The development of artificial intelligence (AI) is unstoppable. More and more businesses, including sales teams, are adopting AI into their daily operations. That said, when asking AI to help write an engaging email, they still show some major flaws.
In fact, AI email assistants aren’t ready for prime time. Anytime I try to use AI to write sales emails, I end up with the same kind of unusable results, such as this (source).
Hey @kalendarai, you should reconsider spamming people with AI generated marketing emails that contain embarrassing errors…besides the obvious hallucination, I don’t work for @MACcosmetics and never have.
Certainly doesn’t instill confidence that your “AI” actually works. Oh… pic.twitter.com/ZH5UeSkyP8
— Jimmy Grewal (@jimmyg) March 24, 2024
Have you experienced something similar?
Someone creates a sales email (in this case, the AI company itself) and uses its AI to sell its company, and it backfires publicly, creating a really embarrassing misstep for their company.
Does that mean AI sucks? Not at all. AI is an amazing tool, but it requires clear direction from you to be great. It’s not the set-and-forget resource we want it to be.
Sure, if we write sales emails like these, we’ll be left unread. With that in mind, Here’s how you can create amazing sales emails using AI.
The Pros and Cons of Using AI for Email Marketing
There are so many situations where email marketing can help. For example, when sales reps know they’re supposed to follow up but are out of ideas or unsure about what to say.
With Generative AI, sales reps get an idea-generation machine. With the right model, sales reps can use AI to create sales messages that resonate with prospects in a fraction of the time.
Related: learn how to get the most out of generative AI to support your sales operations.
While AI is a helpful resource, there are important upsides and downsides you’ll want to be aware of. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Advantages of Using AI Email Assistants
- Content generation: no more wondering what you should say. Your assistant will give you a never-ending supply of ideas you can use for introductions, follow-up, and nurturing. You’ll be better prepared and dialed into each customer as if they’re the only one you have.
- 24/7 availability: AI email assistants can craft responses to customers whenever you need them.
- Huge time savings: writing an email may take time, but that’s nothing compared to the time you lose in aggregate.
- Tone matching: you can automatically match the tone on a case-by-case basis. For instance, formal tones are used for new clients who are sticklers for professionalism, semi-casual for well-known clients, and casual for long-term clients and friends.
- Automated error correction: with AI email assistant, you will catch and correct errors automatically. Poor grammar will be a thing of the past; the AI email tool catches all the major errors, leaving you free to clean things up with a once-over.
- Better email administration: forgotten emails will be a thing of the past. Your assistant will flag all messages that need your attention and encourage you to reply within the predetermined time constraints you’ve set.
Disadvantages of Using AI Email Assistants
- An over-reliance on AI: as you depend on your AI email assistant, you’ll become increasingly dependent on it for all things administrative. However, this outcome could be a bad thing if it means your skills begin to atrophy.
- Can lead to impersonal communication: an overreliance on AI email tools means your messages are much more likely to become impersonal. That’s bad if your email messages begin to lose your personal touch or a general sense of warmth.
- Requires regular adjustments: the data your AI assistant is trained on is constantly evolving. As a result, regular updates, adjustments, and improvements are needed to maintain effectiveness. Without this constant maintenance, model drift will become a problem, and AI performance will begin to decline.
- Heavily dependent on infrastructure: your AI assistant is pretty limited without internet access. It may not perform as expected if there are technical issues, downtime, or outages.
Now, is having an AI assistant useful or worthwhile? If you’re looking for a set-and-forget option that doesn’t require effort, it’s not worth it. The outcome will be a disaster.
On the other hand, AI works beautifully if you want to use the thoughtful AI-generated email strategies I’m about to share. This could be a fit if you want to use AI to help you manage a growing sales outreach workload.
Let’s look at some examples of AI email prompts you can use to write sales emails.
The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Sales Emails With AI Prompts and AI Email Generator
We’ve always had issues with generic, impersonal, and spammy sales messages. Yet, we often ask AI that’s not as smart as humans to do the impossible and read our intent.
