for most lists. Assess mine and say whether a person's name, the brand, or a combination would work better here.

6. RECOMMENDATION - one subject line and preview text pair, with reasoning.

7. WHAT TO TEST - if I can A/B test, the two most different options and what each would tell me.

Rules:
- No fake 'Re:' or 'Fwd:'
- No false urgency
- No first-name personalisation unless it is genuinely relevant. It is widely recognised as automation now.
- Under 50 characters where possible

Help me segment my email list.

WHAT I SELL OR PUBLISH: [CONTEXT]
LIST SIZE: [NUMBER]
HOW PEOPLE JOINED: [SIGN-UP SOURCES]
DATA I HAVE ON SUBSCRIBERS: [WHAT FIELDS AND BEHAVIOUR YOU CAN SEE]
WHAT I CURRENTLY SEND: [DESCRIPTION]
CURRENT PERFORMANCE: [OPEN RATE, CLICK RATE, UNSUBSCRIBE RATE]

Produce:

1. SEGMENTS WORTH CREATING - only where the segment would receive genuinely different content. A segment you send the same email to is administrative overhead. For each: the definition, roughly what share of the list, what they should receive differently, and why.

   Consider, in order of usual value:
   - ENGAGEMENT: active, lapsing, dormant. This is almost always the highest-value segmentation and the most neglected.
   - SOURCE: how they joined predicts what they want
   - BEHAVIOUR: what they clicked, bought, or viewed
   - LIFECYCLE: new subscriber, customer, repeat customer, churned
   - STATED PREFERENCE: if you ask them

2. THE ENGAGEMENT SEGMENT - define active, lapsing and dormant for my sending frequency. Continuing to send to people who have not opened in a year damages deliverability for everyone else on the list, which is the part most senders do not realise.

3. THE SUPPRESSION LIST - who should stop receiving: never-openers past a threshold, hard bounces, and repeat complainers. Say when to stop and how to run a final re-engagement attempt first.

4. WHAT NOT TO SEGMENT - divisions that sound sophisticated and change nothing. Over-segmentation means more work and smaller samples with no benefit.

5. THE DATA I AM MISSING - what I would need to collect to segment usefully, and the lowest-friction way to collect it. A one-question preference at sign-up beats a ten-field form nobody completes.

6. THE SENDING PLAN - what each segment receives and how often. Frequency should differ by engagement; your most engaged subscribers tolerate more.

7. THE STARTING POINT - if I do one thing, which segment to create first.

Write a promotional email.

WHAT I AM SELLING: [PRODUCT/SERVICE AND PRICE]
TO WHOM: [SEGMENT - what they know about you already]
WHY IT HELPS THEM: [THE GENUINE BENEFIT]
WHY NOW: [THE REAL REASON FOR THIS EMAIL - launch, restock, season, or 'no particular reason']
OFFER: [DISCOUNT, BONUS, or 'none']
OBJECTIONS: [WHY THEY WOULD NOT BUY]
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS LIST: [how often you email, how much you have sold to them before]

Structure:
1. OPEN with the reader's situation, not your announcement. One or two sentences.
2. THE THING - what it is and what it does for them, plainly.
3. WHO IT IS FOR AND NOT FOR - naming who should not buy makes everything else credible and reduces refunds.
4. THE MAIN OBJECTION - handled directly in the body, not in a PS.
5. PROOF - specific. A result with a number, a named customer, a guarantee.
6. PRICE - state it. Making people click to find the price costs more conversions than the price does.
7. ONE CALL TO ACTION - repeated at most twice, as the same action.
8. THE PS - one line, restating the single most important point. It is the second most-read part of an email.

Rules:
- Under 300 words
- If there is no real reason for this email beyond wanting sales, say so honestly in the brief rather than manufacturing urgency
- No countdown timers on offers that are not ending
- No 'last chance' unless it is
- No fake stock scarcity
- One offer. Two offers halve the response to both.
- No 'Hi [FIRST NAME], hope you're well'

Then:
- THE UNSUBSCRIBE RISK - how likely this email is to lose subscribers, given my stated relationship with this list
- THE HONEST CHECK - given how often I email and sell, is this email earned? If I have been selling constantly, say so.

My email performance is declining. Diagnose it.

METRICS OVER TIME: [OPEN RATE, CLICK RATE, UNSUBSCRIBE RATE, COMPLAINT RATE, BY MONTH]
LIST SIZE AND GROWTH: [NUMBERS]
SENDING FREQUENCY: [HOW OFTEN]
WHAT I SEND: [CONTENT DESCRIPTION]
RECENT CHANGES: [ANYTHING THAT CHANGED - platform, domain, frequency, content, list sources]
HOW THE LIST WAS BUILT: [SIGN-UP SOURCES, EVER PURCHASED OR IMPORTED?]
SAMPLE EMAIL: [PASTE A RECENT ONE]

Diagnose in this order:

1. DELIVERABILITY FIRST - a declining open rate is a deliverability problem until proven otherwise. Check: are SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured? Has the sending domain or platform changed? Is the complaint rate rising? Is the bounce rate rising? Are you sending to people who never open?
   Note that open rate is an unreliable metric since privacy protection inflates and distorts it. Say what to use instead: click rate, and click-to-delivered.

2. LIST HYGIENE - if the list includes purchased, scraped or very old addresses, that is likely the cause and no content improvement will fix it. Ask directly.

3. FREQUENCY - has it increased? Fatigue shows as declining clicks with stable opens, then rising unsubscribes.

4. CONTENT DRIFT - has what you send changed from what people subscribed for? A newsletter that became a sales channel loses engagement predictably.

5. LIST AGEING - a list with no new subscribers declines naturally as people's interests change. Compare engagement by subscriber cohort if I can; recent subscribers should be more engaged.

