Most cold-outreach is too serious.
Sometimes a corny personalized joke + relevant offer is all you need to start a warm sales conversation.
That’s exactly what I did with these personalized mugs:
But hey — don’t just take my word for it…
Here’s the analytics from this personalized gifting campaign:
…and here’s an example of the final email output:
Not too shabby for a 100% automated email sequence, yea?
Ready to learn exactly how I did all of this? Let’s roll:
How to Run The Personalized Gifting Play
This assumes you have a list of contacts with their full name, email, company website, etc. If not — you can create one using Apollo.
1. Validate Email + Exclude CRM Contacts
Validate Their Email
Use NeverBounce to check their email and make sure it’s valid. You can extract the result of NeverBounce into a separate column — and use that to check whether or not you should continue personalizing that contact.
Exclude Certain CRM Contacts
Now you’ll want to create 3 columns that lookup records in your CRM:
- Lookup contacts (based on their email):
- Check if they’ve already been sequenced
- Check if they’re an active customer
- Lookup accounts (based on their company domain):
- Check for any open opportunities
- Check if the account is an active customer
- Check for meetings (based on their email):
- Check for any meetings with that person
Then, you want to combine the results of all those columns into a single column called “CRM Check”. If the person doesn’t pass all of those checks, don’t continue personalization.
2. Generate a Unique Observation From Their LinkedIn Profile
To create a personalized mug gift — you need to find something unique about the person (like their hobbies/interests, past volunteer work, etc).
Then, you can use that to create the email’s opening line, the mug text, etc.
Find Something Unique From Their LinkedIn
First, you’ll want to enrich the person’s LinkedIn profile. Then, you can use AI to analyze the person’s LinkedIn (about section, work experience, etc) to find a unique observation about them.
Create The Opening Line
After creating the unique observation summary — you’ll want to use AI (again) to create the opening email line based on the unique summary.
It should output something like: “Saw on LinkedIn … [UNIQUE OBSERVATION].”
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do this, you can find all of them at the bottom of this article.
3. Create The Personalized Mug Gift
Now, we’re going to kill 2 birds with one AI stone.
Create The Mug Text & Gift Intro Line
We’re going to use AI to analyze the unique observation opening line (created in the above step) — and from that create the mug text and gift intro line.
Just feed the “unique observation opening line” into AI and prompt it to create a funny/punny mug gift idea and have it output the mug gift text between “quotes” (so that we can pull out this exact text later on).
Create The Final Gift Mug Image
1. Use a formula to extract the mug text from the gift into line. Just create a formula column and use AI to generate code to extract the text in quotation marks:
2. Use AI to analyze the mug text and pick an emoji based on the “vibe” of the text. We’ll use this emoji for the mug image to give the mug some extra “spazazz”.
3. To create the custom mug image using DynaPictures — you’ll need to send the “Mug Text” and “Mug Emoji” to Zapier and catch it with a webhook.
4. Next, you can connect Zapier with DynaPictures. Before you do that, you’ll need to create a DynaPictures account and upload the image template. Then, you just pass DynaPictures the “Mug Text”, “Mug Emoji”, and specify the image template to use. Then send the newly created image URL back to Clay.
5. Finally, you can use AI to create a witty call-to-action line (that prospects can reply with if they’re interested).
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do all of this, you can find them at the bottom of this article.
4. Find a Local Popular Restaurant For Gift Card Offer
If the mug gift doesn’t work, we’ll offer them a gift card to a local popular restaurant in the follow-up emails. Here’s how:
Find Their Location From LinkedIn & Normalize It
You can extract their location from their enriched LinkedIn profile. Then, you’ll want to pass it through AI to normalize the location so it outputs something like: “the [BLANK] area”. Making it sound more natural and human-like.
Find a Popular Local Restaurant Using Yelp
You can use the Yelp enrichment along with their LinkedIn profile location to find popular restaurants near them. Just make sure to add “best restaurant” in the search query.
Create a Punny 1-Liner Based On Restaurant Type
Use Claygent to scrape the restaurant’s Yelp page and determine the type of restaurant it is. Then, pass the Claygent output to another AI column and prompt it to come up with a witty line based on the restaurant type.
