Write a personalized opener from a trigger event
Converts trigger events into two-sentence openers built on the event-to-consequence structure that separates trigger-based outbound from the congratulations flood. Role-aware consequence logic means the same funding round produces different openers for a CFO and a VP of Sales — automatically, per row.
You are a trigger-based outbound writer running inside an enrichment pipeline. You turn a single trigger event — a funding round, a new executive, a product launch, an office opening, a hiring spree — into a two-sentence cold email opener that connects the event to a consequence the prospect is now living with. You never congratulate. Congratulations are what every other vendor sent the same week; consequences are what get replies. You will be given: the trigger event (a headline, news one-liner, or structured signal from an enrichment step), the prospect's role, and a one-line description of what the sender's company helps with. Write TWO sentences: - Sentence one states the event plainly, as a fact the reader already knows, under 20 words. No 'I saw that', no 'Congrats on', no exclamation marks. - Sentence two names the operational consequence that follows for someone in the prospect's role, and gestures at the sender's relevance without pitching features. Under 25 words. - The consequence must logically follow from THIS event for THIS role. A CFO and a VP of Sales inherit different problems from the same funding round. - Banned: 'exciting times', 'huge congrats', 'hope you're well', 'perfect timing', any question in sentence one, any product name in either sentence. OUTPUT CONTRACT — follow exactly: - Return ONLY the two sentences as plain text on one line. No preamble, no quotes, no labels, no third sentence. - If the trigger event is missing, older than what a reasonable reader would consider current, unverifiable from the provided input, or unrelated to the named company, return exactly: NOT_FOUND - Never invent details about the event beyond what is provided. If the input says 'raised Series B', do not name an amount.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM — or into a Clay AI column.
- 2
In Clay, map three inputs: your trigger column (the news-finder prompt's one_liner works perfectly), the prospect's title, and a static line describing what you help with.
- 3
Read 20 outputs checking one thing above all: does the consequence genuinely follow for that role, or is it generic?
- 4
Send within days of enrichment — trigger relevance decays weekly — and route NOT_FOUND rows to your evergreen sequence.
Best practices
Chain it after the news-finder prompt in this category: verified event in, opener out, with NOT_FOUND propagating safely through both steps.
Keep your what-we-help-with line outcome-shaped ('cut ramp time', not 'AI-powered enablement platform') — sentence two inherits its quality.
Segment triggers by type and review consequences per segment; hiring events produce sharper consequences than awards, so weight your credits there.
Example: what this looks like in practice
A recruiting-firm SDR chains the news-finder prompt into this one across 1,200 accounts. A row where the trigger is 'opened second distribution center in Reno' and the title is VP Operations produces: 'The second Reno facility takes you from one site to two. Most ops leaders find the second site is where tribal-knowledge staffing stops scaling.' No congratulations, no pitch, and the consequence is specific to operations rather than finance. The trigger segment replies at 6.8% against 2.9% for the evergreen fallback, and three replies open with some version of 'that's exactly where we are'.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 35+ tools into outbound systems our clients own , and re-earn the results every month.
Book your free ICP review → →Frequently asked questions
What is trigger-based cold outreach?
Outreach timed to an observable event — funding, a new executive, a launch, an expansion — that predicts budget or urgency. It works because relevance is contextual: the same pitch lands differently the month a company opens its second office. The craft is connecting event to consequence; the event alone just proves you read the news.
Why shouldn't I congratulate prospects on funding or promotions?
Because everyone does, in the same week, with the same sentence. Congratulations position you as one of forty vendors watching the announcement. Stating the event's operational consequence — what it now makes harder for this person — positions you as someone who understands their job. This prompt bans congratulations structurally, not just stylistically.
How fresh does a trigger event need to be?
Reference it while the prospect still thinks of it as current: roughly 90 days for funding and executive moves, tighter for launches and news cycles. This prompt returns NOT_FOUND for stale-feeling triggers rather than writing an opener that reveals your data's age — pair it with an enrichment step that timestamps events.
More personalization at scale (clay & claygents) prompts
Generate a cold email first line from scraped research data
The workhorse of AI-personalized outbound: converts whatever research your enrichment waterfall produced into one 12–22-word observation-led first line per row. The swap-test rule and fact-invention ban are what separate lines that read researched from the AI slop prospects now delete on sight.
Turn a Claygent website scrape into a personalized one-liner
Produces a sub-25-word, website-specific opening line for every row in a Clay table — no human in the loop. The output contract forces plain text only and a NOT_FOUND fallback, so unreachable sites and thin homepages return a filterable sentinel instead of a hallucinated compliment that ends up in a prospect's inbox.
Analyze a pricing page for sales-relevant intelligence
Extracts a structured pricing profile from any pricing page: model, tier count, exact displayed prices, free-offer type, and a one-line read on their sales motion. At scale it segments prospect lists by how companies charge — which predicts budget, buying process, and which of your angles will land.