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Tag : email marketing

Scientists Hate AI Spam as Much as Old School Bulk Spam

I’ve been getting AI generated spam for well over a year. It was immediately clear to me when it started. My spam emails became slightly more personalized than regular spam. They were all short: usually 2-4 sentences. The topics seemed to come in waves, all vaguely relevant to the owner of a small business or someone in marketing: there was the virtual assistant spam, the “do you want to sell your business” spam, and – my favorite – the AI generated spam selling AI generated spam tools. Most importantly: they were no less annoying to me than regular spam; unwanted and unsolicited interruptions in my day requiring me to manually mark them all as such.

Then, last week, something new happened. I got a very poorly targeted email from a life science company:

The notion that someone in life science marketing would want to buy genomes and metabolic pathways is ridiculous, but the real revelation was that the AI generated spam has penetrated into the life science market! This made me wonder if it’s changed people’s opinions about spam: after all, the whole point of AI generated spam is to replicate the more effective elements of one-to-one cold emailing. Perhaps improved personalization and relevance actually do make people more receptive to it.

Survey time!

The only way to answer the question is to ask. We posted a simple poll to the LabRats subreddit asking if they get AI-generated spam from scientific suppliers. I don’t think the result should be considered surprising:

A little over half the respondents report getting AI generated spam from scientific suppliers, and of those people almost all of them dislike it as much as regular spam.

What should we learn from this?

AI isn’t a magic bullet. It just makes bulk unsolicited emails a lot easier. Rented lists and low-cost bulk email service providers did too, and a lot of companies used them until deliverability plummeted and marketers realized that the costs to their brand’s reputation weren’t worth it.

Cold emails can be highly effective when executed correctly, with genuine, meaningful personalization and hyper-targeted sales pitches. It’s probable that AI sales tools will get to the point where they can do that, but the current iterations of generic AI sales tools just aren’t there. Like the bulk spam before it, we expect that AI spam will be increasingly, and preemptively, relegated to spam folders as mail servers slowly but surely learn that no one wants it.

"More effective outreach to life scientists starts with BioBM. Our efficient and forward-looking demand generation strategies give life science companies the edge to get ahead and stay ahead. Whether you want productive outbound campaigns or efficient inbound funnels, BioBM can get you generating more leads and growing your revenues and profitability. Get started today."

Easily Improving Retention

Email is the easiest way to improve customer retention - if you do it correctly.Nothing is better for customer retention than great products. As marketers, however, the quality of the product is at least somewhat out of our control. The easiest tactic that the marketer has to improve retention is, ironically, one of the ones that can most easily turn customers off: email.

The occasional newsletter or promotional email will help so long as you don’t overuse it. Simply reminding customers of your brand will have a positive effect. Sending emails with great content will help even more, and is something that provides more value to customers and which fewer life science companies do. However, there is one thing that few companies do and large companies are often particularly bad at…

The surprise personal email. The surprise personal email should be from a person and be highly personalized. (Note that this does not mean it cannot be automated; using email automation for this is fine.) The more information you use about the customer the better; referencing their application is great, but at minimum you should refer to them by name and reference the product which they purchased. This email could be sent soon after a purchase where personal contact would not necessarily be expected (a low-cost consumable, for instance) or months after the purchase of something where follow-up would be expected. Generally, the surprise personal email should inquire about the customer and offer support. You want to show that you care and you’re accessible. Response rates will vary based on the nature of the product and the timing, but response rates as high as 20% are not uncommon so be sure you can take the time to tend to the responses which you may receive. It will be worthwhile; not only will you be helping your customer retention but you’ll also get a lot of useful feedback about your product or service.

Email is often overused in ways that underperform for the life science companies that leverage it. At the same time, it is the easiest way to improve customer retention. By seeking to provide value to the customer, email will better serve that purpose. Ensure that your emails provide value to the customers and demonstrate commitment to them and your scientist-customers will reward you for it.

"As email marketing is becoming less and less effective, it’s important that life science companies update their approach to email marketing in order to realize the greatest returns. Unfortunately, most companies have a difficult time breaking out of their traditional paradigms of email marketing. That’s where BioBM comes in. We can help you meld best practice tactics with world class content strategies to take email from a slowly failing relic to a powerful and effective cornerstone of your marketing. Contact us to learn more."