Best Practices to Get AI Cold Emails That People Open Religiously
Get tips and best practices for creating high-quality AI cold emails
Should you use AI to write your cold emails?
In 2024, that’s no longer the question.
Instead, it’s time to ask this question: How can you use AI cold email to get a response?
What are cold emails?
Here’s the challenge: With a cold email, you’re writing to someone who doesn’t know you yet and who’s probably never heard about your company or your product. And you have to do it hundreds of times.
Using generative AI makes sense here, for good reason:
- Efficiency – Not everyone is a natural-born writer. Your SDR might spend an hour trying to find the right words and still create something mediocre. With AI, you may not get a masterpiece (yet), but you’ll get a draft in seconds, and your SDR will be free to do something else.
- Personalization at scale – Having to manually insert personal details into hundreds of emails will drive any human crazy. For AI, it’s a piece of cake. Just give it access to your database of leads and watch the magic happen.
- A fresh approach – Even your best SDR will get tired after writing dozens of emails, but AI is immune to fatigue. It never comes down with writer’s block and it can produce endless fresh ideas from its knowledge base.
So is AI-generated email the way to go, period?
Not always.
Writing cold emails with AI is easy and convenient, which is why everyone is doing it… and which is why you need to be savvy about what you’re sending.
Signs an email was written by AI
A clearly AI-generated email suggests that you’re too lazy to go the extra mile to win your lead over or stand out from the crowd. It’s just as off-putting as any overused marketing tactic.
What gives an AI cold email away? Any of these common red flags.
Overused phrases and buzzwords
AI is known to overuse certain phrases and words.
Here are just a few:
| Delve | Boost | Leverage | Harness | Cutting-edge |
| Next-gen | Ever-evolving | Game-changing | Groundbreaking | Multifaceted |
| Scalable | Proactive | Revolutionary | Dynamic | Transformative |
| Seamless | Tapestry | Synergy | Landscape | Certainly |
People have quickly developed internal AI detectors, and when they encounter any of these words, they’re swift to pull the trigger and declare it’s the work of AI.
You should also keep in mind that certain words like “keen” are often flagged as AI even though it’s more likely a cultural difference.
Complex sentences and a formal style
AI tends to get overly formal when you don’t tell it how to write or use spintax to add structure and guardrails.
Give it a generic prompt such as “write a cold sales email” with some basic data, and it will crank out something like this:
Dear [contact name],
I’m reaching out to discuss a potential collaboration that could benefit both our organizations and further our shared goals of environmental sustainability.
Having followed the impressive advancements made by your team at FutureScape Technologies, I believe there is a significant opportunity for us to explore synergies, particularly in the realm of solar and wind energy projects.
I am excited about the prospect of working together and am eager to explore how our combined efforts can lead to groundbreaking innovations.
Do your SDRs talk like this in real life? Does anyone? (Hint: Your leads probably don’t.)
Weak personalization
To personalize cold email with AI, you need to give your AI access to lead data and specific instructions. Otherwise, it won’t even address the recipient by name, opting for the safe bet of “Dear Sir or Madam.”
Even if you’ve told AI to use lead details, some less advanced AI solutions will still deliver cookie-cutter personalization that misses the mark.
Repetition and flatness
AI’s overreliance on buzzwords and complex structures makes its writing repetitive. It won’t self-correct unless you prompt it to, so you can end up with sentences that all have the same tired structure.
How to train AI to write high-quality emails
Just like a new hire, an AI model has no idea what constitutes a “good” cold email for you and your leads. To fix this, you need to teach it with examples and prompts.
Explain how to use personalization and lead data
A good prompt will tell your AI cold email writer what to personalize and where to pull its data from. For example: “In the hook, use a specific example of the recipient’s recent work to explain the relevance of our offer. Pull examples from Column D in the Leads.xlsx file.”
Teach AI how to recognize responses
You can teach AI to classify email responses, separate positive and negative replies, and take appropriate action like pausing messages based on an OOO email or send the right follow-up.
Add examples of good emails to prompts
Add an example of what you believe to be a great sales email to your prompt and ask the AI model to follow suit.
Your example could be a complete email like this:
Hi Robert,
I’ve been really impressed by the 20% energy savings you achieved with smart grid technology at FutureScape. But there’s a way you can do even more — by integrating our new product, SolarWind.
When deployed at ABC Corp, SolarWind increased energy distribution efficiency by over 40%. I believe it can do the same for FutureScape.
Would you be open to a quick call next week to learn more? I’m free on Tuesday or Thursday between 10 am and 2 pm, but I’m flexible if another time works better for you: [Calendly link].
Or you can use an email template with placeholders like this:
Hi [First Name],
I’ve been really impressed by your [recent achievement] at [Company Name]. But there’s a way you can do even more — by integrating [Product Name].
When deployed at [Example Company Name], [Product Name] delivered [improvement]. I believe it can do the same for [Company Name].
Would you be open to a quick call next week to learn more? I’m free on [day] between [time], but I’m flexible if another time works better for you: [Calendly link].
Experiment with A/B versions of campaigns to refine AI outputs
Have AI prepare multiple drafts of the same cold email. Choose the two strongest ones and run A/B testing to see what works best. Use the best performer as input for your AI next time around.
Outline best practices for parts of emails
It might feel overwhelming to fit all the best email marketing practices into a single prompt. Instead, break a sales email up and give AI detailed prompts for each part.
Subject line
A good rule of thumb is that a subject line should be
- 3-4 words long
- Sentence case
- Personalized for recipient and value
Sample subject line: “Solar efficiency for FutureTech”
Prompt:
Come up with a subject line for a sales email that is 3-4 words long, sentence case, and personalized for recipient and value. For personalization, use either the recipient name (Column A in the Leads.xlsx file) or the company name (Column C in the Leads.xlsx file).
Hook
The first part of your email works the hardest after the subject line. It’s a good tactic to compliment your recipient on their recent work to show your awareness and pique their interest.
Prompt:
Cite an example of the recipient’s recent work and make a connection to our offer. Pull examples from Column D in the Leads.xlsx file.
Content
This is where the meat of your offer goes. It should be personalized, clearly state your value, and use relevant social proof.
Prompt:
Explain our offer in a personalized manner, clearly stating its value and using a relevant example of our existing client. Pull examples from Column E in the Leads.xlsx file.
Call-to-action
A good AI assistant will use a CTA crafted to get the reader to the next stage in your cycle. If you want them to book a call with you, make sure that it includes a link to your calendar.
Prompt:
Craft a CTA urging the reader to book a call. Include this calendar link: [link]
Granular prompting like this can take you a long way, but it will take a good AI SDR to get you over the line.
How AiSDR creates and sends cold emails
Not all AI assistants are created equal.
We trained AiSDR to be a great AI cold email writer because we believe it’s the toughest SDR job and the best way for AI to start improving your ROI.
Here’s why you can expect superior results with AiSDR compared to your next best option:
- Easy integration and personalization – AiSDR integrates with your HubSpot active and static lists, and pulls data from numerous sources like LinkedIn and Apollo. It then uses the data to enrich lead details and personalize emails.
- Built-in success scripts and sales frameworks – AiSDR comes with 50+ success scripts and sales frameworks in its knowledge base, so your messages are crisp and on point from the get-go.
- 24/7 customer support – If you’re new to AI training, you’ll need a human helping hand. Our team is available round the clock to help you integrate your data, customize your model, set up A/B tests, review performance, and do everything in between.
