Authentic and genuine sales emails resonate most with prospects. But when people get noticeably AI-written emails, trust is the furthest thing from their minds.
Prospects can easily spot generic, dull, and irrelevant emails. However, email marketing is still a potent growth vehicle for B2B SaaS, and AI is one of the main reasons for this.
So, how can you leverage AI for email writing that sounds personalized, genuine, and authentic? Can you do it for free? And can it be done at scale? Let’s get right into it!
Why Do AI Written Emails (typically) Suck?
When we think AI, ChatGPT comes to mind. But, plugging prompts like “write a sales email for XYZ" isn't exactly the strongest input. Here's why:
- ChatGPT hallucinates information
- Emails end up generic and robotic
- ChatGPT is an LLM, not a knowledge base (we’ll get to this later)
Here’s me asking ChatGPT to “write a sales email” for Instantly.ai
ChatGPT generates emails that sound generic because it’s a large language model (LLM) that has been “pre-trained” on vast amounts of data. Nothing’s specific. The output is generalized.
It also hallucinates information and outputs what it thinks the company is about. If you enter a company like “emaily.ai,” it’ll output general info about email automation software.
But, LLMs like ChatGPT can be “trained” to write good sales emails. It’s not as simple as feeding it a couple of emails and asking it to “learn” from them.
To get fruitful results, you need to understand the underlying logic of your actions. Give it millions of examples. Then, do it all over again each time you open ChatGPT.
That’s because LLMs are bad at following your conditions or rules. They don’t “understand” rules. Instead, they learn from patterns and the data you input.
If we want to use AI for email writing, we need a knowledge base instead of an LLM. Working with a knowledge base ensures that each email is personalized, relevant, and timely.
Why is an AI Knowledge Base Best for Email Writing?
A knowledge base is a comprehensive database. You can train AI with a knowledge base to understand user intent, allowing it to write personalized emails at scale.
One-shot learning, which lets the AI train from a single example email. Few-shot learning takes multiple examples. Fine-tuning lets the AI learn from thousands upon thousands of emails.
As you know, you can’t convert prospects after one email. With an AI trained explicitly on a knowledge base for email marketing and the right tools, you can generate entire sequences.
That’s where Instantly’s new AI Sequence Generator comes into play. It’s trained on hundreds of millions of the best-performing cold emails from multiple industries.
With Instantly, you can generate not just one good email but a multi-step outbound sequence. All that’s left for you to do is fill in the information and custom variables for personalization.
Leveraging Instantly AI Sequence Generator for Email Writing
Instantly’s AI Sequence Generator can create personalized email sequences in seconds. That includes the first cold email, follow-ups, and even opt-out emails. Here’s how it works:
- Add a new campaign with Instantly
- Add leads to the new campaign
- Go to the Sequences tab and click on “AI Generator.
After clicking on AI Generator, it will ask a few prompts to help Instantly write email copy that resonates with your core audience. The prompts include the following:
- What is the name of your company?
- What are the details of your offer?
- What is your target audience?
- What are the case studies you have?
- How many steps do you want to include in the sequence?
After answering all the questions, click on “Generate.” Within seconds, an email sequence will be created, complete with Spintax, custom variables, and the relevant information provided.
Using Custom Variables to Personalize AI Email Writing
A knowledge base helps with the fundamental structure of your emails. But the true power of AI emails is in how you personalize using {{custom variables}}.
Variables like {{first name}}, {{last name}}, {{company}} are common. Unfortunately, these aren’t enough for personalization. You need to enrich your email list with lead data.
Prospecting tools like Instantly B2B Lead Finder can help you find validated leads enriched with relevant lead data you can leverage in your custom variables.
Let’s say you’re selling an automation tool. You can filter out leads that use a competitor’s software. Then, use that data to make an apples-to-apples comparison in your email.
“If I were to make a guess, you’re using {{competitor product}} to do {{task}}. We've used it but found it doesn’t have {{feature 1}}, {{feature 2}}, and {{feature 3}}. That’s why we developed {{your product}} to fill the gaps!”
The best part is you can create templates with these custom variables on Instantly and gain access to templates and AI prompts from our community.
How to Use Instantly For Personalized AI Email Writing at Scale
Integrating OpenAI with Instantly is the fastest, most efficient, and streamlined way to leverage AI for email writing, especially if you want to hyper-personalize with custom variables.
Instantly and data from Lead Finder can act as your knowledge base, and OpenAI serves as your LLM to output text—no need to switch back and forth between apps.
You can create your own AI prompt templates, use community-submitted prompts, and insert custom variables within the prompts. Here’s a look at how it’s done:
Upload Lead List
After creating a campaign, upload your lead list to Instantly. You can import leads directly from Lead Finder or upload your lead list via a CSV. Ensure they have all relevant lead data.
Navigate to the Leads Section and Click the AI Icon
When leads are uploaded, go to the campaign dashboard and find the “Leads” tab to see your lead lists. Then, go to lead filters and look for the AI icon. This will open the AI prompts tool.
Choose or Create a Prompt with Custom Variables
AI prompts streamline email copywriting, helping fine-tune your copy for specific lead segments. These prompts and custom variables can also be used with the AI Sequence Generator.
Use the prompts for simple tasks like cleaning lied lists or advanced tasks like generating new variables based on lead intelligence data.
For advanced personalization, you can generate your prompts and custom variables. Let’s say your value proposition is anchored on solving a lead’s pain point.
You can create a prompt for identifying lead pain points based on their company description, company news, or any data you got from enrichment tools like B2B Lead Finder.
