15 Rules For Crafting Effective GPT

Chat Prompts

To level up your ChatGPT prompt game, here are some best

practices you should keep in mind:

1. Give ChatGPT an identity (“act as…”) and an intended

audience.
2. Offer and give specific context.
3. Include helpful and relevant information upfront.
4. Highlight what information to include.
5. Highlight what information to exclude.
6. Choose a relevant tone of voice and writing style.
7. Give examples to base the response on.
8. Include the length of your responses (e.g. under 280
characters for Twitter).
9. Model specific expressions.
10. Ask to add emojis and simplify text.
11.Ask to add “uncommon ideas” and analogies for your
text.
12. Give the AI a structure to follow.
 13. Specify the format of the response.
14. Chain multiple prompts.
15. Test your prompts first.
16. Considering ChatGPT Plus.

Let’s take a look at each approach with examples.

1. Give ChatGPT an identity (“Act

as…”) and intended audience
This can be one of the best ways to go from getting an
AI-sounding response to something more usable.

With this approach, you’re telling ChatGPT what role the AI

should play. So that its response is better suited for a specific
target group or communication channel.
Some other possible identity prompts might include:

● Acting as a legal expert: What are some pain points law

firms use with their content marketing to educate clients
and attract new businesses?
 ● Act as an FBI hostage negotiator and teach me some
psychological tricks to convince a client to accept new
prices.
● You’re a head content marketer of a proven agency that
knows how to generate leads, I’m the founder of a
LinkedIn automation SaaS. Give me 5 blog post topics I
could write about that would help me generate leads.
● You’re a SaaS copywriter with 10+ years of experience.
Critique the following headline and give me 5 actionable
suggestions to improve it.
● As a social media expert, can you create a LinkedIn post
for me under 300 words based on the following article…

If unsure, remember the following approach when giving

ChatGPT an identity:

● [Your persona]
● [Your knowledge]
● [Your traits]
● [Steps to the task]
● [Your task]
● [Goal]
● [Format]
Then, putting this all together, you might get something like
this:
While it’s not perfect as it could be more detailed, for a
response generated in under 10 seconds, it has a lot of
potential.

2. Offer context
As an AI, ChatGPT will always perform better with context.

On its own, most generated text might sound robotic. That’s

because ChatGPT doesn’t know what you’re trying to achieve.

For example:

Bad prompt: Create a post about productivity.

Response: “Productivity is one of the most important aspects

of success in both personal and professional life. It is the ability
to accomplish more in less time and achieve your goals
efficiently. However, with so many distractions and
interruptions in our daily lives, it can be challenging to stay
focused and productive. In this post, we’ll explore some
practical tips to increase productivity and achieve your goals…”
Better prompt: Create a LinkedIn post under 200 words
about the importance of productivity and time management
for small business owners.

Response: “Productivity and time management are crucial for

small business owners. Every minute counts, and how you
spend your time can make or break your business. By
improving your productivity and time management skills, you
can accomplish more in less time, stay focused on your goals,
and achieve success faster. Set clear goals and priorities,
eliminate distractions, and manage your time effectively using
tools like calendars, scheduling apps, and time-tracking
software. Delegating tasks and outsourcing can also free up
your time to focus on the most critical aspects of your
business. Don’t let wasted time and lack of productivity hold
your business back – invest in your skills and achieve success!
#productivity #timemanagement #smallbusiness
#entrepreneur”

The difference is obvious, right?

Here are some more examples:

Bad prompts:
 ● Create a cold email.
● Write a good LinkedIn connection request.
● Create a cold calling script for small business owners.

Good prompts:

● Create a cold email under 100 words targeting agency

owners. In the email, briefly explain how their target
audience can be found on LinkedIn and why it’s a good
idea to use automation to connect with them, instead of
manually writing the same connection request. Then, ask
if they’d be interested in a free, 7-day trial.
● Create a LinkedIn connection request under 300
characters targeting agency owners. Include 2 emojis,
keep it friendly, and don’t sound robotic.
● Imagine I’m cold-calling marketing agency owners in my
area. Create a sales script, making sure to:
● Ask for their permission to hear the pitch without
coming across as too sales-y.
● Come across as friendly and casual.
● Overcome any potential objections they have
(assuming I’m selling lead generation as a service).
● Don’t make it all about me.
 ● Finally, include placeholders for any information you
might not have.

