6 Tips for Effectively Using AI for Email Marketing

For much of last year I looked at AI like I did those boxed all-in-one cheese fondue kits: it might be fine in a pinch, but it’s never going to taste as good as the cheese fondue I make from scratch.

I had seen articles on how you could create an entire email using AI, but while the examples shared were in fact email messages, they weren’t really great email messages.  I saw how AI could be valuable for people who did not have experience in email marketing, but not for those of us who had been doing it with some success for a while.

But then I began to dig in. And now I’m a believer. So here are 6 tips to help you join me, most taken from the webinar that Tamara Gielen and I presented last week (thanks to Email Innovations World and Only Influencers for hosting). If you enjoy these tips these additional resources may also be of interest (the first webinar, from last week, is available on-demand):

Without further ado, here are my 6 tips!

1. Be Patient

One of my shortcomings in my initial use of AI was a lack of patience. If I didn’t get helpful results after a prompt or two, I’d give up.

This was a mistake.

Using AI is like learning a useful new tool. Initially there’s a learning curve and things will take longer than doing them the old way. But eventually, once you’re through the learning curve, the tool will save you time, makes things easier, and/or produce better output.

It’s no different than the client I had years ago who insisted that we use the Google formats (Docs, Sheet, Slides) instead of Microsoft (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for all deliverables. There was a learning curve, and everything took longer. But it was worth it, as collaboration is so much easier.

So be patient. Set aside time on a daily or weekly basis to (a) learn how others are using AI effectively, and (b) practice, in a hands-on, fashion, what you learn. More on that here in tip #6.

2. Prompt Engineering is Critical – and Not That Difficult

Marketing is a communicators game – it’s difficult to be an effective marketer if you’re unable to communicate. But communicating with AI is a little different. You need to spell things out; you can’t assume.

Like when I asked ChatGPT to analyze a spreadsheet with the results of a performance test and determine a winner based on revenue-per-email (RPE). It gave me a long response on which version won and why.

But then I asked if the results were statistically significant – and it replied that they were not. In my mind, checking for statistical significance is part of determining a winner. But for ChatGPT, that wasn’t included. (BTW, this was for a webinar on using generative AI for data analysis and reporting).

Here’s an example, courtesy of Tamara Gielen, from our recent webinar on using generative AI for campaign development:

Note how the AI is assigned a role, how it’s told what to do and what not to do, and how the format for output is described. Details are critical to effective prompts.

3. AI is about Delegation and Time Savings

The best way to leverage AI is for time savings – think of tasks you could do that would be time consuming and then delegate them, with detailed instructions, to AI.

When I was first working with AI, I found research to be a sweet spot where I could use it. I could ask it for things like ‘the top benefits of continuing education for college and university professors’ and the list I would get back would be pretty good. Not that I couldn’t make this list on my own – I could. But AI did it faster, and then all I needed to do was edit it.

As I became more comfortable with AI, and my prompts improved, I was able to do more with AI. If you watch the webinar on using AI for campaign development, you’ll see that I’m now going further with AI. And each time I use AI, I go a bit further with it, I learn a little more, and I become more efficient at using it.

4. Invest — Spring for the Paid Version

Probably the most-asked question in our webinar last week was “can I do this with the free version?” And my answer was pretty much ‘I don’t know, because I’ve been using the paid version since the beginning.’

If you’re serious about using AI for email marketing, you must invest in the paid version of whatever AI platform you’re using. ChatGPT is just $20/month – with no annual commitment. As long as you commit to using it, it’s well worth the investment.

Getting up to speed on AI isn’t just to increase your productivity today – it’s to enhance your resume. I believe that in coming years AI skills will be required for a job in email marketing – just like you need to know how to use a word processor, like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. When you view it this way, the cost of the enhanced paid version of your AI platform is an investment in your career.

5. Think in terms of a team of GPTs

In the webinar on AI for campaign development we used a total of 5 GPTs; 3 were custom GPTs others had created which are publicly available the other two we configured ourselves:

Using the standard ChatGPT is great – but to really leverage the technology you need to leverage custom GPTs, GPTs others have created and GPTs you configure yourself.

6. Share and Collaborate

The excitement around and potential of using AI for marketing today reminds me a lot of the excitement and potential around email marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then email marketing pioneers were trying things and sharing what they learned. Then other pioneers would iterate on what had been done and publish their findings. As a group we created a knowledge base of how to do effective email marketing, and it remains the foundation of our industry.

So, whether you’re an AI enthusiast, AI curious, or still unsure, I invite you to begin playing with AI, sharing what you learn, and collaborating with others to help us all make the most of this exciting new technology.

Until next time,