In this episode, Jack and Jeremy dive into the emerging trend of AI-driven video personalization for sales outreach. They explore its potential benefits, practical applications, and ethical considerations, providing insights on how this innovative tactic can significantly boost reply rates.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Introduction to Video Personalization Using AI
- Comparison with Traditional Methods
- Effectiveness and Initial Success
- Ethical Considerations
- Practical Recommendations and Predictions
For more on perfecting cold email strategies, visit course.quickmail.io
Struggling with cold outreach? salesbread.com uses personalized messages to turn prospects into qualified leads, saving you time and effort.
About the hosts:
Jack Reamer founded SalesBread.com – the lead generation agency that brings B2B companies 1 lead per day by sending ultra-personalized LinkedIn messages and cold emails. Show listeners can book a free, 15-minute lead generation brainstorm session here: https://salesbread.com/contact/
Jeremy Chatelaine founded QuickMail.com – the most performant cold email platform to get replies, thanks to industry-leading features such as Deliverability AI and Advanced Stats. Start your trial today here: https://quickmail.com
Jeremy, everybody's doing video personalization using AI and we need to talk about it because it is a, let's say, by the time you're listening to it, it will not be an up and coming sales outreach tactic. It's just a thing. And is it good? Is it bad? Does it help? Does it work? Is it ethical? You'd be the guy to explore this with today. Okay. Cool. So, what does that mean exactly by the way? So just like with a cold email or a LinkedIn, you got placeholders where you can put dynamic content so that your template is not really a template, it morphs for each person. But now AI has matured to the point where it can speak for us. Let's go back a month or three. And you used to have to do loom videos to do outreach like, hey, Jeremy, I mean, I had a client that actually paid an actress from Hollywood. It was like semi out of work. And for eight hours a day, her job was to just record loom video after loom video after loom video and would send that to cold outreach to prospective clients and it worked. Okay. But now you're doing a thousand today or whatever. The math worked. Oh, you're saying like you'd perfect it. Yeah. You do perfect it in your sleep. But are you saying? Exactly. Are you saying basically the AI would actually just grab a random intro line or icebreaker line? Whatever you want. I'm saying it's like loom. It can. It can imagine it'll take text and modify your video for you without having to record it multiple times. It's pretty cool. So I could send you and 10,000 others. Hey, Jeremy, checked out quick mail and in the background, meanwhile, your website is scrolling down as if I'm doing a screen share on quick mail's website. Right. So it's like hands. Yeah. It's like fake automation of basically loom videos. Yeah. Okay. Cool. And guess what? Right out of the gates, it does work. I haven't tested it, but I have seen a credible case study that it doubled response rate. So two X and that's cool. That's interesting. So let's unpack this, Jeremy. But just before we do really quick from our sponsors, because we make the show possible. If you want the world's best cold email automation platform for agencies that do it right, go to quickmail.com and check out the analytics and the deliverability AI. It's important. Now they have a free trial. Check it out. And if you want to not do it yourself and just want an agency to bring you one lead per day, head over to salesbread.com and find out how we can help you get your leads by sending ultra personalized cold emails and LinkedIn messages on your behalf. So you don't have to worry about being a list building expert, a copywriting savant or a all around sales assistant who can just help you grow pipelines that salesbread.com. How to do good adequate. Let's move on. Very good. All right. So we've been I think 10 years in industry, right? And so we've been you've seen a lot of tactics. Every time I hear something that is like double the reply rate is like, sure, but you know, how many replies you get like, you know, maybe from two to three or to share. So yeah, I have that 20% to 20 to 40. You know what I mean, right? Okay. So consider like, basically getting, yeah, the numbers are pretty small. So 18 replies out of 58 compared to 18 out of 27. So pretty small sample size. Okay. But significant numbers. Okay. But good question. You're right. Great assault to be, well, but to be honest, I have no doubt it's working. Zero dots. Why? Because it's a new thing. You think coming up, you know, people are just eating it. And I guess it's like, oh, it's a new thing. Let me check it out. Right. Oh my God. We didn't put a time in a timer. Oh, shit. Let's do it. We will just ramble. We've seen that with Lamy's, for example, like I think he was