Episode 8:
Demystifying Video in Email Marketing with Lisa Jones of EyeMail, Inc.

Scott Cohen: Hello, all. Welcome to That Inbox Army podcast. I’m your host, Scott Cohen. And back with me today, returned from assignment is my co host, Garin Hobbs. Garin, how are you today?

Garin Hobbs: I’m doing fantastic, Scott. Just as I am every Friday when we do these. Glad glad everyone’s, back with us. Hope everyone’s having an enjoyable summer.

Scott Cohen: Absolutely. It is boiling here. I think it’s boiling everywhere in the states, but, you know, it’s it’s summer. We keep forgetting that July happens. Alright.

I’m excited about today’s conversation. We’ll be talking about video and more specifically video and email. Why video? Well, video is dominant everywhere. Heck, we’re we’re doing this on videos.

You know? TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, podcasts. You name the channel, it supports video. Until we get to email, it’s been a it’s been a thing. You know?

Email has been around I mean, video and email has been around a long time, but it’s still you know support for it is still tough but there are folks who are working hard to change that and bring the full power of video to email And that is our guest today. Joining us today is one of those very people at the forefront of innovation of bringing video to email. Allow me to welcome the CEO, chief imail officer of imail, a patent pending customer experience technology enabling video to play automatically inside email and mobile. Lisa Jones. Lisa, welcome to the podcast.

Lisa Jones: Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to be here. I’ve been so looking forward to our session today, so thank you for

Scott Cohen: Oh, yeah. We’re we’re looking forward to it too. But before we get into the nitty gritty, I always like to ask folks where they came from, how they got to where they are. Everybody’s got an interesting journey to where they are today. Tell us about your journey to today.

Lisa Jones: My journey to today and finding my love of an email was an evolution. So I’m originally from Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama. And when I was in college, actually, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my career. I majored in logistics and procurement, and my first career move was at NASA. And I stayed there several years and I thought that was gonna be my long term plan.

But I decided after a few years that I, I wanted a new adventure. So I moved to Atlanta and started in the telecommunications area, became an executive there working in supplier diversity and infrastructure management, and working with businesses to find them and to connect contract opportunities for introduction, within the telecom area. Sometimes in life, things happen that help you to redefine your journey, your mission, your purpose. In my case, I have 2 older sisters and one morning when I was headed to work in the summer, my sister, my oldest sister called me to advise that our mother had passed away at home alone

Garin Hobbs: at

Lisa Jones: the age of 61. And I remember the impact that that moment in time had on my journey of me thinking, well, Lisa, I was talking to myself, like, what am I, what does this mean for, for my legacy forward and my journey? And I tell them this part of the story because it’s so important as to how I got into email, actually. So when I go to my mother’s services to meet you all, it seemed like it only lasted 7 minutes of time, and people were going back to their cars. And I was thinking that life should be celebrated, and that every moment in time deserves to be honored and for people to be seen and heard and felt.

So with that, I said, when I come back to Atlanta, I wanna find a way to start a company. So I did a prayer of my mother’s graveside, and I said, when I get back to Atlanta, I’m gonna find a way to start a company, but not just any company. I wanna start a company that’s inspiring, that delivers global value, that creates a legacy and to make up for those 7 minutes of time. So those 7 minutes of time of my mother’s services served as a catalyst for me coming back to Atlanta to start a brand. So when I came back to Atlanta, I was thinking, you know, what kind of company could I start?

And I thought about how one communication changed my life. And I said, well, maybe I’ll start a communications business. So how do we communicate? I thought, you know, verbally, non verbally in writing. And I said, what else do we do?

We email people. Well, who do we email internally, externally in one click if anywhere in the world. I was fascinated by that. Cause then I was thinking no inventory. One click is anywhere in the world.

I said, let me sign up for 150 different brands, emails. I want to see what the fortune 500 send out basically a segment of that. What do nonprofits send out? What do small businesses send out? And there was a commonality after researching 150 brands.

I figured out the commonality was but I didn’t feel special. I didn’t feel connected to the brand. I didn’t feel inspired to take that next step for a call to action. And I said, wow, what if email could have a personality? What if email could be brought to life with video?

And with that, that started my journey in email. And now with I mail.

