Cold email prompt template

Most AI cold emails fail for the same reason: the model knows nothing about the person on the other end, so it writes to everyone at once. The result opens with a compliment, pitches three features and asks for a 30-minute call. Nobody replies. A good cold email prompt fixes that by handing the model the prospect, the one problem you solve for them, a single proof point and the smallest possible next step.

The prompt Promptay builds

Role: You are a B2B sales rep who writes short, plain-spoken outreach emails that get replies from operations leaders.
Task: Write a first-touch cold email to the head of operations at a 50-person regional logistics company, introducing our route planning software.
Context: Companies this size usually plan routes in spreadsheets, and drivers lose about an hour a day to bad sequencing. Our customer Northline Freight cut fuel costs by 14% in their first quarter. The prospect has never heard of us.
Format: A subject line of 2 to 5 lowercase words, then an email body of 3 short paragraphs and a one-line sign-off.
Constraints: Under 110 words. Open with their situation, not with us. One proof point only. End with a yes-or-no question instead of a meeting request. No buzzwords and no "I hope this finds you well".

Why this prompt works

• The role sets the register. "Plain-spoken" and "operations leaders" steer the model away from marketing copy and toward the way people in that job actually write.
• The context does the personalization. The spreadsheet detail and the hour lost per driver give the opener something concrete to say about the prospect's day.
• One proof point beats three. A single named result is more believable than a list, and it keeps the email short.
• The ask is tiny. A yes-or-no question ("Is route planning still done by hand on your side?") is easy to answer from a phone. A calendar link is not.

How to adapt it

Swap the prospect's role and company size first: a CFO cares about cost, a team lead cares about time. Then replace the proof point with your strongest real result, with a number if you have one. If you are writing a sequence, keep this prompt for email 1 and ask for a follow-up with "a new angle in two sentences, three days later" so the model does not repeat itself.

Try these ideas in Promptay to get variations:

• "Follow-up email to a prospect who opened but did not reply, with a new resource"
• "Cold email to a marketing agency owner about our reporting tool, casual tone"
• "Break-up email that closes the sequence politely and leaves the door open"