Indictment: 'Gets replies' is the whole brief — you've described the desired outcome and left the model to invent the product, the sender, the recipient, the ask, and the angle.
see the specimen they pasted
write me a cold email that gets replies
“write me a cold email”
There's no sender, no recipient, no industry, no offer — the model will hallucinate a generic SaaS pitch to a fictional VP and you'll wonder why it feels hollow.
add: who's sending (role/company), who's receiving (title/industry), and what the one-line offer is
A cold email prompt needs five facts before it can work: sender, recipient, offer, pain point, and desired action.
“that gets replies”
'Gets replies' is a success metric you're asking the model to optimise for with zero information — it's like telling a chef to 'make something delicious' and handing them an empty fridge.
swap: 'that gets replies' → a concrete ask, e.g. 'book a 15-min intro call' or 'reply with a yes/no on interest'
Replace outcome wishes with a specific call-to-action — the model can write toward a concrete ask, not a conversion rate.
“write me a cold email”
No format contract means you might get three paragraphs of corporate fluff or a five-line masterpiece — the model picks, not you.
add: max word count (e.g. under 100 words), structure (subject line + body + CTA), and one thing to avoid (e.g. no 'I hope this email finds you well')
Always give a cold email prompt a word cap, a required structure, and at least one banned phrase — constraints produce copy, not vibes.
You are a B2B copywriter who writes cold emails that get responses through specificity and brevity, not flattery. Write a cold email from [sender — e.g. 'a freelance UX designer targeting Series A SaaS startups'] to [recipient — e.g. 'a Head of Product at a 20–80 person B2B SaaS company']. Offer: [one-line value prop — e.g. 'a 2-week UX audit that typically cuts onboarding drop-off by 20–30%'] Pain point to reference: [e.g. 'most SaaS products lose 40% of new users in the first week'] Desired action: [e.g. 'reply with a yes or no on a 15-min call this week'] Rules: - Subject line + body + CTA only - Under 90 words total (body, not subject) - First line names a specific problem the recipient has, not a compliment - No 'I hope this email finds you well', no 'I wanted to reach out', no 'synergy' - One ask only — do not offer multiple options or next steps - Write in plain, confident prose; no bullet points in the email body Deliver: subject line on line 1, one blank line, then the email body.
/roast/example/under-prompting