The Beat: Computer Love

Here comes auto-dialling for email

Ian Truscott
May 22, 2023

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. Delighted you are here! I’m Ian Truscott, and I intend to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from th Rockstar CMO community, the latest discussions from the podcast and our street knowledge blog.

Happy Monday!

I just read a LinkedIn post by someone in a startup hustling for leads that had created a semi-automated process using a bunch of tools, including GPT-4 to send automated, somewhat personalised prospecting emails.

“Walkthrough - how I set up my cold email campaigns using GPT-4 in Google Sheets to book 3-5 demos per day on autopilot” - he says… and you can read the post here.

And the author was delighted by (OK, boasting about) how many demo requests he got following this process. There is even a YouTube video,

Of course, our email boxes have long been prey to the robots, and it would be especially naive of a CMO in marketing technology, such as myself, to think that every cold outreach email that clogs my inbox was carefully crafted, one to one, by a human.

But, this post feels like the opening of the floodgates of the equivalent of the autodialers for email, and however bad things are today, prepare for the tsunami of shite to fill our inboxes.

We have a low bar in digital marketing in terms of effectiveness, often delighted with fractions of percentages of click-throughs on our ads or emails, and there is no indication in the post about how many emails this chap sent to get his 3-5 demos. But you can imagine someone cranking the handle on this technique, sending thousands of emails as it becomes cheaper and easier.

My problem is I genuinely look at cold emails with the perspective that this is some hard-working SDR (sales development representative) doing a tough job and doing their best. After all, I am in B2B and have known many SDRs.

This is probably naive, although I rarely actually do anything but hit delete, but I do feel something and that empathy sometimes leads me to reply to explain why their product or service is not for me or what’s wrong with their email, to help them out.

And that’s why I picked the song title for this email, the classic Computer Love by Zapp (yes, I said classic!), as we lose something in the human connection between sales and their prospect.

We bang on about B2B being human to human, but if you want to start a connection with an email that is not only automated by robots but is written by one, why should I give a shit?

But…. this chap claims he is getting 3-5 demos. I presume the prospects responding to his outreach are not fools, so there is something in what he is doing, in how he prompts his robots to craft this campaign, that I presume genuinely offers help to potential buyers sufficiently that they engage.

So, does it matter whether a machine wrote it?

I find myself conflicted by computer love, a feeling I suspect we’ll all be feeling soon!

What do you think? Please check out the links below, if you have any thoughts or comments on this newsletter, our blog or the podcast, please get in touch.

Thanks for reading, have a great week!

Cheers,

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer | Rockstar CMO

Latest on the podcast

The Dip Into The Pool, State of the CMO and Brand Value in the Bar Episode

Great episode this week! Jeff Clark is by the Swimming Pool discussing five candidates for our portal to marketing hell, VP of Research at Simpler Media, Sara Kimmel shares their latest CMO report, and Robert Rose is in our virtual bar talking about the value of branding.

rockstarcmo.com/167-the-dip-into-the-pool-state-of-the-cmo-with-sara-kimmel-and-brand-value-in-the-bar-episode

Street Knowledge

Articles from around the community that have caught my eye this week.

The State of the CMO

You’ll need to give them your email address, but worth a download. I’ve been a CMSWire subscriber and contributor since 2009, so I think you can trust them with at least your gmail burner ;-). And, as you can see from the link above, I got to chat with the researcher behind it on the podcast.

www-cmswire.simplermedia.com/cw-cp-smg-cmo-report-cx.html

3 Ways To Know If Brand Awareness Gets Your Marketing on Base

If you listened to Robert on the podcast this week, here is more on the topic of the importance of your brand from his column on the Content Marketing Institute blog.

contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/measuring-brand-awareness

Uncensored CMO

I just discovered this podcast, and maybe I shouldn't promote so many podcasts, but this is just splendid and one of those podcasts that makes me feel like I should quit and leave it to these guys.

uncensoredcmo.com

What we learned from 12 billion emails

From my day job, and apologies for the photo of my untidy office, but I’m lucky to have access to some great data on email marketing that is published as an annual Email Benchmark Report that I shared for Business Age.

www.businessage.com/post/what-we-learned-from-12-billion-emails

Get your Monday Marketing Mojo Working

I called it a classic, yeah, baby - Zapp and Computer Love.

The promo image used on the web page was partially created using A.I. through NightCafe Creator