AI Guides › Step-by-step guides
By Nigel Guy · 6 min read
Most creators automate brand outreach by asking an AI for "fifty fintech companies" and a template to send to all of them. It feels productive because the list is long and the emails are polished. It fails because every recipient has seen the same flattering opener a hundred times, and nothing in the message shows you looked at what they actually do.
The useful part of an agent here is not sending. It is doing the reading you would never get round to: what the company has just launched, who its audience is, and whether that audience overlaps with yours.
The rule: let the AI research and draft, but you choose the targets, check every claim against a source, and press send yourself.
You need:
Cost: web search and projects are part of Claude's plans, and I have not stated plan prices because they change. Check the current plan page and the £ price at checkout. Free accounts have usage limits that reset every five hours, so research a handful of companies per session rather than dozens.
In Claude, open Projects (left-hand side), click "+ New Project", name it (for example "Brand outreach"), then add your media kit via the "+" button in the project knowledge area. Click "Set project instructions", paste the instructions below, and click "Save instructions". Every chat in the project then starts with your voice and your rules.
You are my research assistant for brand-partnership outreach. I am a creator; my media kit is in the project knowledge.
Goal: for each company I name, produce a short research note and a first-draft email that I will review and send myself.
Rules:
- Use web search. Cite a URL for every factual claim about a company.
- Mark each claim as VERIFIED (a source says it), INFERRED (your reasoning), or UNKNOWN.
- Never invent contact names, email addresses, audience figures, or campaign details. If you cannot find something, say UNKNOWN.
- Write in my voice: [DESCRIBE YOUR TONE IN TWO OR THREE WORDS], British English, under 130 words per email.
- If I have not given you a company, a contact role, or my offer, ask me before you start.
Fill in: your tone description.
Write five to ten company names into the spreadsheet, using the industries you can credibly speak to, such as AI tools or fintech. Choosing the list is your judgement call: an AI can suggest candidates, but it cannot know which brands you would be comfortable standing behind. If you ask it to suggest, treat every name as unverified until you have opened the company's own site.
Start a new chat in the project for each company. Do one at a time so the sources stay attached to the right brand.
Research [COMPANY_NAME] ([COMPANY_WEBSITE]) for a possible paid partnership with me.
Produce, in this order:
1. Recent activity: up to three things the company has announced, launched or published in the last [TIME_WINDOW, e.g. 90 days], each with a date and a source link.
2. Audience: who the company appears to be speaking to, based on its own site and public channels. Compare this with my audience in the media kit and say where they overlap and where they do not.
3. Fit risks: anything that would make a partnership awkward for me (regulatory warnings, controversies, products I have said I will not promote: [MY_EXCLUSIONS]).
4. Best contact role to approach (a job title, not a guessed person), and why.
Format: a short table for item 1, then plain bullets. Label every claim VERIFIED, INFERRED or UNKNOWN.
Before answering, check that each dated item has a working source and that you have not stated any audience number you cannot cite. If my media kit or the company name is missing, ask me first.
Fill in: company name and site, time window, your exclusions.
Read the table. Open the source link for the hook you want to use and confirm it says what Claude claims. Then, in the same chat:
Draft a first outreach email to the [CONTACT_ROLE] at [COMPANY_NAME].
Use this hook, which I have checked myself: [HOOK_AND_SOURCE_LINK].
My offer: [WHAT_I_CAN_DELIVER, e.g. one sponsored video plus a written follow-up].
My ask: a short call or a reply with their partnership criteria.
Structure: opening line that refers to the hook in concrete terms; two sentences connecting their audience to mine using only facts from my media kit; one sentence on the offer; one clear question. Sign off with my name and a line saying how to opt out of further emails.
Constraints: no flattery without a fact behind it, no claims about their business that are not in the research note, no pricing unless I supply it, under 130 words. Give me two subject-line options.
Before answering, list any sentence that depends on an assumption so I can check it.
Fill in: contact role, hook and link, offer.
If you use the Gmail connector, ask Claude to save the text as a draft, not to send it. Open Gmail, check the recipient address (find it from the company's own site or a contact you already hold), read the draft aloud once, and send it. Log the date in your spreadsheet.