Personalize outreach at scale based on leads’ age

Why personalizing outreach based on generation matters

To secure positive replies in cold outreach, you should use an appropriate tone, deliver relevant value, and use the most appealing message format.

One of the important factors influencing what your approach should be like is leads' age.

Research shows that generational differences significantly influence leads’ communication preferences.

For example, a study by the Pew Research Center found that Gen Z prefers short, visually engaging content, while Gen X prefers more detailed, text-heavy information.

Even though one size doesn't fit all, testing different approaches based on seniority can provide insightful insights that can boost future efficiency.

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Challenges

Let's say you want to reach UK-based CMOs across different age ranges and sell your SEO tool that boosts organic growth.

Testing different outreach approaches on different age groups will help you determine the right amount of catchy, friendly, and respectful tone and which content type engages them the most.

Traditionally, an outreach process like this would be highly time-consuming and expensive as you have to

→ find and export leads manually or pay high fees to access lead databases
→ scrape leads’ emails one-by-one or from unverified sources, risking bounces
→ manually figure out leads’ age by counting years of education or experience
→ craft and personalize each message separately for each lead
→ manually track each lead's interaction with your campaign on multiple channels

A decentralized process like this often leads to errors, response delays, and eventually lost business opportunities.

Or, you can follow workflow below to find, enrich, segment, and contact your leads in a hyper-personalized way, from one spot.

Disclaimer: Before getting started, you'll need lemlist, and OpenAI account (optionally LinkedIn account). If you don't have paying plans, no worries - all these tools offer free trials or plans.

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The ultimate workflow to find relevant leads, determine their generation, and personalize outreach at scale

[ ] Find potential buyers in B2B leads' database

Straight from the lemlist app, you can access a database of 450M+ B2B contacts and use 25+ filters to narrow your search and find new buyers.

In this example, you want to filter your search by following criteria:

• Current job title is: CMO
• Country is: UK
• Not already in a campaign (as you wish to avoid over-prospecting the same leads)

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[ ] Get leads’ verified info with Email Finder and Verifier & push them to your outreach campaign

‍Once you have the list of potential buyers, you can use lemlist's Email finder and verifier to collect their verified emails and other relevant details without leaving the app.

Thanks to the waterfall enrichment method, you'll quickly get the most accurate lead information from the market's top 6 providers.

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Once you have contacts, you can simply push them to your existing or new outreach campaign!

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[ ] Figure out your leads’ generation with AI variables

‍To unlock the full potential of your data, you can use AI variables.

Simply ask AI via prompt to sort your data in any way you want, straight from the lemlist app.

In this case, you want to sort your new list of leads into different segments based on their age so you can target different generations with other approaches.

Add your prompt or import one from the free prompts library, and let AI do the hard work for you.

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The result will be a list of leads, each with a dedicated variable defining which generation they belong to.

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[ ] Segment leads by their generation with Advanced conditions

‍To avoid manually sorting leads by their dedicated variable and assigning suitable messages, you can start your outreach campaign with advanced conditions.

Advanced conditions are steps in your campaign that automatically adjust the next step for each lead based on the condition you provide.

This means you can target each of your leads based on the background criteria you provide or their interaction, from a signle campaign.

In this example, we'll prepare 3 different approaches within the same campaign based on meeting gen variable criteria.

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In the end, you want your campaign tree to start like this:

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[ ] Craft different approaches for different audience segments at scale

Now that you have segmented your target audience for success, you can craft different messaging for them.

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→ Catch the attention with customized video thumbnail

The target audience marked with the AI variable “gen z” is most likely to respond well to visually engaging content, such as short videos.

Avoid long messages, traditional corporate jargon, and focusing solely on money benefits.

Because you don't want to sell already in the first email but rather earn their trust, you can send a short video showcasing how to solve some of their daily struggles and position yourself as an expert.

To make your message as personalized as possible without crafting separate video thumbnails for each lead, you can add video thumbnails with the leads’ names, company logos, website screenshots, or similar—100% on autopilot.

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→ Add a human touch with a LinkedIn voice message

‍Leads with the AI variable “gen y” emphasize efficiency, so sending them a short LinkedIn voice message provides value while keeping a personal touch.

The content should resonate with their desire for flexibility, growth, and alignment with company values.

To ensure your voice message reaches its target audience and stands out in your leads' DM, you can first “soft” approach those leads by visiting their profiles and connecting with them.

lemlist allows you to automate all these LinkedIn steps within the app!

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With the LinkedIn voice message step, you won't have to record and send the same message to each lead separately from the mobile app.

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Simply hit record and press send. If you want to send a specific message to a specific lead, you can record a new voice message to change the previously assigned message to all.

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→ Stand out with hyper-personalized email copy

Gen X appreciates straightforward, text-based communication that respects their time. Your email should emphasize reliability and long-term benefits while respecting their experience.

But beware; Sending a classic text email doesn't mean you should sound super formal. Always aim to sound like a friend trying to help, no matter who you talk to (because you kind of are!).

No matter how many emails they send, lemlist users can automatically personalize any part of their message to grab leads' attention and build trust (e.g., intro line, pitch, CTA).

By creating custom variables based on joint values, lemlist turns them into personalized copies based on your provided data.

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P.S. You can mix all these styles and test different approaches on different targets! If relatable enough, text messages can also catch the attention of Gen Z, and Gen X can reply positively to insightful voice messages. It's all about adjusting the messaging to provide the most value for that lead.

To mix approaches and figure out which one works the best for which generation, you can use lemlist's A/B testing.

A/B testing in cold outreach involves sending two variants of an email to see which performs better. This method helps identify more effective email strategies and doubles down on successful approaches.

To A/B test specific steps, lemlist automatically duplicates your step for iteration so you can have two versions of the same step in the sequence.

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From there, you can change whatever element you want, such as email content, to see which pushes more replies.

Once you've prepared your initial message, you can continue building your campaign tree with advanced conditions based on whether leads opened, clicked, replied to, etc.

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Outcome

This personalized approach ensures that messages are more relevant and engaging, which increases the likelihood of catching attention and getting positive replies.

Based on the results of A/B testing, you can push more or less certain approaches and improve reply rates, boost conversions, and open new business opportunities!