Jul 31, 2025
What Makes a Good ChatGPT Prompt? Lessons from Real Use Cases
What Makes a Good ChatGPT Prompt? Lessons from Real Use Cases | Goat Answer
In this post, you’ll discover what makes a good ChatGPT prompt by diving into real Goat Answer use cases in legal, financial, and communication contexts. These stories reveal how thoughtful prompt design leads to better results—and how poor prompts hold you back. You'll also get practical tips on AI prompt structure and get a glimpse of what “chatgpt success prompts” look like in action.
Case Study 1: Legal, Drafting a Lease Agreement
What They Were Struggling With
Maria is a solo real estate attorney who needed to draft a residential lease quickly. Off‑the‑shelf templates didn’t match her state’s regulations, and she worried about missing clauses.
Their Journey to a Solution
Maria tried prompts like:
“Write me a lease.”
But the result was generic, legally unsound, and missing key jurisdictional details.
Using Goat Answer Prompt Builder
She refined her prompt to include:
Intent: draft a California residential lease
Context: landlord‑tenant law update effective Jan 2025
Format: bullet‑point clause summaries + full draft
Tone: formal, clear, legally precise
Prompt she used:
“Draft a California residential lease agreement, landlord‑prepared, incorporating Jan 2025 law changes. Provide a bulleted summary of each clause, then the full lease text. Use a formal legal tone.”
That structure ensured the AI understood what she wanted, where, why, and how. The output was accurate and saved her hours of manual revisions.
Why it worked
Specific intent (state + legal topic)
Relevant context (law update)
Desired tone/format (summary + full text)
It asked for the right kind of question: both summary and full draft.
Case Study 2: Financial, Creating a Personal Budget Plan
What They Were Struggling With
Alex, a freelance designer, needed help budgeting irregular income. A vague prompt like “help me budget” led to generic advice, no structure, no numbers, and no actionable plan.
Their Journey
He improved the prompt using Goat Answer’s builder:
Intent: create a monthly budget
Context: freelance income varying between $3K–$7K/month
Format: categorized spreadsheet outline + guidance
Tone: practical, friendly
Prompt he used:
“You’re acting as a financial planner. Based on freelance income ranging $3,000–$7,000 per month, design a monthly budget outline in table format with categories (e.g., housing, taxes, savings). Include suggestions on smoothing irregular cash flow. Tone: practical and friendly.”
Response included a dynamic budget table and suggestions to create an income buffer, tailored and usable immediately.
Why it worked
Clear intent and format
Concrete context (income range)
Thoughtful tone
And the right kind of request: table + advice.
Case Study 3: Communication, Crafting a Cold Email Series
What They Were Struggling With
Sasha, head of sales at a startup, was cold emailing prospects, but responses were low. Her bland prompt (“write cold emails for me”) yielded generic messaging that felt robotic.
The refined prompt:
Intent: a 3‑email follow‑up series
Context: SaaS product for small retail businesses
Format: first, second, and final email, each ~150 words
Tone: warm, professional, concise
Prompt she used:
“Create a 3‑email cold outreach sequence (~150 words each) for a SaaS tool serving small retail store owners. Email 1: intro and value; Email 2: social proof; Email 3: final nudge. Tone: warm and professional.”
She got a personalized, polished copy with a clear sequence structure, and increased response rates by over 30%.
Why it worked
Defined sequence and word count
Clear context about the audience and the product
Specified tone and format
Asked for the right structure: 3 sequential emails.
Want to see this in action? These ChatGPT prompts for job offer emails show how tone and structure directly shape the outcome.
Weak Prompts vs. Strong Prompts
Weak prompt | Why it fails | Improved version |
“Write me a contract” | Too vague (no state, no type, no format) | “Draft a US freelancer contract, bullet‑point summary then full text, formal legal tone” |
“Help me budget” | No numbers, no context, no format | “Design monthly budget table for income $3K–$7K/month, include cash‑flow smoothing tips” |
“Write a cold email campaign” | No audience, no sequence, no tone | “Create 3‑email series for retail SaaS, each ~150 words, warm professional tone” |
Key Elements of ChatGPT Success Prompts
Specific intent – What exactly do you want the AI to do?
Relevant context – Provide the who, what, where, and when that matters.
Desired tone or format – Specify structure, form, and style.
Asking the right kind of question – e.g., table + summary + full text; tweet + blog outline; sequential content.
These are the core of ChatGPT success prompts: clear, structured, and contextual.
Final Thoughts
Through these real use cases in legal, financial, and communication verticals, we’ve seen again and again what makes a good ChatGPT prompt: clarity of purpose, meaningful context, defined format, and thoughtful tone.
Now you can design an AI prompt structure that gets you pretrained‑grade results.
Their Advice to Others
“Be precise about what you want—state, format, tone.”
“Give realistic numbers or constraints.”
“Think: if this were a brief to a person, what details would matter?”
You can also explore these free ChatGPT prompt packs to quickly generate results across legal, finance, and communication tasks.
Ready to Try It Yourself?
Want to experience how powerful a well‑crafted prompt can be? Try Goat Answer’s free Prompt Builder, already optimized with these success factors in mind. Create your prompt designed for impact, and see the difference today.
What Makes a Good ChatGPT Prompt? It’s simple: be clear, contextual, and structured, and let the AI deliver.