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A Cold Email That Sounds Human

Short, specific outreach that reads like a person wrote it in five minutes. Includes three subject lines and a follow-up that adds something new.

#1 this week, 1 vote
Output
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The prompt

Write a cold email from me to one specific person. It should sound like I wrote it myself in five minutes, not like a sales tool did.

Me and my company, in one line: [WHAT YOU DO]
The person: [NAME, ROLE, COMPANY]
Something specific I noticed about them: [A POST, A LAUNCH, A JOB AD, A TALK]
What I am hoping for: [e.g. a 15 minute call]

Constraints:
- Under 90 words.
- The first line is about them and the specific thing I noticed. Not about me.
- No "I hope this finds you well" and no "I wanted to reach out".
- One clear ask that is easy to say yes to. No calendar link in the first email.
- Plain text. No bold, no bullet points.

Give me three subject lines (lowercase, under five words), the email, and a follow-up to send four days later that adds something useful instead of "bumping this".
  • email
  • outreach
  • b2b

What it generates

Example

Subject lines

  • your new checkout
  • question about mobile carts
  • one page checkouts

The email

Hi Dana,

I saw the one page checkout you launched last week. The address autocomplete is really nice. I am curious whether it changed your mobile abandonment, because that is usually where one page flows have trouble.

We help online shops win back abandoned carts with text messages that do not feel like spam. Outdoor Co. recovered 11% of their lost carts in the first month.

Would you be open to comparing notes on what you are seeing?

Sam

Follow-up, four days later

Hi Dana, one thing we noticed across 40 Shopify stores: carts abandoned at the shipping step come back about three times more often when the message shows the delivery date instead of a discount. Thought it might be useful either way.

Sam

NoteThis is an example. Results change between runs and model versions. Prompt Podium is a fan project and is not affiliated with Anthropic.

Getting the most from this prompt

When to use it

Outreach to one specific person where you have a real reason to write: a possible customer, a podcast guest, a mentor, a hiring manager. It is not meant for sending the same message to a list of five hundred people.

Make it your own

  • The "something specific I noticed" line carries the whole email. A post from last week works. "I love what you are doing" does not.
  • Change the word limit for your field: about 60 words for busy executives, up to 120 when you need to explain something technical.
  • Ask for a version in your own words by pasting two emails you have sent before and adding "match how I write".

Watch out for

Check every fact before you send it. If you gave Claude no customer result to mention, remove that sentence, do not keep an invented one. Send the follow-up only if it adds something the first email did not. Two short emails that each offer something useful do better than five reminders.

How to use this prompt

  1. [01] Copy

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  2. [02] Fill in

    Replace the yellow parts

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  3. [03] Vote

    Run it in Claude and vote

    If the result helped, press the heart. Votes decide which prompts make the weekly top 10.

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