Bad AI prompts do that. In contrast, great AI prompts tell our AI email assistant exactly what it needs to know, ensuring that we get what we need.
- Bad AI prompts are generic. They fail to provide the AI with meaningful data that can be used to create a compelling message. Of course, the results are bad!
- The best AI prompts follow a formula. These prompts are specific, offer context, set constraints, and outline requirements. They are guardrails that keep the AI email assistant on track and help you refine your requests. These requests produce fantastic results you can work with!
Let’s look at several example prompts you can reference to get great sales email templates from your AI email assistant.
Examples of Optimized AI Sales Email Templates
AI Sales Email Template 1: Cold Outreach
Most sales reps are using AI email assistants for cold outreach in some form. That’s not a bad idea—what is a bad idea is approaching this with a volume mindset. Cold outreach isn’t a numbers game. It seems like it is, but sending the same generic message to thousands of prospects isn’t as effective as crafting a personalized, highly relevant message for 150 people.
| Bad AI Email Prompt | Better AI Email Prompt | Best AI Email Prompt |
| Write a cold outreach email for retail and ecommerce companies. | Write an 80-word cold outreach sales email pitching our shipping services to retain storefronts. | Write an 80-word cold outreach sales email pitching our shipping services to email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company]. Start the email referencing the FedEx and UPS rate increase of 2025. Also reference their commitment to keeping prices low.
Share the biggest negative impact on their retail business. |
Here are the results from our bad example.
Source: ChatGPT
See how wordy this email is? It’s heavy on content but light on value. Most people spam their prospects’ inboxes with this, and it’s no good.
Here are the results from our best AI email example.
Source: ChatGPT
We can make some improvements here, but there’s a lot of good happening. (a.) we’re showing prospects that we understand their business, (b.) we’re aware of some costly changes on the horizon, and (c.) we have a solution to address the problems they’re currently facing.
We could further adapt this email to match our customers’ tone and voice. We can also focus on more personal details, such as referencing company posts on X, mining their reviews for customer complaints, etc. There’s always a way to add value.
Related: cold calling isn’t easy. If you’ve been struggling to achieve positive results, our guide to cold calling may help.
AI Sales Email Template 2: Welcome Messages
In this particular generative AI email example, we’re selling financial services. We want to address our client’s concerns but do it in a way that addresses the nuance of their situation.
| Bad AI Email Prompt | Better AI Email Prompt | Best AI Email Prompt |
| Write a short welcome email for new clients. | Write a concise welcome email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company], and I want to pitch our [Service] services to him. | Write a two-paragraph (less than 80 words) welcome email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company], and I want to pitch our [Financial Product]. He’s expressed interest, but he mentioned that he has the following concerns:
[short list of concerns] |
Our first prompt was generic; the second was specific. What about the best option? It was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Most of the time, you’ll want to customize the ai-generated email to strike the right tone.
Here are the results from our bad AI email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Now, let’s take a look at our best AI email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Suppose you know specifics about your client’s situation. For example, in our last call, you mentioned that you had a limited timetable and wanted to set this up in the next six weeks.
I mentioned that you should always be prepared to do a little house cleaning. Although this is a welcome email, there’s no welcome present. We’re missing some of the words, phrases, and figures of speech that convey warmth. It’s not completely cold, but it is very machine-like.
As always, make the necessary changes and customizations before sending your message.
AI Sales Email Template 3: Follow-up Emails
We’re trying to follow up with prospects because we know it leads to more sales. However, sales follow-up is sometimes challenging. We need to follow up with them, but we don’t always know what to say or how to start the conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to say nothing.
Let’s take a look at our options.
| Bad AI Email Prompt | Better AI Email Prompt | Best AI Email Prompt |
| Give me a quick four-sentence follow-up message I can send to prospects. | Write a follow-up email message to [Name]. He said he would get back in touch in two weeks. | Write a two-paragraph (less than 80 words) follow-up sales email to [Name] at [Company]. His company is struggling with [Problem].