Garin Hobbs: Fantastic story. It’s more importantly, I I I love the fact that you’ve realized what had been a broken promise up to that point. Right? Video and email, great concept. Didn’t really happen until you made it happen.

Right? So first off, thank you and congratulations to that. Something that people have been asking for or asking to have made real for well over a decade. Finally, somebody cracked the code here. Speaking of cracked the code, you know, there’s obviously a lot of intricacies and sometimes limitations and difficulties involved with delivering video and email.

You have managed to crack that code to make it possible for video email. How did you how how did how did you overcome what has been up till now of largely insurmountable obstacle for everybody else?

Lisa Jones: Thank you. Thank you for your kind words and for the questions. So when we think about bandwidth issues, that’s our number one concern is how can we showcase our compelling video in the email, but it’s a large file size. Right? Because even in corporate America, I was thinking how it my product has to deliver so that it’s streamlined in the inbox, no friction.

And so with that, I sought out to find the right technical support team to help me. And this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that the video and email experience was engaging. And so we’ve developed a patent pending compression engine in our technology that enables you to take up to a 200 meg video, high quality video, and it will compress it down to the delivery size of 15 kilobytes.

Garin Hobbs: That’s phenomenal.

Lisa Jones: Thank you. And we work with Microsoft. I was very fortunate to build relationships, and I understand the importance of relationships in the journey. And we were invited into Microsoft’s Innovation Lab, where we had a chance to work with senior architects to talk about imail and delivery and whether or not the video should play automatically when you open, or should it be on mute? Meaning it’s still gonna play, but should it have sound or no sound?

And what we determined, in the lab, in the innovation lab was that people, we all want choices to choose when we want to hear sound and we don’t want anything disruptive. So that as soon as you open it, it’s loud sound is coming out. You deserve that right and that choice. So with that, we developed Imail with Microsoft’s help so that when it delivers, it’s 15 kilobytes in size. And, also, you choose when to engage the audio as well.

Garin Hobbs: I love that. Which one of us hasn’t been caught completely unaware? Is the middle of a meeting, opening an email, clicking on a link, and all of a sudden this unexpected audio starts blaring, and you’re outed in front of the entire meeting. So I love that the thoughtfulness and consideration, that you’ve, that that you’ve absolutely sort of put put behind that, Lisa. So excellent job.

And I would say, you know, having, gone through the demo, you were kind enough to give Scott and I a demo a couple of weeks ago since you brought up Microsoft. The most impressive thing to me, the the best part about that, other than seeing the miracle in front of my eyes was you had the confidence, dare I say the guts, to demonstrate immediately within Outlook, everyone’s notorious nemesis in email rather than showing me a Gmail or anywhere else. You threw it right up there in Outlook and showed your video playing bravo to you. I I Thank you. Absolutely.

1 if you hadn’t won me over before that, I was yours now.

Lisa Jones: That means a lot. Thank you so much. And, Scott, what was it for you with seeing the demo?

Scott Cohen: It was for sure. I mean, Garin hit it on the head. It’s it’s Microsoft. It’s been, I consider in in terms of email, Microsoft is a 4 letter word to me. So it’s, yeah.

It just it when you went, oh, let’s just pull this up, and I I think Garin and I both like, wait. What? Something actually works at Outlook?

Lisa Jones: Yes. So that’s

Scott Cohen: that that’s super that that was super impressive. You know, you talked about cracking the code. I’m curious about some use cases. Right? You know, where, you know, we’ve you know, we’ve been talking about animated GIFs for years and, you know, what is the sort of the value add that video in general, you know, provides.

Right? That, oh, video delivered an email, you know, that’s not just a GIF, but an actual video. I mean, that getting from 200 megs to 15 kilobytes, I mean, you you hit it. Right? That’s that’s a huge thing.

But just curious what kind of use cases you’ve been able to power and, you know, sort of, like I said, that value add, what’s the incremental value that you’ve seen that makes the juice worth the squeeze?

Lisa Jones: The juice worth the squeeze. I would say because IMEL is such a universal product. It’s for any industry and for any type communication. So if we take, on the consumer side for your customers, being able to send out those sales and marketing communications, to be able to send out those product updates and notifications. That’s one aspect of InMail in the delivery.

