- November 13, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you have Rainbow flatware? Biomagnetic ear stickers? A diamond-shaped ice cube tray? Baby feather wings? Yah, these things exist here. You don’t? Me neither.
Have you signed up to use a company that uses AI to generate leads for you? You haven’t? Me neither.
It seems to me that the only companies using AI to generate leads are the companies trying to sell you their services using AI to generate leads. How ironic!
AI-generated emails make up the majority of the digital solicitations I receive and they are all from companies offering their lead generation services. These emails are very easy to recognize. The personalization is nearly non-existent, the formatting is awful, the message sucks, and they lack traditional signature panels. But the easiest way to recognize that these are AI-generated emails is the workflow. They never send one email. There are usually five or six more that follow and they all seem to include some of the same requests to “bump” their email to the top of the inbox, to “take another look” at their offer, “acknowledge” how busy I am, and the one that drives me crazy, that they “hope” I’m doing well.
In addition to AI, some marketers and sellers utilize workflows from their Marketo, Hubspot and similar marketing/prospecting applications. Emails and workflows from these applications are usually better composed and formatted. I’m looking at one of those now, from a UK-based technology firm, attempting to sell outsourced IT consulting. This particular workflow has sent me 9 emails in the last 5 weeks. They all begin with “Hope you’re doing well.” Then they follow with:
- 1st email: I am getting in touch to make sure your fieldwork and data collection needs are met.
- 2nd email: This is a quick note to make sure you received my previous email
- 3rd email: In case my previous email was an educated stab in the dark,
- 4th email: I am connecting with you to ask if you need additional support
- 5th email: I hope you had a chance to review my previous email and hope it didn’t get buried in your inbox.
- 6th email: I am sorry if I caught you at the wrong time with my previous email.
- 7th email: see 1st email (back to the beginning)
- 8th email: I am getting in touch today to see if there is a chance for us to collaborate on your current/upcoming projects.
- 9th email: I was just curious to know if you received my previous email, and if you had all the information you need in order to get going!
She incorrectly assumes that after 9 emails, she has developed a relationship, participated in positive, constructive conversations with me, and that I have moved from cold prospect to closable prospect. All this despite hearing nothing but crickets from me. This is insane! Why are people wasting their time on these “please delete me” emails?
Back to the AI-generated emails. They are exponentially worse than what I just shared above!
My recommendation? Use this powerful game-changer instead or use video conferencing.
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