Claude for Marketers

Brief it like a freelancer.

You don't need to learn prompting. You need to remember briefing: the skill you already have. This lesson takes ten minutes and upgrades every AI chat you'll ever have.

Lesson 02 of 07 · ~10 min · Free

The experiment

The lazy brief vs the proper brief

Same task. Same AI. Same ten seconds to generate. The only thing that changes is the brief. Tap between the two and compare what comes back.

What you typed

Write a social post about our end of financial year sale.

What you got

🚀 HUGE EOFY SALE ALERT! 🎉 Don't miss out on our BIGGEST sale of the year! Incredible deals, unbeatable prices, limited time only!!! Tag a friend who needs this! 👇 #EOFYSale #Deals #ShopNow

The verdict: generic, over-punctuated, faintly American. It's not wrong. It's just nobody's. You'd never send this brief to a freelancer, so why send it to the AI?

What you typed

Write a LinkedIn post about our EOFY offer. Audience: time-poor small business owners who already follow us. Goal: drive bookings before June 30. Tone: warm, plain-spoken, a bit dry. No hype. Australian spelling. Format: under 120 words, one clear call to action. Avoid: exclamation marks, emojis, "unlock", "elevate". Sound like this: [paste a past post that performed well]

What you got

June 30 has a habit of arriving faster than anyone plans for. If a brand or marketing project has been sitting on your someday list all year, this is the fortnight it becomes deductible. Our EOFY offer runs until the 30th, and the calendar is filling in the usual end-of-June way. Book a spot this week and we'll scope it before the new financial year starts. Link in the comments.

The verdict: sounds like a person. Sounds like your person. The difference was never the AI, it was the brief. And you already knew how to write it.

The method

The brief skeleton

Six lines. That's the whole upgrade. Answer these before you hit enter, the same way you'd answer them for a freelancer whose invoice you have to approve.

Who it's forThe actual audience, not "everyone"

What it's forThe one job this piece has to do

ToneThree honest words, plus the spelling you use

FormatChannel, length, structure

What good looks likePaste an example. Examples beat adjectives, every time

What to avoidBanned words, banned formats, banned clichés

Steal these

Three prompts to copy

Tap copy, paste into Claude, fill the brackets. Keep what survives.

The brief skeleton

Your new default for any writing task.

Write [the thing] for [business name].

Audience: [who, specifically]
Goal: [the one job it has to do]
Tone: [three honest words]. Australian spelling.
Format: [channel, length, structure]
Sound like this: [paste your best past example]
Avoid: [banned words and clichés]

The editor

Run anything public through this before it ships.

Act as my editor. Check this copy against my voice: [three honest words].

Flag hype, jargon, corporate tone, and any sentence over 20 words. Apply the table test: would a smart friend say this across a table?

Score it out of 10, rewrite whatever fails, and tell me why it failed.

[paste your draft]

The interrogator

For when you're not sure what to ask for yet.

I need help with [the task], but I haven't fully thought it through.

Before you write anything, ask me the five questions a senior freelancer would ask to nail this brief. Then wait for my answers.

The watchout

Don't over-brief.

A 400-word prompt for a two-line Instagram caption is procrastination in a trench coat. Match the brief to the job, exactly as you would with a human. Big deliverable, proper brief. Quick task, quick brief, fast feedback rounds.

Keep learning · As at July 2026

Prefer reading? This lesson as an article: Brief AI like you'd brief a freelancer.
Anthropic Academy: free official courses with certificates. Start with Claude 101.
Claude documentation: the official reference when you want the why behind the technique.
One Useful Thing: Ethan Mollick's plain-English newsletter on practical AI.

Quick check

Three questions, then the good bit

No marks, no sign-up, just a check the lesson stuck. Tap your answer.

The most effective way to get your tone right is:

The first draft Claude gives you is:

A 400-word prompt for a two-line caption is:

Lesson complete.

You brief. It delivers. That's the whole trick.

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