Do you get mixed results when working with ChatGPT?
When you use ChatGPT, the results you get can vary… a lot.
You might get exactly what you were hoping for. Something insightful and helpful, if you’re using it as a thinking partner. Or something workable if you’re using it as a writing partner.
Or you might get the dreaded AI slop.
The results depend a lot on your prompt… and there a few small changes you can make to how you write prompts that can yield a big improvement in the output you receive.
The “What Do You Need to Know?” Query
I use this type of query a lot.
Instead of coming to ChatGPT and entering something like…
“I’m a copywriter and I want to choose a niche that’s profitable and that commonly hires freelance copywriters. What would you recommend?”
I’ll start with something like this…
“I’m a copywriter and I want to choose a niche that’s profitable and that commonly hires freelance copywriters. What do you need to know to help me with this task?”
Let’s look at how the results vary for these two slightly different prompts.
Prompt 1:
I’m a copywriter and I want to choose a niche that’s profitable and that commonly hires freelance copywriters. What would you recommend?
ChatGPT’s Reply:
Here’s a direct, evidence-based answer to your question:
💼 Profitable Niches That Commonly Hire Freelance Copywriters
- SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)
- Why it’s profitable: Recurring revenue models mean they constantly need new users and retention campaigns.
- Freelancer roles: Email onboarding sequences, landing pages, UX copy, and case studies.
- Sub-niches to consider: Productivity apps, EdTech SaaS, HRTech, and MarTech.
- Ecommerce & DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) Brands
- Why it’s profitable: Always launching products, optimizing ads, and testing messaging.
- Freelancer roles: Email campaigns, product descriptions, social ads, brand storytelling.
- Sub-niches: Health products, footwear, sustainable fashion, supplements, home goods.
- Health & Wellness
- Why it’s profitable: Huge market with steady demand and emotionally driven purchases.
- Freelancer roles: Educational content, email funnels, blog posts, course or webinar scripts.
- Sub-niches: Functional medicine, fitness tech, supplements, mindfulness coaching.
- Education & EdTech
- Why it’s profitable: Massive online learning market; platforms constantly launch new courses and features.
- Freelancer roles: Course launch campaigns, email funnels, landing pages, long-form content.
- Sub-niches: Adult learning, homeschool support, professional certification, and learning apps.
- Financial Services & Fintech
- Why it’s profitable: High-value clients and constant need for trust-based, compliant copy.
- Freelancer roles: Blog posts, newsletters, landing pages, explainer scripts.
- Sub-niches: Personal finance apps, small business lending, ethical banking, crypto education.
- Coaching & Online Education Entrepreneurs
- Why it’s profitable: High conversion value and evergreen launches.
- Freelancer roles: Email campaigns, sales pages, webinar funnels, course copy.
- Sub-niches: Life coaches, business mentors, wellness educators.
Now let’s look at how things change when we ask ChatGPT what it needs to know first…
Prompt 2:
I’m a copywriter and I want to choose a niche that’s profitable and that commonly hires freelance copywriters. What do you need to know to help me with this task?
ChatGPT’s Reply:
Perfect starting point, Heather.
To help you choose a profitable niche that actively hires freelance copywriters, I’d need to understand a few key things about you and what you’re optimizing for. Here’s what I’d ask:
- Your Skills and Strengths
- What specific types of writing do you do best (e.g., emails, landing pages, sales pages, content strategy, UX copy, case studies, etc.)?
- Which of those deliverables do you enjoy doing most?
- Do you prefer strategy + writing or just execution?
- Your Interests and Values
- What topics, industries, or causes genuinely interest or inspire you?
- Are there any industries you wouldn’t want to write for (for ethical, personal, or interest reasons)?
- How important is “mission alignment” vs. pure profitability?
- Your Experience and Portfolio
- What industries have you already worked in?
- Do you have case studies, results, or strong samples in any specific area?
- Have you built relationships or contacts in certain sectors already?
- Business Priorities
- Are you optimizing for high fees per project, steady long-term retainer work, or variety and creative freedom?