We’ll use this line as a fun call to action that they can respond with if they’d like to receive the gift card.
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do all of this, you can find them at the bottom of this article.
4. Find “Other” Contact for Breakup Email
Lastly, we’ll want to find another marketing contact in their company to use in the last email (where we ask if that person would be a better person to reach out to). Here’s how:
Find Marketing Leaders in Their Company
Just create another LinkedIn enrichment column, add the companies LinkedIn url as the identifier, include marketing leadership roles, and make sure to EXCLUDE the job title of the main contact you’re reaching out to (so they don’t end up included).
5. Export Clay Table & Import Into Email Campaign
Finally, package up all of those personalization variables into an output view. Then, export the output view as a CSV and import it into whatever email sending tool you’re using (Instantly, Smartlead, etc).
It’s really that simple.
[Bonus] Email Template
In case you want to swipe the email framework for your own outbound campaigns, we've included the exact emails sequence template below, along with the GPT prompts weused!
EMAIL #1
SUBJECT: {{Witty Line Output}}
Hey {{First Name}},
{{Observation Line Output}}
{{Gift Intro Output}}
{{Gift Mug Image URL}}
Sendoso is the number one personalized gifting platform for revenue teams. Would love to set some time to chat and show you what’s new at Sendoso!
If open to learning more, reply with {{Witty Line Output}}, and the mug will arrive on your doorstep!
Best,
- [Your Name]
EMAIL #2
Looks like you're in the {{Normalize Location}}. I heard {{Restaurant Title}} is an awesome spot!
With Sendoso, you can send your prospects personalized gift cards (to their favorite restaurant, for example) to book more meetings.
If you're open to learning more, reply {{Witty Restaurant Reply Output}} for a $25 gift card to {{Restaurant Title}} on me!
PS Sendoso is the number one personalized gifting platform for revenue teams. Would love to set some time to chat and show you what’s new at Sendoso!
EMAIL #3
Tough choice between the mug and the restaurant gift card!
[Bonus] ChatGPT Prompts
Click here to explore some more ChatGPT prompts to help you with your prospecting!
Most cold-outreach is too serious.
Sometimes a corny personalized joke + relevant offer is all you need to start a warm sales conversation.
That’s exactly what I did with these personalized mugs:
But hey — don’t just take my word for it…
Here’s the analytics from this personalized gifting campaign:
…and here’s an example of the final email output:
Not too shabby for a 100% automated email sequence, yea?
Ready to learn exactly how I did all of this? Let’s roll:
How to Run The Personalized Gifting Play
This assumes you have a list of contacts with their full name, email, company website, etc. If not — you can create one using Apollo.
1. Validate Email + Exclude CRM Contacts
Validate Their Email
Use NeverBounce to check their email and make sure it’s valid. You can extract the result of NeverBounce into a separate column — and use that to check whether or not you should continue personalizing that contact.
Exclude Certain CRM Contacts
Now you’ll want to create 3 columns that lookup records in your CRM:
- Lookup contacts (based on their email):
- Check if they’ve already been sequenced
- Check if they’re an active customer
- Lookup accounts (based on their company domain):
- Check for any open opportunities
- Check if the account is an active customer
- Check for meetings (based on their email):
- Check for any meetings with that person
Then, you want to combine the results of all those columns into a single column called “CRM Check”. If the person doesn’t pass all of those checks, don’t continue personalization.
2. Generate a Unique Observation From Their LinkedIn Profile
To create a personalized mug gift — you need to find something unique about the person (like their hobbies/interests, past volunteer work, etc).
Then, you can use that to create the email’s opening line, the mug text, etc.
Find Something Unique From Their LinkedIn
First, you’ll want to enrich the person’s LinkedIn profile. Then, you can use AI to analyze the person’s LinkedIn (about section, work experience, etc) to find a unique observation about them.
Create The Opening Line
After creating the unique observation summary — you’ll want to use AI (again) to create the opening email line based on the unique summary.
It should output something like: “Saw on LinkedIn … [UNIQUE OBSERVATION].”
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do this, you can find all of them at the bottom of this article.
3. Create The Personalized Mug Gift
Now, we’re going to kill 2 birds with one AI stone.