like five years ago or something like that. They came up with the image personalization and we could actually change change the name. Now we are seeing that with the video. We've seen a lot of things with, I think there was like boom or whatever, like boom, something where you could effectively just record a video and add it to your shaka laka. Oh, I don't know what it was. Probably not this one, but it was like something like that where you could effectively just like it was like loom, but automatically adding it to the videos, you know, other long lists of things. We've seen a lot of tool like that. Is this one working? I guess. Yes. The real question I have is for how long? I personally fucked up because I thought the image personalization, which is either a tactic that won't last long. It turns out it lasted like three years or something like that. So totally on me, I should have done it in QuickMed. We had the technology. We just like didn't think it would be lasting that long. So let's speculate having seen a lot of trends come and go. I feel like right now there's a percentage of the market that's seeing these kinds of AI personalized videos like crazy. I'm looking at you, startup founders who just raised money. This is what you're seeing now money through Friday in your inbox in your LinkedIn messages. It's there and you're going to burn out on that real quick. Okay. Now, transition to other verticals that may not be so heavily sought after from tech first sales teams. They may not get wind of it or get tired of it for six to 18 months from now. And then it will probably still be a thing in 10 years, but it's effectiveness will have dropped across the board. That's what I'm calling now. Now what would be interesting, Jeremy, is a quick thought on the ethics where is this is this any different than personalizing your cold email as if you looked up every single prospect, but really it was a team member that helped you and yet you were still signing off on it. I got some thoughts. I'm curious to hear yours. Yeah, me too, which is that's, you know, impersonation is not something really not novel or like, you know, like how many people created fake avatars to actually do the outreach. Even for in theory, according to the CanSpan law, you can't do it because it's got to impersonate someone that doesn't exist or whatever, like in reality, a lot of people are just creating like fake profile. So first thing saying things like a lot of people are just like AI generating the intro line anyway, like, Hey, big fan of your stuff. Are you really a big fan of your stuff? Right. So the question there is like. Where's the line? Yeah, exactly. What do you think, Jack? So at first, I was a bit appalled at faking high Jeremy, high Samantha, like, I'm actually not saying hi to these people. So why should my video? And yet the more thought about it, Jeremy, the more parallels I saw with what we do all day long with sales outreach in the written format, it's the same thing. And because of that, I'm tempted to say it depends how you use it. So for example, if I say, Hey, Jeremy, I was just on quickmail.com. And I saw this, you know, marketing flaw on there that you may want to find out. Can I tell you more? Just reply. Yes. I don't. That is a boldface lot. That is absolutely not reality, right? But it's different. Compare that. The I was on it. I don't know what. But compare that to Hey, Jeremy, I'm sending a quick little video here just to say hi from Miami. Hope all's well over in Switzerland today. And I look forward to, you know, being connected like there is no that's still a straight lie. You don't even fucking know me if you're doing the, you know, the outreach. Oh, I disagree hardcore. Imagine this is a manual. Good. That's good. That's what we're talking about. Imagine it's a manual loom video and I said the same exact thing. Is that good or not good? Well, like I say, if you don't really know me, we all know it's a fake, right? It's a lie. And that's why they're short leave those, uh, when you say it was a video, it's, I don't know. I'm not following. If I actually manual record you a 30 second clip saying, hope you're having a great day in Switzerland. Oh, you do it. It's like we're not talking about the, okay, yeah, of course, that makes sense. Okay. So let's just agree that there's a spectrum from, yeah, this is, this is kind of what we've been doing with, with cold outreach in the written form to, all right, that's blatantly bad. You should not be doing this kind of thing with video AI, right, right. And so I think what you put in that video matters. You agree? Yeah, to some extent, but I really don't see what the difference is not because it's because you know that by writing it, you shouldn't actually fake it. It's the same thing. So I don't really, I don't really see the line here. I think it's like more like we're used to see that from written content or written form. We're just not used to see it with our eyes because we used to