- How many clients do you ideally want to manage at once?
- How much prospecting are you willing to do vs. waiting for inbound leads?
- Lifestyle and Vision
- What kind of schedule, pace, and lifestyle are you building toward? (e.g., 3-day workweek, high-ticket few clients, or a volume-based model?)
- Do you want a niche that could eventually evolve into a personal brand, course, or thought-leadership platform?
Once I have that, I can:
- Identify 3–5 profitable, compatible niches that regularly hire freelancers
- Rank them by ease of entry, fee potential, and alignment
- Suggest signature offers or packages that fit those niches perfectly
Imagine how much closer you’re going to get to a niche that’s truly a good fit for you when you provide ChatGPT with all that information about yourself, some of which might not even have crossed your mind.
A small tweak to how you open your prompt can help ChatGPT guide you to a much better result.
The “Interview Me” Prompt
When it comes to using ChatGPT as a writing partner, this is one of my favorite types of prompts. Instead of asking ChatGPT to provide an outline about a topic, use a prompt like this…
Prompt: I’m writing an article about how to craft a signature offer. My target audience is freelance professionals, especially writers. I’d like you to take on the role of interviewer and ask me questions about that topic. Please ask a variety of questions — surface level to deep and profound. And then ask follow-up questions based on my answers. I only want to field one question at a time, and I’ll let you know when I’m ready for the next question.
What this looks like in practice…
ChatGPT’s first response:
Perfect, Heather. Let’s kick off your interview on crafting a signature offer for freelance professionals.
Here’s your first question:
Question 1:
When you hear the term signature offer, what does it mean to you personally — and how would you explain it to a freelance writer who’s never heard that phrase before?
(Once you answer, I’ll follow up or move to the next question, depending on where your response leads.)
My answer:
A signature offer sums up a package that does several things. First, it appeals to a specific audience. Second, it solves a specific pain point for that audience. Third, it offers defined deliverables within a set time frame at a fixed price. And fourth, it’s all done using a process that is repeatable and unique to the person offering it.
ChatGPT’s Follow-Up Question:
Excellent definition — that’s clear, structured, and actionable.
Follow-up question:
You mentioned that a signature offer is “repeatable and unique.” That seems like a paradox on the surface — repeatable implies systemized, while unique implies personal. How do you balance those two qualities when designing your own offers (or helping others design theirs)?
My response:
Unique to the person who developed the offer. As in, they are the only one who approaches it in exactly this way. They have a process that they’ve used, refined, and defined. Repeatable as in they use the same process for each client they provide the offer to.
ChatGPT:
Perfect — that distinction between personalized origin and consistent execution is powerful.
Next question:
In your experience, what are some signs that a freelancer is ready to create a signature offer? In other words, what indicators tell you they’ve reached the point where packaging their process makes sense?
And so on and so forth. By going through this process, you can quickly create the bones of an article that is based on your thoughts, insights, and experiences. Instead of giving you answers, ChatGPT helps you articulate what you already know.
The Optimized Prompt
Here’s a secret…
ChatGPT is better at writing prompts than you are. And you can use that knowledge. Next time you write a prompt, try adding this line at the end:
“Optimize this prompt before executing and show me the optimization.”
Imagine that you want to know more about what your audience thinks about email segmentation. So, you write the following prompt.
Prompt:
I want to know more about what my audience thinks about email segmentation. My audience is small to medium-sized businesses in the alternative health industry. Please pull from industry forums, Reddit, and Quora to show me questions, frustrations, excitement, and objections that audience has about email segmentation.
Optimize this prompt before executing and show me the optimization.
Here’s what ChatGPT comes back with:
Here’s how I’d optimize your prompt first (so you get richer, more targeted results), and then I’ll dig into what I found from forums/Reddit/Quora about how small-to-medium businesses in alternative health think about (or struggle) with email segmentation.
🛠️ Prompt optimization
Your original prompt:
I want to know more about what my audience thinks about email segmentation. My audience is small to medium-sized business in the alternative health industry. Please pull from industry forums, Reddit, and Quora to show me questions, frustrations, excitement, and objections that audience has about email segmentation.