Create The Mug Text & Gift Intro Line
We’re going to use AI to analyze the unique observation opening line (created in the above step) — and from that create the mug text and gift intro line.
Just feed the “unique observation opening line” into AI and prompt it to create a funny/punny mug gift idea and have it output the mug gift text between “quotes” (so that we can pull out this exact text later on).
Create The Final Gift Mug Image
1. Use a formula to extract the mug text from the gift into line. Just create a formula column and use AI to generate code to extract the text in quotation marks:
2. Use AI to analyze the mug text and pick an emoji based on the “vibe” of the text. We’ll use this emoji for the mug image to give the mug some extra “spazazz”.
3. To create the custom mug image using DynaPictures — you’ll need to send the “Mug Text” and “Mug Emoji” to Zapier and catch it with a webhook.
4. Next, you can connect Zapier with DynaPictures. Before you do that, you’ll need to create a DynaPictures account and upload the image template. Then, you just pass DynaPictures the “Mug Text”, “Mug Emoji”, and specify the image template to use. Then send the newly created image URL back to Clay.
5. Finally, you can use AI to create a witty call-to-action line (that prospects can reply with if they’re interested).
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do all of this, you can find them at the bottom of this article.
4. Find a Local Popular Restaurant For Gift Card Offer
If the mug gift doesn’t work, we’ll offer them a gift card to a local popular restaurant in the follow-up emails. Here’s how:
Find Their Location From LinkedIn & Normalize It
You can extract their location from their enriched LinkedIn profile. Then, you’ll want to pass it through AI to normalize the location so it outputs something like: “the [BLANK] area”. Making it sound more natural and human-like.
Find a Popular Local Restaurant Using Yelp
You can use the Yelp enrichment along with their LinkedIn profile location to find popular restaurants near them. Just make sure to add “best restaurant” in the search query.
Create a Punny 1-Liner Based On Restaurant Type
Use Claygent to scrape the restaurant’s Yelp page and determine the type of restaurant it is. Then, pass the Claygent output to another AI column and prompt it to come up with a witty line based on the restaurant type.
We’ll use this line as a fun call to action that they can respond with if they’d like to receive the gift card.
NOTE: If you want the specific prompts we used to do all of this, you can find them at the bottom of this article.
4. Find “Other” Contact for Breakup Email
Lastly, we’ll want to find another marketing contact in their company to use in the last email (where we ask if that person would be a better person to reach out to). Here’s how:
Find Marketing Leaders in Their Company
Just create another LinkedIn enrichment column, add the companies LinkedIn url as the identifier, include marketing leadership roles, and make sure to EXCLUDE the job title of the main contact you’re reaching out to (so they don’t end up included).
5. Export Clay Table & Import Into Email Campaign
Finally, package up all of those personalization variables into an output view. Then, export the output view as a CSV and import it into whatever email sending tool you’re using (Instantly, Smartlead, etc).
It’s really that simple.
[Bonus] Email Template
In case you want to swipe the email framework for your own outbound campaigns, we've included the exact emails sequence template below, along with the GPT prompts weused!
EMAIL #1
SUBJECT: {{Witty Line Output}}
Hey {{First Name}},
{{Observation Line Output}}
{{Gift Intro Output}}
{{Gift Mug Image URL}}
Sendoso is the number one personalized gifting platform for revenue teams. Would love to set some time to chat and show you what’s new at Sendoso!
If open to learning more, reply with {{Witty Line Output}}, and the mug will arrive on your doorstep!
Best,
- [Your Name]
EMAIL #2
Looks like you're in the {{Normalize Location}}. I heard {{Restaurant Title}} is an awesome spot!
With Sendoso, you can send your prospects personalized gift cards (to their favorite restaurant, for example) to book more meetings.
If you're open to learning more, reply {{Witty Restaurant Reply Output}} for a $25 gift card to {{Restaurant Title}} on me!
PS Sendoso is the number one personalized gifting platform for revenue teams. Would love to set some time to chat and show you what’s new at Sendoso!
EMAIL #3
Tough choice between the mug and the restaurant gift card!
[Bonus] ChatGPT Prompts
Click here to explore some more ChatGPT prompts to help you with your prospecting!