One of our customers, for example, is Porsche North America. So when you have the Porsche experience and you want to share that that new vehicle that you want so much, that new Porsche, you’re able to send that as an I mail from that particular dealer. That’s one aspect of it. But also, even in thinking of higher education, executive education and now being able to show what a class and AI would look like from an IMEI experience. And I should note that an IMEI really is like an appetizer.

It’s a 62nd

Scott Cohen: up to

Lisa Jones: a 62nd engagement experience. And the reason it’s designed to be 60 seconds is because we all know that our attention attention spans are short. So you have to capture our attention, and then we’re gonna take that next step for a call to action to be able to go to that next step. So one is delivering to your customer. 2, it could be an event.

Right? We work with Delta Airlines, for example, and the Coca Cola Company, where senior leadership may want to send out a personal welcome, but it’s not limited to the enterprises that I’m mentioning. I’m just citing them for reference, but it could be for your brand when you have an event, you’re attending a trade show and you want people to come to that booth. It’s a personal warm welcome because that’s what email is missing. The warmth, the connection, the tonality of the message and the vibrancy of the message.

Being able to see someone smile for the inflection of their voice. All of these factors makes a difference. So that’s another aspect of think about your events. And then after the event, what are you sending out? Of course, you’re sending a survey, but now you can send a survey to thank people personally and the call to action to the survey.

Thirdly, from employee engagement, employees deserve and need to be engaged as well. So now you think about training, you think about ESGs or DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion training, etcetera, health and wellness. It’s another way to engage with your employees and for their foundations

Garin Hobbs: wouldn’t have really I I mean, having done this as long as I have, I probably wouldn’t have thought of that in terms of one of the operative values of video, but you’re so absolutely right. I mean, copywriters take, you know, incredible steps to evoke just the right tone, just the right sentiment from words alone. And when we can’t do that with words, what do we default to? Throwing emojis into things. And sometimes that can degrade sometimes the quality or gracefulness of the message that you’re trying to deliver.

You know, it’s that aspect of a picture tells a 1,000 words. Well, how many millions of words in a in a in a in a you can you get across in a video without creating this very, very long vertical message, you know, with the text equivalent as opposed to the video. So I love that. I can see, you know, that warm executive welcome, in people sort of welcome or onboarding message programs, product education, you know, kind of helping people can increase their intent and consideration and kinda move them for that conversion a little bit faster. Same thing with post purchase to yourself, bringing that warmth and really making people feel seen and valued for, you know, spending money with your brand.

And as you mentioned, certainly all the B2B applications as well. Probably spend all day talking about those, but I know you’ve got other things to do.

Lisa Jones: But you know what’s interesting too, when we think about the fact, according to Forrester’s research, we receive a 120 emails a day or more yet 73%. 73% remains unread. So the question really becomes for all of us, how do we stand out from the clutter as a competitive differentiator? And what we’ve seen for our clients that we serve is that where the standard open rates on average are 20%, imail has been able to triple that for their open rates, actually, in terms of people. And this is why.

I’ll tell you why that number is tripled. When we think about the fact that 48% of us have a preview pane, where we might, in our email, have a side window open or set the bottom.

Scott Cohen: Mhmm.

Lisa Jones: So every time you’re looking at that preview, the imail is being served up. It’s the only thing that’s moving. It’s the only thing that’s compelling. And so that’s also counting towards the open rates. In terms of the click throughs, where the average across any industry happens to be 4% on average, I mail has seen triple in that effect as well and more.

Of course, with our clients, we can’t disclose the numbers, but that’s the value of video. Not only is it about the metrics, it’s the right thing to do. Who really wants to read 4 paragraphs of text? What about you, Scott? Do you wanna read 4 paragraphs?

Scott Cohen: Depends on the paragraphs, but not usually.

Lisa Jones: Not usually. And then, Garin, what were you gonna say?

Garin Hobbs: I was gonna say nobody reads, Apple end user license agreements for fun. So I say it’s it’s a it’s a decided no, I think, for most people there.

Lisa Jones: Exactly. And so people are looking for that next chapter of what’s the next layer of engagement. Now, of course, there are things that we are going to continue to read and email is an imperative, in our lives. And I love email. I really do.

I love the fact also that there is now another tool, I mail, to enable you to have the rich experience, compelling experience for your customers and your viewers and to keep them engaged. You know, some people will say, you should drive people to a call to action. We at Imel disagree slightly with that statement. We believe that your customers and viewers should be inspired. They should want to take that next step for a call to action because you’ve thoughtfully crafted your message and your videos that they are they want to learn more and to be able to engage with your brand.