actually, we tend to believe what we're seeing. And so that's a bit more tricky, right? But at the end of the day, it's like, hi prospect.firstname, it's the same thing. I'll be clear on something because maybe you, you're not coming from this point of view. I would not put in a bulk campaign. I was just on your website and noticed that's lie. And I, I, I don't think we have to stoop to that level in order to get replies, right? So I actually would not even say that in a written format. So does that change what I first said about the context of the video matters? I think you're just consistent with your morals. And that's fine. I don't think everyone shares your morals. Just see what I mean. It'd be great if I did, but that's probably the point. Well, the point is like, I believe that if agency gets, you know, more replies by saying I was on your website and did, and then find out like X, Y, Z, even for it's a straight lie. People will not hesitate to do it. Let me slow down. Hold on. If I said like two months from now, hey, Jeremy, hope your day in Switzerland's great. I was just on your website with a background in there, you're going to smell bullshit. And it will not work. This is the thing. I think this is why it's short-lived. Because once people know that it is fake, then they are gone. It's like, initially you remember, you do remember, like, you know, 2017, you send a follower, a female, a bump message saying like, hey, you know, just bumping this at the top of your inbox, people reply with apologies. Oh, I'm sorry, whatever. How many apologies do you have vaccines? None whatsoever. Why? Because people know it's automated. It's going to be the same with AI. The question is like, how long would that actually last? I personally believe that with all of those tactics, they leave less and less longer. It's more and more shortly because more people get used to it, more people understand it. Faster. It's faster. Yeah. And so the question is really, is that do you want to do it morally or not? How would you actually want to profit the max from this, to what extent? And for how long is that going to work? Yeah. So I kind of see a couple of things. Let's real quick, make a recommendation to you listener. I would test it, but just don't link people, you know, in a way that is dishonest. Stick to your code that you use to send cold emails and cold message on LinkedIn, cold calling as well. You wouldn't say, hey, I just got, you know, a bank letter from you. It's like, it matters what you say. But yes, use it right now because you're going to get the highest returns today. True. I agree. Like, there is a time to this. You know, it's the same thing with the follow-up. You know, we're doing an email. You know, some people will do like, oh, I forgot to send. You know, we have like a 15 minutes delay between the next email. So you send the first email and then you wait 15 minutes and then you send another email, like if you like forgot something. And then in the email, you can mention, like, hey, I forgot to say from iPhone. Yeah. Well, that's another one. Another big one. Yeah. But you could always like find ways to sort of like massage things. So it's not as bad as that. So it could be like, you know, just an extra point I wanted to make and write the same as like and how qualified included this. Exactly. There you go. So there's ways to message it, but let's not lie to ourselves. It's still automation. It's still that gray zone in which we are. So watch this, Jeremy, I think this is actually here to stay. And what's going to change is the deception area of like, we're no longer going to say, hi, Jeremy. That's cool. You're like, people will know that it's AI. And so the value that AI is going to bring moving forward is like, look, Jeremy, I'm using AI to help make this video. I'm sending out to actually a few people in this space like yourself, but I've personalized this video just for a quick mail because I've been focusing on this element and this element in the next 30 seconds. And so I think the flow of the video will get smarter by the prospect, not the cute personalization. I agree. And at the end of the day, if you know how to write a good, you know, good hook, good email, good copywriting, good messaging, and you're targeting the right people, it's going to work. Right. So even if the video tactic doesn't work as much, you're still going to go back to this level. And if your level is very low, then it's going to go back very low. So you still need to raise the, you need to raise the floor. This video is actually helping you with a ceiling, but you still need to raise the floor. And I think that's just what I mean. You're right. And in the short term, take advantage of the boosted reply rates, even for those that don't have those elements in place. So strike while the iron's hot. Thanks, Jeremy. Check out course.quickmail.io if you like this and want more. Good stuff. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Cool. Thanks, Jack.
