AI Email Automation for Side Business

I love having AI review specific types of emails I get to see if they're worth my time. Today I helped my friend Alec Cheung - a fellow marketer in the CMO Coffee Talk community I'm a member of - set up one of these AI automations and it turned out awesome, so I wanted to tell you about it (with his permission of course). Here's the backstory: Going through website form submissions was eating up too much marketing team time. The submissions (which have a place for open-ended inputs that make them hard to screen via traditional methods) flow through Pardot and trigger emails that required human review to figure out if they were genuine leads or just spam. Tons turn out to be junk, creating unnecessary work for Alec's team. Others are genuine leads (or actual paying clients) that a human definitely needs to follow up with. Alec posted in our CMO Coffee Talk AI channel a few weeks ago asking for ideas on how to improve their process with AI. This is a super simple automation, so I offered to help if he'd let me share what we did. He was in! Our fix was AI-powered automation using Zapier. Here's the flow: 1️⃣. A visitor submits a form on Alec's company's website. 2️⃣. Pardot sends an email with the form contents to a designated address. 3️⃣. Zapier kicks off the automation. 4️⃣. GPT-4o reads, analyzes, and categorizes the submission. 5️⃣. Based on the categorization, the automation filters the next steps. 6️⃣. If a human needs to attend to the email, it emails them (along with the appropriate categorization, directly in the flag email's subject line). If it does not require a human, then nobody is notified about the form submission. The result is a far more streamlined workflow that will save a lot of monotonous manual effort. And it's CHEAP. It looks like this automation will cost Alec around $0.10-$0.20 per day in AI usage to run - yes, cents, not dollars. It's an incredibly affordable solution for such a big time (and headache)-saver. Alec was new to using Zapier for this kind of task, so we had 2 calls. First, we planned the planned process, and I gave him some homework, and then today we finished everything. (And he gave me the okay to share with you!) While the setup is pretty straightforward, it does require a base knowledge of Zapier, and how to write solid AI prompts (this isn't something for AI newbies to take on alone). For those in CMO Coffee Talk, I'll go much deeper into this automation during our 2/19 mid-week Zoom "What Every CMO Needs to Know About How AI is Evolving in 2025: Automated Workflows, Agents, and Reasoning Models." Also - if you're a marketer and want to explore AI automations, I do get into that in my Foundations of Generative AI for B2B Marketing course (🔗 in bio). --- UPDATE: A recording of the webinar for CMOs I mentioned above is now available! More details at: https://lnkd.in/gxe9EQ69

Last week I posted about my outbound sales motion for SCALIS and how I booked more than 50 demos in less than 7 weeks, testing two different outreach platforms, Apollo.io and 11x, but I only did a deep dive on the framework I set up for Apollo (link in comments). Here's the process I followed for 11x: 1️⃣ Automated Email Address Creation: Unlike Apollo, where I had to buy additional domains and manually create email addresses, 11x.ai uses OAuth to connect directly to my account via IMAP/SMTP. This allowed 11x to automatically generate over 30 email addresses, such as brandon@yourscalis.com and brandon@meetscalis.com, without requiring GSuite or extra domain purchases. 2️⃣Email Warm-Up: Instead of relying on a separate tool like Mailreach for email warm-up, 11x.ai handles the entire warm-up process automatically. It manages the deliverability of emails behind the scenes, freeing up time and reducing the complexity of the setup. 3️⃣ Targeting: Similar to Apollo, I still had to create targeted searches based on my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). For example, I built lists of hiring managers or people ops professionals at US-based companies using Lever and hiring for 4 or more roles. This ICP alignment remained consistent across both systems. 4️⃣A key differentiator with 11x.ai is its "Set an Offer" functionality. I provided the system with detailed information about SCALIS, including: - What I was selling (our AI-based hiring platform) - The pain points I was addressing (such as inefficiencies in existing hiring solutions like Lever) - SCALIS’ value propositions and proof points - The personality and tone I wanted to evoke in my messaging - The desired call-to-action (book a demo) Based on this input, 11x.ai auto-generated a series of highly personalized email and LinkedIn messages for each recipient. The messaging was tailored to the contact and the company they worked at, leveraging data it gathered about their business. 5️⃣ Sequence Activation: Once I reviewed the auto-generated messages, I selected which email addresses to use for outreach, set the number of leads 11x would source per day, and determined the days and times the messages would be sent. I then activated the sequence, and 11x took care of the rest. 11x.ai’s automation saved me domain management, copywriting, and email warm-up time. The platform was more hands-off but still delivered highly personalized outreach at scale, which led to consistent engagement. Ultimately, both systems contributed to the 50+ demos I booked in under 6 weeks. Apollo was better for manually tailoring my outreach when I needed a human touch, while 11x.ai excelled at automating repetitive tasks without compromising personalization. For anyone running outbound campaigns at scale, experimenting with different tools and systems can yield incredible results. The key is to balance automation with personalization and to stay consistent in your outreach efforts.