That’s a good start. But to get better, more precise answers, you might want to:
- Specify roles or personas
e.g., “clinic owners, supplement brands, wellness coaches, naturopaths, holistic practitioners”
This helps you surface nuance across sub-segments. - Define what “email segmentation” means in your context
Are we talking about segmenting by demographics, behaviors, purchase history, engagement level, symptom types, disease states, etc.? - Ask for specific types of content
- “common questions or confusions”
- “emotional language (fear, doubt, excitement)”
- “real quotes (verbatim) when possible”
- “best practices or successful examples they mention”
- Set time constraints or recency
“In the past 3 years” or “recent forum posts (2023–2025)” — so you don’t dredge up decade-old opinions. - Clarify output format
“List objections, fears, excitement, with sample quotes from forums/Reddit/Quora.”
Optimized Prompt Example:
“I want to deeply understand how small-to-medium alternative health businesses (e.g., naturopaths, wellness supplement companies, holistic clinics) feel about email segmentation (by symptoms, purchase history, engagement, demographics). Please mine Reddit, Quora, and relevant industry forums (from the past ~3 years) and present:
- Key questions or confusions they have
- Frustrations or obstacles they mention
- Emotional objections or fears
- Excitement, hopes, “aha” moments
- Sample direct quotes when available
Also include any patterns or recurring themes, particularly ones unique to the alternative health / wellness space.”
If you like, I can run with that optimized prompt now or adjust further before digging.
Now ChatGPT is coaching you on how to tweak and refine your prompt to get better answers. From here, you can have it run with what it came up with, or you can tweak it further for even better results.
The “Role – Task – Context – Requirements” Prompt
ChatGPT provides better answers when it has more to work with.
To get a better result with almost any prompt, try a Role/Task/Context/Requirements structure.
First assign ChatGPT a role. Do you want it to be your business coach or your copy chief? Do you want it to respond as a member of your target audience? Or do you want it to be a time management consultant?
Then, give Chat a specific task. What exactly do you want it to do? Create an editorial calendar? Conduct audience research? Vet your next big idea?
After that provide context. This is the information Chat needs about your line of thinking and details specific to you and the circumstances you’re working within.
Finally, provide requirements. If you’re using Chat to help you choose a niche, for example, you could ask it to provide the three most profitable or to surface the three most underserved or to find the three that are the best match for your values and interests. You could also ask it to rank them in order from strongest to weakest and explain why.
Create a Perfection Loop
If you are using ChatGPT as a writing partner, this particular type of prompt can come in very handy…
It goes like this:
Prompt:
I want you to write a draft of a landing page for a subscription-based financial newsletter geared toward the Gen X demographic. The key features of the newsletter are that it provides a conservative, proven, multi-tiered investment strategy to help Gen Xers catch up on their retirement goals. It also offers a monthly live Q&A session with the newsletter experts to field questions about specific situations. The landing page should be under 500 words long. Before you begin to write, first develop a rubric to establish essential components and benchmarks for a successful landing page. Measure your work against the rubric and iterate until your draft hits a perfect score. Only show me the final draft.
That bolded section is what makes this prompt special. You’ve asked Chat to evaluate and improve its own work before giving you its final answer. And you’ll typically find that you get stronger draft copy from it based on the perfection loop.
Here’s ChatGPT’s result… (after about two minutes of work):
Final Landing Page Draft (Scored Perfectly Against the Rubric)
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Now, is that a groundbreaking draft? No. But I also didn’t give ChatGPT much to work with. In a real-life situation, I could have provided much more detail about the newsletter and the contributing experts. I could have uploaded past issues as examples and shared audience testimonials. The more detail I give the tool, the better the outcome.
But even with as little as I gave it to work on, it gives me a solid place to start.
ChatGPT is a powerful tool for thinking through problems, doing complex research, and even creating first drafts. And it gets more powerful the better you get at prompting. Try these prompt styles to see what kinds of results you get for your own business.