3. Include helpful and relevant

information upfront
Did you know you can include information for ChatGPT to
base its response on?

This is extremely useful if you’re creating text based on

research or pre-defined content.

You can even paste the full reference directly.

Here are some prompt examples with this in mind:

● The following text is my resume. I want you to remember

it and tell me once you do that first.
● Then, given the above information, write a witty
speaker bio about me under 150 words.
● The following text is an article from our blog. Summarize
the content and create a social share text under 200
words for my LinkedIn profile. Keep the tone friendly and
casual.
 ● The following is a question a lead asked me. Give me 3
different ways I can overcome those objections and reply
to them. Take into consideration that I’m an expert
salesperson and marketer.

4. Highlight what information to

include
Similarly, you can be more direct with your prompts to get
more specific information in your responses. Such as:

● I’m booking a discovery call with a lead from an industry

I’m not very familiar with. Can you give some examples of
questions I should ask and what should be included in
the meeting agenda?
● I need to prepare a presentation for a potential investor
on . Can you give me some guidance on what to include?
● I need to write an email to a client regarding a change in
the project timeline. Can you give me some guidance on
how to phrase it?

5. Highlight what to exclude

Alternatively, you can exclude certain information you might
already know or not need.

For example:

● I want you to create a LinkedIn post under 200 words

targeting agency owners and their pain points about
lead generation. Then mention how they can overcome
those pain points. However, do not call out the target
audience by name and exclude any information about
ads. End the post with a call-to-action to message me if
they have any questions and exclude and sales-y text.

6. Choose a relevant tone of voice

and style
By default, ChatGPT text might sound robotic or very bland.

And since almost everyone’s using the tool nowadays in their

outreach or writing, it can be easy to spot such text.

As you can see, this sounds very monotonous and most

people will notice it’s written by an AI.
That’s largely because most people don’t include the context
(see above) and tone of voice in their ChatGPT prompts.

But by choosing a relevant tone of voice and writing style, we

can take it a step further.
7. Give examples
ChatGPT is based on terabytes of studied data and text.

However, you can also give examples to “remember” and

create a response based on that!

Examples here may include:

● Your current articles.

● Research text.
● Social media posts.
● Ads.
● Writing style.
● And more.
Though, keep in mind, as an AI language model, ChatGPT is
capable of analyzing text and learning it to generate content.
It can’t crawl websites on its own. So, you’ll have to provide it
with the text yourself.

However, it CAN go through certain websites to analyze and

keep in mind that particular writing style.

Here’s an example:

And one more.

8. Include the length of your
response
When creating your GPT prompts, it’s also important to
include a word count for the response.

For example, if you want the AI to create a post, without a

word count, it might think a blog post and create something
unnecessarily long.

Here are some example prompts:

 ● Write a 100-word summary of the following article.
● Create a LinkedIn post under 200 words about [topic].
● Write a cold email under 100 words, taking into
consideration…

9. Feed it specific expressions

As an AI model, ChatGPT might not have the most creative
writing style on its own.

However, this can be fixed by telling it to model the response

based on:

● Specific expressions with examples.

● The writing style of a famous person.
● Specific format or tone of voice.

Here are some prompt angles with this in mind:

● Create an article about (topic) in the style of Neil Patel.

● Create a funny email about (topic) with the tone of
(influencer or celebrity).
● Include the following personalization (information) in the
following (message).
10. Ask to add emojis and simplify
the text
Another simple way to add personality to your AI writing is by
asking it to include emojis.

This can be particularly useful for social sharing text (e.g. social
media) and to avoid repetitive tasks.

Here’s an example:
Other ways you can get it to change your text include:

● Simplify the following text by decreasing the readability

score.
● You’re a content editor with 5+ years of experience. I want
you to simplify the following text for (target audience).
● How can the following text be improved?

11. Ask to add “uncommon ideas”

and analogies for your text
If you’re not feeling very creative, you can get ChatGPT to
come up with a few different ideas or analogies to describe
your topic.

Remember, on its own, ChatGPT can sometimes create stale

and robotic text.

But with the right prompt, you can even create poems and
get very creative.

This comes in handy when creating outreach text or even

inbound text (e.g. landing pages, blog posts, etc.).
That said, here are some prompts to boost your GPT creativity:

● Create an analogy for what it’s like to use LinkedIn

automation.
● Create a short haiku about LinkedIn automation.
● What are some creative topics I can compare LinkedIn
automation to for my marketing?

