Everyone has an email inbox and we receive messages day in and day out. We’ve all learned how to filter out automated and impersonal emails. That’s why personalization matters so much. According to Lavender, personalization increases response rates 10x compared to automated emails.
RevOps teams love automation and usually want to simplify the outbound process into a math equation: volume times conversion rate equals results. This is great for funnel metrics but mass email sequences and the spray-and-pray method don’t work for modern-day prospects. Taking the time to write a manual message can lead to dramatic improvements in your response rates.
"We've honed our mental spam filters to a degree that even AI can't keep up with." – Will Allred
Jump to the clip to hear how Victoria’s SDRs get creative with their outbound messages.
Personalization is no longer about simple template customization. In 2021, Salesloft recommended customizing 20% of your templates. Today, the recommendation is closer to 50%. Much of what you’re putting in front of sellers has to be adjusted.
But you can’t just make small changes, like mentioning that you went to the same college as the prospect, and expect them to care. This evolution shows how customers’ expectations have risen. Take time to research things like their LinkedIn activity, it will get you a lot further in your engagement.
“If I'm just sending something out that's based on someone's LinkedIn - 'Hey, you're the co-founder of Lavender and you went to XYZ school.' It’s trash, you would delete that, right?” - Victoria Loewenstern
Jump to the clip to join the conversation on what qualifies as personalization.
Will introduces three distinct levels of personalization—personal, company, and market. Personal-level involves knowing the recipient's hobbies, likes, and past experiences. Company-level focuses on the organization's key developments, like expansions or product launches, while market-level relates to broader industry trends. He shares how combining these elements results in higher engagement rates, offering RevOps professionals a structured way to approach messaging.
“You can actually pull a lot of relevance from some personal nuggets, things like past job experience. This shapes how the person approaches how their current job is done.” – Will Allred
Jump to the clip to find out why changes to Gmail’s open tracking will impact your personalization.
Victoria outlines the importance of a multi-channel approach, which includes email, LinkedIn messages, and phone calls. She highlights that LinkedIn has become an essential platform for booking meetings, while also suggesting the use of creative methods like video or voice notes to further engage prospects.
Victoria's team at LivePerson consistently sees success by diversifying their touch points and personalizing at each level of contact. Based on their data, LivePerson says that the average number of touches to get a response is between 12 to 15 touches per account or contact across all channels.
"LinkedIn is my SDR's best friend. They are constantly booking meetings through LinkedIn and I think it's just changing the game essentially." – Victoria Loewenstern
Jump to the clip to learn how to avoid being marked as email spam.
Will demonstrates how AI can enhance and scale personalization without compromising quality. He explains that AI tools like Lavender enable SDRs to perform background research, gathering vital context on the prospect and company.
By using AI to automate parts of the research process, teams can maintain relevance while improving efficiency. AI won’t replace SDRs but will replace those who aren’t leveraging AI effectively.
“People always talk about whether AI going to replace your SDRs or sellers. No, but it's going to replace the SDRs or sellers that aren't leveraging it to become more efficient. – Victoria Loewenstern
Jump to the clip to find out how Lavender can help you scale and automate, the right way.
Victoria and Will both agree that AI is here to streamline workflows, not eliminate jobs. Victoria underscores that AI assists sellers by handling administrative and research-heavy tasks, allowing them to focus on building relationships and closing deals. Will adds that AI’s success depends on how well it's integrated with existing workflows, cautioning against over-automation which could diminish personalization.
"You can't scale what you don't understand. You have to try to dig deeper into these data points in order to figure out like how you can crack the code to make things work better." – Will Allred
Jump to the clip to learn why cold calling will never die.
Will introduces two key follow-up strategies that leverage AI—bump emails and expansion emails. Bump emails reuse personalization from the initial contact but are short and to the point, keeping the interaction going. They are fairly easy to automate.
Expansion emails, on the other hand, build on the initial outreach by layering in new insights and personalization points. Both methods allow SDRs to keep the conversation relevant while automating the process to a degree.
"Expansions are where you're going to expand your thinking. One of my favorite frameworks for this is a clarification email where I'm clarifying some of the aspects of what we do." – Will Allred
Jump to the clip to hear why Victoria recommends using videos in your follow-up messages.
Companies need to give their sellers the AI tools they need to personalize at scale. The sales game is always changing. You need to continue to research, see what’s out there on LinkedIn, and learn from other people.
Don’t feel threatened by AI. The space is getting super noisy and there’s an inclination to dismiss the entire field carte blanche but AI personalization is nuanced. When you dive into the data, you’ll probably find that your personalization, as it stands today, is not deep enough.
“It's a little bit more nuanced than just saying that personalization is a good thing versus a bad thing.” - Will Allred
Jump to the clip for advice on how to embrace AI, not shun it.
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