How to Use Claude for Business Writing and Email Drafts

Claude works well for business writing tasks, but you need to prompt it differently than you would for casual content. Here's how to get useful drafts for emails, reports, and client deliverables. The key is being specific about context, audience, and tone. Claude defaults to formal, thorough responses, which works well for business content but needs guidance to match your specific situation. ## Why This Matters Most professionals spend hours each week writing emails, reports, and documentation. AI can handle first drafts of this content, but only if you know how to prompt it effectively. The difference between a useful draft and something that needs complete rewriting comes down to how you frame the request. Good prompts save you time. Bad prompts create more work. ## Email Drafts That Sound Like You Claude can draft professional emails, but generic prompts produce generic emails. **Instead of:** "Write an email to a client about a project delay." **Try this approach:** "Draft an email to a client explaining a 2-week delay in deliverables. Context: We're waiting on their legal team to approve vendor contracts, which is blocking our timeline. Tone should be professional but direct - acknowledge the delay, explain the cause without blaming them, and propose a revised timeline. Keep it under 150 words." The specific context, tone guidance, and length constraint give Claude enough information to produce something useful. **Example prompt for internal emails:** "Draft an email to my operations team summarizing action items from this morning's meeting: [paste meeting notes]. Make it clear and scannable - use bullets for action items and bold the owner for each task. Keep the tone casual but professional." **Key elements for email prompts:** - Recipient and relationship (client, internal team, vendor) - Specific purpose or decision to communicate - Desired tone (formal, casual, apologetic, direct) - Length constraint - Format preferences (bullets, paragraphs, etc.) ## Report and Analysis Writing Claude excels at structured writing like reports, summaries, and analysis documents. **Prompt structure for reports:** "Analyze this customer feedback data [paste data] and create a summary report. Structure: 1) Executive summary (3-4 sentences), 2) Key findings (bullets), 3) Recommendations (numbered list), 4) Next steps. Audience is leadership team, so focus on business impact rather than technical details. Keep total length under 500 words." The structure specification tells Claude exactly how to organize information. The audience guidance affects language and focus. **For data analysis summaries:** "Review this spreadsheet data [paste] and identify the top 3 trends worth highlighting to stakeholders. For each trend, provide: what's happening, why it matters, and one specific action to consider. Write in plain language - avoid jargon." Claude will analyze the patterns and present them in business-friendly language. ## Client Deliverables and Proposals For client-facing documents, you need more back-and-forth to get the tone right. **Start with an outline request:** "I need to write a proposal for [client name] for [project description]. Create an outline for a 3-page proposal covering scope, timeline, pricing, and team. What sections would you include?" Review the outline, adjust it, then ask Claude to draft each section: "Draft the scope section based on this outline. Include: [specific scope items]. Make it clear what's included and what's not. Tone should be confident but collaborative - we're partners, not just vendors." **For editing existing drafts:** "Review this proposal section [paste text]. Make it more concise without losing key points. The current version is too wordy for this client - they prefer direct communication." ## Meeting Prep and Talking Points Claude can help prepare for meetings by organizing your thoughts into clear talking points. **Prompt example:** "I have a meeting tomorrow about [topic] with [attendees]. Based on this background [paste context], create: 1) Three key points I should make, 2) Two questions I should ask, 3) Potential objections and responses. Keep each point to 1-2 sentences." This gives you a structured prep document you can quickly review before the meeting. ## Documentation and Process Writing For internal documentation, SOPs, or process guides, Claude's thoroughness is an advantage. **Prompt structure:** "Create a step-by-step guide for [process]. Audience: new team members with no prior context. Include what to do, why it matters, and common mistakes to avoid. Use numbered steps with sub-bullets for details." Claude will generate comprehensive documentation that you can trim down rather than trying to expand sparse notes. ## What Doesn't Work Well Claude struggles with: **Highly creative marketing copy.** It defaults to professional and thorough, not punchy and creative. Use ChatGPT for this instead. **Very short communications.** If you need a 2-sentence email, it's often faster to write it yourself than to prompt Claude and edit down. **Brand voice matching.** Claude can follow tone guidance but won't automatically match your company's specific voice without detailed examples. ## Editing and Refining Outputs Rarely will you use Claude's first draft without changes. Here's how to efficiently refine outputs: **Ask for revisions with specific feedback:** - "Make this more concise - aim for 50% shorter" - "The tone is too formal - make it more conversational" - "Add a specific example to illustrate the second point" - "Remove the jargon - write like you're explaining to someone outside our industry" **Request format changes:** - "Convert the paragraphs to bullets" - "Add headers to break up the text" - "Bold the key takeaways" ## Quick Takeaway Claude works best for business writing when you provide specific context, audience, tone, and structure guidance. Start with detailed prompts, then refine through iteration. The time savings come from editing AI drafts rather than starting from scratch. But you need to prompt well to get drafts worth editing. Test Claude with your most common writing tasks and save the prompts that work. You'll build a library of effective prompts for recurring needs.