Reference the recent [Event] and reference the impact it will have on [Metric]. Gently reference his limited timeframe to make a decision. |
First, the bad AI email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Now, let’s look at our best AI sales email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Can you feel the sense of urgency?
John, our prospect, is going to feel the pressure. He needs to do something. This problem isn’t imaginary. We’re not pushing him to do this so we can make a quick buck (include a link in your message for third-party validation). It’s a problem that he has to face and fast.
What if I can’t find these problems? No problem! Let Google tell you.
- Head over to Google News and enter a topic or keyword (i.e., oil prices).
- Make a list of all of the relevant keywords that apply.
- Copy and paste the relevant keywords into your document or text file.
- Head over to Google Alerts and enter the keywords from your list.
Set your Google Alert notification to the amount you can handle (I’d recommend once a day). I’d also recommend creating a Gmail account specifically for this purpose. Check your inbox daily, then use the formula I mentioned above to create an AI prompt that is ultra-relevant, personalized, and specific to your client’s circumstances.
Want to make it better? Use the data from your CRM. If you’re using a CRM with AI features, like Pipeline CRM,, you can use their in-app sales automation tools to create your prompts.
AI Sales Email Template 4: Re-engage Cold Prospects
You’ve sent your prospect several messages, but they haven’t responded consistently. Some have decided to ghost you, ignoring your messages completely. What do you do?
You put them into a re-engagement sequence! A re-engagement sequence is the final step for prospects.
- If you send them a series of messages and they ignore them all, you can mark them as inactive.
- If they respond sporadically, you can assign them to a sales rep for re-activation.
- If they regain interest, you move towards closing the sale.
Let’s take a look at a few AI sales email prompts you can use to speed up the process.
| Bad AI Email Prompt | Better AI Email Prompt | Best AI Email Prompt |
| Write a message for prospects who haven’t responded to my sales emails. | Write a re-engagement email message to [Name]. Mention the proposal we sent to him the previous week. | Write three re-engagement emails. Each email should be two-paragraph (less than 80 words). All three emails will be addressed to [Name] at [Company].
Both the subject line and first sentence in the first email should ask: “Have you give up on this?” Both the subject line and the first sentence of the second email should say: “I don’t want to be a pest, but it seems like you’ve given up on this. Is that true?” Both the subject line and the first sentence of the third email should say: “It seems like you’re no longer interested. Is that true?” Here’s an [Incentive] if you’re open to changing your mind. |
First, the bad AI email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Let’s look at the result from the best AI email prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
The best email prompt followed our formula—it was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Then we added the extras; in our first email, we asked prospects a pointed question—have you given up? Our next email asked if we were bothering them. Our final email asked about their interest level and offered an incentive to see if this attracted more attention.
Why does this matter?
- Our first message—is it you?
- The second message—is it us?
- Final message—No longer interested?
These messages help us to identify the specifics behind our prospect’s disengagement.
Related: This sales email guide will provide more ideas on crafting email templates to re-engage cold prospects.
Get the Best Results From Your AI Email Writing Assistant
AI-generated email strategies begin and end with you. You’ll need a formula if you’re using AI for email marketing. Here are the steps I’ve outlined in my formula.
- Use specificity
- Give AI context
- Set AI constraints
- Outline requirements
What about personalization?
Personalization isn’t the end goal, it’s the minimum requirement. A set-and-forget strategy won’t work. People are quick to complain about AI. Anytime I try to use AI to write sales emails, I end up with the same kind of unusable emails.
Well, the problem is probably not with the AI email generator but with the prompts you give. AI is an amazing tool that requires clear direction and a precise formula to be effective. The more data you can feed your AI email assistant, the better your AI prompts and sales emails will be.
That said, one common challenge with AI-powered email generation is the need for constant prompt refinement, even for minor adjustments.
To address this, our ChatGPT-powered email writing assistant incorporates shortcuts. With a simple click, you can easily instruct the AI to enhance the email’s engagement, shorten it, or rephrase it. Watch this clip to see how it works.
Sign up to Pipeline CRM today to start enjoying this AI email solution!