AI isn’t just a buzzword anymore—it’s changing the game in cold email outreach. Here’s how smart automation is making personalization and targeting sharper than ever: 1. Behavior-Based Segmentation AI tracks what your prospects are doing—website visits, social media activity, content downloads—and groups them based on shared interests. The result? Messages that hit closer to home. 2. Predictive Analytics Not all leads are created equal. AI predicts which ones are most likely to respond, helping you focus on the prospects that matter most. 3. Dynamic Templates Forget cookie-cutter emails. AI fills templates with personalized details like a recipient’s name, company, and industry—instantly. Every email feels tailor-made. 4.Behavioral Customization AI adjusts your outreach in real-time based on how prospects engage. Didn’t click the link in your email? AI can follow up with fresh content or a more personal touch to re-engage them. Here’s the catch: Automation doesn’t replace the human touch. It’s a tool to help you build authentic connections—not a substitute for them. Want more insights like this? 📧 Subscribe to our newsletter today! #EmailMarketing #AIinSales #Personalization

🚀 How I’m Working with AI to 50× My Productivity If I want to operate at an exponential level, I need systems that allow me to scale myself like a startup scales operations. That means delegating work to AI, reducing friction, and eliminating tasks that don’t require my direct input. So, I rebuilt my workflow. Today, AI automates my email, summarizes my meetings, generates presentations, researches markets, and even synthesizes industry trends for better decision-making. The result? I’m producing 2–3× more, making better decisions, and reclaiming 3–10 hours per week. Here’s how I’m doing it. ⬇️ 📧 Email – From Hours to Minutes Inbox zero used to be a dream. Now, AI handles 90% of my email workload. ✅ Fyxer → Learns my writing style, drafts replies, and handles scheduling. ✅ ForageMail → Scans my inbox and delivers a single daily digest, cutting down my email review time to 5 minutes. ✅ Shortwave → The fastest UI for processing emails. Better than Superhuman. ⏳ Impact: Inbox management now takes 15–20 minutes per day instead of an hour or more. 📝 Meetings – Smarter, Not Longer Meetings should be about decisions, not documentation—so I use AI to handle the admin. ✅ Granola → Records & transcribes calls without joining the meeting (no awkward AI bots). I can also add my own notes in real-time and Granola enhances them automatically. ✅ Roam → Acts as my cloud HQ. I can see who’s available, step into a quick voice chat, and cut down Slack back-and-forth. 🕒 Impact: Meeting time at Metaversal has been cut drastically—Roam’s average meeting time is just 8 minutes. 🎨 Presentations – From Hours to Minutes Creating decks used to take half a day. Now, AI drafts them in 5 minutes. ✅ PlusAI → I drop my strategy notes into ChatGPT, refine them, then use PlusAI to generate a polished deck. ⏳ Impact: I skip the formatting and focus on strategy. A task that once took hours is now done in minutes. 🔍 Deep Research & Industry Insights – AI as a Competitive Edge 🚀 This is where AI has truly transformed my decision-making. ✅ [ChatGPT Deep Research] → I use this for market research, competitor analysis, and strategy development. What used to take an analyst days or weeks now takes minutes. ✅ [Grok3] → Scans social discussions to uncover real-world pain points—a game-changer for new product strategy. 📌 Impact: Instead of wading through reports and scattered sources, I get rich, actionable insights at my fingertips—allowing me to make faster, more informed decisions. AI automation is the future of high-performance work and has been a game changer for me to be able to do more in less time. 🔹 What AI tools have made the biggest impact on your workflow? Drop a comment—I’d love to swap recommendations. 🚀

How to Automate One Repetitive Task in Your Business This Week (No Tech Background Needed) AI sounds impressive… but where do you even start? Here’s a simple 5-step process to help small business owners automate just one task using GPT tools. You don’t need to be technical. You just need 30 focused minutes. Step 1: Pick One Repetitive Task Think: client email responses, weekly social media posts, or proposal templates. Choose something you do at least once a week. Step 2: Gather Your Past Examples Pull 3-5 past emails, posts, or messages. These become your data for training the AI. Step 3: Open ChatGPT (or a custom GPT builder) Paste your examples in and prompt it like this: “Act like my assistant. Based on these examples, write a similar [email/social post/proposal] using a friendly and professional tone.” Step 4: Refine the Output Tweak the tone, structure, or voice. Add in your preferences. Then save the final prompt that gives you the best results. Step 5: Reuse and Repeat Next time you need that task done, run the same prompt. You’ve just automated your first task. This isn’t theory. It’s how hundreds of small business owners are reclaiming time every week. Start small. Start practical. But start. Because once you automate one thing, you’ll spot ten more you could’ve offloaded. #HowToStartWithAI #SmallBusinessAutomation #ChatGPTForBusiness #DIYAutomation #TimeFreedom #SmartBusinessMoves