Generate and Review Output
After creating or selecting a prompt, click “Generate Test Output.” Ensure the data and the output are correct, relevant, and aligned with your prospects.
If everything’s good, click “Generate for All Leads.” This will populate your lead list based on your data and add a new variable you can use in all your emails.
Populating your entire lead list can take a few minutes or hours, depending on the prompt length, the number of leads on your list, and the number of inputs and outputs.
Additional Tools That Use AI For Email Writing
There are free ways to use AI for email writing, albeit not as streamlined and efficient as tools like Instantly. Some manual work is needed, but it gets the job done.
This section discusses the AI workflow, free tools you can use, and how to leverage them to create personalized emails, spintax, and custom variables.
ChatGPT Email (No Integrations)
The free version of ChatGPT can output decent enough sales emails. But you can’t do it at scale without integrating it with an email marketing tool.
The first thing you need to do is give it a couple of good sales emails. You can look at sales email templates or examples from your inbox.
Use simple prompts like " Learn from this email; identify the tone, voice, and email format.” You can also try to give ChatGPT a Persona.
Tell it to be Dan from marketing, Philip from Tech support, or Kayleigh from customer service. This helps ChatGPT use data from more specific types of emails.
Let’s try it out! I told ChatGPT to learn this email example's voice, style, and tone.
Here’s the output:
Bing Co-Pilot
Bing is an LLM that uses GPT4, which should produce better output than OpenAI’s free version of GPT3.5. What’s impressive about Bing is that their AI can scrape website information.
That means you can write emails for prospects based on the description on their website. But remember to check if the information is correct, current, and not hallucinated.
Bing even shows you the other platforms where it found your prospect. Here’s an example:
You can then tell it to write a cold email, including your value proposition and case studies. Then, edit the email copy to ensure everything is correct and aligned with your goals.
In this example, we used the prompt: Write a cold email for Citrus Roofing that includes our value proposition: "We can get you more clients with our holistic digital marketing approach that aligns Local SEO, Social Media, and PPC." Also include our case study: "We helped Company A get 17 new clients after one month."
I’d remove the emojis, use a better format for the value proposition and case studies, find the CEO on LinkedIn, and personalize the email further.
Grammarly AI Email Writer
Grammarly has its own “Professional Email Writer” that takes similar input from the user as Instantly’s AI Sequence Generator. It’ll ask you to add your target audience and a short description of your email.
I entered “Roofing Contractors” as my target audience and a quick description of how we can drive traffic using Local SEO, PPC, and social media. Here’s the result:
At a glance, you can see that Grammarly’s AI uses a GPT similar to GPT-3.5. It used the same subject line, “Let’s Skyrocket. . .” Avoid this subject line altogether, as it sounds generic and robotic. Instead, use email subject lines that are engaging, personalized, and relevant to your prospects.
ChatGPT Writer (Gmail Integration)
ChatGPT Writer is a Chrome extension that integrates with your email, helping you streamline email writing with AI. It can also auto-generate replies based on an email's content.
It also has features that allow it to learn from your emails. It can understand the context of your tone and writing. Plus, it utilizes the new GPT-4o model. Here’s the tool in action.
Here’s the email output:
Subject: Boost Your Client Base with Company A's Marketing Expertise!
Hey there,
Hope you're doing well! I wanted to reach out and introduce {{Company}}, a powerhouse in the world of digital marketing, especially when it comes to TikTok.
At {{Company}}, we understand the unique challenges and opportunities facing TikTok marketing agencies. That's why we've curated an extensive network and established partnerships that can help you attract new clients and grow your business exponentially.
With our proven track record and deep understanding of the TikTok landscape, we're confident we can take your agency to new heights. Let's work together to bring in more clients and achieve remarkable results!
Interested in exploring how {{Company }} can supercharge your agency's growth? Just hit reply, and let's chat further.
Looking forward to potentially collaborating with you!
Best,
{{your name}}
The email output can then be automatically added to Gmail’s editor for you to personalize further. Since they both use GPT -4, it’s about the same output quality as Bing’s Co-Pilot.
Google Sheets With GPT Integration (GPT For Sheets)
Uploading lead data to Google Sheets with GPT integrations lets you automatically write personalized emails for each lead. To integrate GPT with Google Sheets, you need to:
- Create an OpenAI API Key
- Install GPT For Sheets
- Set your API Key for the tool
Next, find prospect emails and upload a lead list with the proper formats. Ensure it includes the essentials like first names, company names, and company descriptions. Then add prompts like:
Use the function “=GPT” and the prompts as input in the email output column. Here’s what it should look like:
The email copy using this strategy works surprisingly well. It emphasizes your prospect, includes personalization, and directly targets potential pain points.
But as always, look through the email output, make necessary edits, and ensure that all the information is relevant and correct.
Key Takeaways
Leveraging AI for email writing is an excellent way to streamline prospect outreach. With the proper tools and strategies, you can create email copy that’s personalized, relevant, and aligned with your prospects' needs. To recap, here are our recommended AI tools for email writing:
- Instantly.ai is the most streamlined tool for AI email writing and can generate entire email sequences.
- ChatGPT is good for trying AI email writing, especially using one-shot learning.
- Bing Co-Pilot leverages GPT-4 and can scrape info from prospect websites. But you’re limited to 5 prompts.
- ChatGPT Writer integrates with your Gmail account to streamline replies and email copywriting.
- GPT for Sheets can write personalized emails at scale using the proper prompts and fine-tuning.
If you want the fastest, streamlined, most plug-and-play tool for AI email writing, Instantly is the only option. Trained with hundreds of millions of emails; all you need to do is upload your lead list. Try it out today!