6. THE SAMPLE EMAIL - assess it independently: is the subject line clear, is there one action, is it too long, is the value obvious in the first two lines?

7. THE COMPLAINT RATE - the most important number. If it is above the threshold inbox providers tolerate, everything else is secondary. State the rough threshold and what to do.

Then: THE MOST LIKELY CAUSE, the diagnostic to confirm it, and the first fix.

Do not recommend content improvements if the problem is deliverability.

Write a welcome email sequence.

WHAT PEOPLE SUBSCRIBED TO: [WHAT YOU PROMISED AT SIGN-UP]
WHERE THEY SIGNED UP: [THE PAGE OR OFFER]
WHAT I ACTUALLY SEND: [YOUR REGULAR CONTENT AND FREQUENCY]
WHAT I SELL: [IF ANYTHING]
NUMBER OF EMAILS: [COUNT]
OVER WHAT PERIOD: [TIMEFRAME]

The welcome sequence is the most-opened email you will ever send. Design it for engagement, not for selling.

For each email produce: timing, subject line, preview text, body, and the one action.

Email 1 (immediately) must:
- Deliver what they signed up for, first thing. If there is a lead magnet, it is at the top, not after three paragraphs.
- Set expectations: what you send, how often, and what it is about. This single paragraph prevents a large share of later unsubscribes.
- Give them something useful immediately
- Ask for one small thing that improves deliverability: reply, or move to the primary inbox. Framed as helping them, because it does.
- Not sell

The rest of the sequence should:
- Establish what you are for, with your best existing content
- Show what you do, through a specific example or result rather than a description
- Introduce who you are, briefly, and only where it builds trust
- Only then, if at all, make an offer — and only if it fits what they signed up for

Then produce:
- THE EXPECTATION-SETTING PARAGRAPH, isolated. It is the highest-value 40 words in the whole sequence.
- THE SEGMENTATION OPPORTUNITY - a question or click in the sequence that would tell me what this subscriber wants, with minimal friction
- THE EXIT - what happens if they take the action early
- THE HONEST CHECK - if my sequence would sell before it delivers value, say so

Rules:
- No 'Welcome to the family'
- No asking them to follow you on six platforms
- Do not sell in email 1

Write a re-engagement campaign.

WHO IS DORMANT: [DEFINITION - e.g. no opens in 6 months]
HOW MANY: [NUMBER AND % OF LIST]
WHAT THEY ORIGINALLY SIGNED UP FOR: [CONTEXT]
WHAT I SEND NOW: [CURRENT CONTENT]
HAS ANYTHING CHANGED since they subscribed: [DETAIL]
WHAT I CAN OFFER: [IF ANYTHING]

Produce a 3-email sequence:

EMAIL 1 - THE DIRECT ASK
- Acknowledge they have not been opening. Do not pretend otherwise.
- Remind them what they signed up for and when
- State plainly what you send now
- Give one clear choice: stay, or go
- Make leaving easy and one click. This is counterintuitive and correct; a clean unsubscribe is far better than a complaint.

EMAIL 2 - THE VALUE ATTEMPT
- Send your single best piece of content, free, with no ask
- No pitch at all
- One line at the end offering the choice again

EMAIL 3 - THE LAST ONE
- State that this is the final email and they will be removed
- One link to stay
- Thank them, briefly, with no guilt
- Mean it. If you say it is the last email, it must be.

For each: subject line, preview text, body, and the action.

Then:
- THE SUPPRESSION PLAN - what to do with non-responders. The answer is remove them. Explain why keeping them damages deliverability for the subscribers who do want your email.
- THE EXPECTED OUTCOME - realistically, what share re-engages. Set expectations honestly; it is usually small.
- WHAT THIS TELLS ME - if a large share are dormant, that is a signal about content, frequency or how the list was built. Name the likely cause.
- THE PREVENTION - what would stop this happening again.

Rules:
- No guilt, no 'we miss you', no sad imagery
- No discount as the opening move
- Do not hide the unsubscribe

Improve these transactional emails.

EMAIL TYPE: [order confirmation / shipping / password reset / receipt / account notification / appointment reminder]
CURRENT VERSION: [PASTE]
WHAT THE RECIPIENT NEEDS FROM IT: [THEIR SITUATION]
WHAT GOES WRONG: [SUPPORT TICKETS THIS GENERATES, IF ANY]
BRAND TONE: [DESCRIPTION]

Transactional emails have the highest open rates of any email you send, and they are usually the worst written.

Produce:

1. WHAT THE READER NEEDS TO KNOW - listed in the order they need it. For most transactional emails: did it work, what happens next, when, and what do I do if something is wrong.

2. THE REWRITE:
   - The key information in the subject line, so it is useful without opening. 'Order #4821 shipped, arriving Thursday' beats 'Your order update'.
   - The essential fact in the first line of the body
   - Everything they need without scrolling or clicking
   - A clear route to help, with what to reference
   - Plain text readable; many clients block images

3. THE QUESTIONS IT SHOULD PRE-EMPT - the support tickets this email should prevent. From what I told you, what are people writing in about that this email could answer?

4. WHAT TO REMOVE - marketing content in transactional email. It reduces clarity and, in some jurisdictions, changes the email's legal status and consent requirements. Flag anything promotional.

5. TIMING AND NECESSITY - is this email needed at all? Some notifications are noise. And is it sent at the right moment?

6. EDGE CASES - what this email says when things are not normal: a delayed order, a partial shipment, a failed payment, a cancelled appointment. These variants are usually missing and are exactly when the email matters most.

7. THE PLAIN TEXT VERSION.

Rules:
- No marketing in a password reset. Ever.
- Include the specific reference number or detail the reader will need when contacting support
- Do not require a login to see basic information
- Say what to do if this was not them, for anything account-related