12. Give ChatGPT a structure to

follow
To level up your ChatGPT replies, you can even get the AI to
use a particular writing structure.
This can be particularly useful for writing emails or any other
form of outbound lead generation text. Especially if you’re
building a prospect list and want to combine ChatGPT
features with Google Sheets.

For more info on that, see our guide on using ChatGPT for
lead generation, but we’ll also show you how to integrate the
AI with Google Sheets below, so, keep on reading.

Here’s an example of a GPT prompt based on a specific

structure:

● Use this email opening example: “Yamini, I notice that

you’ve been the CEO of HubSpot since 2021 and I wanted
to reach out” to write a casual email that is 50-100 words,
consider that the person we’re reaching out to is named
{full_name} and they are the {title} of {company_name}
since {formatted_date}. Include a 1-2 sentence case study
of how we (case study example) and end with a CTA to
book a 10-minute call.

Then, let’s say we have those placeholder personalization tags

in a spreadsheet file, the response would look something like
this:
13. Specify the format of the
response
Did you know you can guide ChatGPT’s output by providing
the format of the output text you’d like?

This can be particularly useful for your content marketing and

SEO strategy.

And the best way to explain it is with an example.

While ChatGPT can’t give search volume for SEO keywords, for
ideation and target audience research, it works really well.

14. Chain prompts

Chained prompting is a way to break up complex tasks into
several intermediate steps to generate more concrete,
customized, and overall higher-quality results.
This way, you can also edit and improve your prompts as you
go.

For example, if you create an article by chaining prompts, you

can give “feedback” as you go. If not, you’ll end up with a full
article that might be harder to edit.

Here’s an example:

● I want you to create an article about (topic) and (details).

We will do it prompt-by-prompt. First, I want you to give
me an outline of an article about (topic).

Then, once you get your response, you can give it feedback
and continue with the prompt:

● Exclude the section about (topic) and instead, add (topic).

Now, write the introduction section – which consists of a
headline, teaser, and a table of content.
Then, you move section by section until you’re done!
15. Test your prompts
Before we wrap up this section, it’s worth noting that the best
way to master ChatGPT is by constantly testing your prompts
and being curious.

Once you understand how the AI thinks, consider letting your

mind run free and think of different approaches.

As you’re testing, you’ll see certain variables come up, such as

the maximum length of the prompt and the reply, writing
style and tone, ChatGPT integrations, and other use cases.

So, you need to write, test, refine, and test some more until
you consistently get an outcome you’re happy with.

Note down what bad and good prompts look like and
continue experimenting with different prompts for your
business.

16. Consider ChatGPT Plus

Finally, if you find yourself using a lot of ChatGPT, you should
consider upgrading your plan.
Since as of now, the demand is very often high because many
people are constantly experimenting with the AI tool.

With ChatGPT Plus, you pay $20/mo and get:

● First access when demand is high.

● Faster response speed.
● Priority access to new features.

The last one in particular might be very interesting if you want

to get ahead.

Now, let’s get back on track.

Below, we’ll cover more prompt anatomies with examples,

and then some proven ChatGPT prompts for outbound lead
generation.

Proven ChatGPT Prompt Anatomy

Examples

As mentioned above, to get the most out of ChatGPT

responses, you need to structure your prompts accordingly.
Some of the most popular entries include the following:

● “I want you to act as ___ for ___”

● “Your task is to ___”
● “___ should ___”
● “___ should not ___”
● “To get started, please ___”
● “Assuming I am ___, what would be the best way to
___”
● “Your job is to ____, I want you to___”
● “I am ___. You are ___.”
● “For ___ target audience. Create ___.”
● “Assuming ___. How do I ___”
● “You will be in charge of ___ as ___ with ___. Then, I
want you to ___”

Similarly, you can use the following “mega prompt” approach:

● Simulate person or role.

● Complete or do task.
● Steps to complete task.
● Context / constraints.
● Goal.
 ● Format output.

Remember, the constraints you can include are essentially

useless.

So, it might be useful to have a handful of “personas” at hand

for your prompts that you can copy and paste accordingly.

Personas for:

● Your target audience and ideal customer persona.

● A “supervisor” role to manage, edit, or adjust your work.
● An expert to create optimized, expert text.
● And more.