Garin Hobbs: That makes sense. I mean, even even divorcing ourselves from that deeper value, I can see at the very least being a lot of value in just providing that dynamic motion in email kind of disrupting the thought process and giving folks that critical half second to 2 seconds that it takes for them to really stop what they’re doing automatically and really engage with the rest of the of the email. Right? Just kinda stops that automatic response we naturally have as we’re kinda going into triage and scan mode. Wait.

Something’s moving. What is this? Let me pay closer attention and and read the rest of the content around it as well.

Lisa Jones: Exactly. Exactly. And it also performs in mobile devices, as well. So you can you can choose any mobile device or your inbox. It does you could do it over any platform.

So we built the technology agnostic so that people will ask us sometimes, like, Lisa, is imail an email service provider system? We are not. We’re that niche layer that sizzle that brings the email to life. We want you to be able to still maintain, your ESP, your preferred email service provider system. So our output is your input directly into your system so that you can launch your campaign.

Garin Hobbs: Excellent. Allowing folks to do more with the investments they’ve already made.

Lisa Jones: Absolutely. Absolutely. True force When I first started Imail, I thought about, you know, what channel did I want Imail to represent? And I said, I want imail to play in the sandbox with everybody. Why would I just limit it to 1?

So I love the idea of the inclusiveness of it, and being able to expand it as a global footprint in so many different areas.

Scott Cohen: I’m just getting flashbacks to my I worked at the video game client 5, 6 years ago, who threw an animated GIF of their entire video game trailer in the

Lisa Jones: email. Mhmm.

Scott Cohen: And this was, you know, 5, 6, 7 years ago, whatever it was. And I went, okay. But I, you know, that was pre this. Right? Or they they didn’t have this this capacity.

But, yeah, it I mean, the things where it makes sense. Right? That those personal touches, the the eye catching of, you know, video games, things like that. I mean, people love those trailers and video. I mean, video games just just the technology around video games has been incredible.

Right? So Absolutely. It’s it’s a it’s a fun time.

Lisa Jones: It is a fun time. And I actually like GIFs as well because it’s it’s increasing movement as opposed to just static. So I love the fact that if he was doing that 6, 7 years ago, that’s great because you had a visual gauge lens into the video gaming experience. So kudos to him.

Garin Hobbs: Mhmm. Kudos to you for calling it a GIF rather than a GIF. Right? Like, I agree. The person who actually developed the format says it is called h j.

Scott Cohen: I’m sorry. I I I don’t care. It’s it’s not a giraffeic user interface, and it’s not a giraffeic. No. It’s graphic.

Lisa Jones: Well, you know, I’m like, I’m researching it.

Scott Cohen: It’s not peanut butter.

Lisa Jones: Well, yes. It is actually. Right. And I did the research years ago. Right?

And I said, okay, what is the pronunciation? And so when I officially looked it up, it said, think about Jif peanut butter. That’s how I remember it now. Jif.

Scott Cohen: Just saying it’s it’s not peanut butter.

Lisa Jones: I know you’re not. Exactly.

Garin Hobbs: This will continue to divide people far into the future. This is the Ford channel.

Scott Cohen: It’s like pineapple on pizza. There’s right answers or wrong

Garin Hobbs: answers. Incendiary. Twizzlers versus red vines. Let’s not do this.

Scott Cohen: Oh, neither.

Lisa Jones: I agree.

Garin Hobbs: I’m with you. Absolutely. Well, despite best efforts, as of right now, at least unless you can tell us otherwise, Lisa, you know, the ability to access video and email is not quite universal or certainly Telafed as it is. But it seems to me there’s at least currently the need for fallback treatment when it comes to delivering any dynamic experiences like video and email. What are your thoughts first off?

And then what are your some of your recommendations around those fallback treatments?

Lisa Jones: In thinking about your fallback treatment, it’s always important to have the online view to say, you know, if you’re unable to see or hear, click here and go to that online experience. And to have, if it’s going to be static, if you have any challenges and if you have to have a static image, make sure that it’s something compelling that’s showing as that main image. But being able to primarily have that video content is imminent. If you have animated GIFs, that’s great, but you need to be able to extend them longer in time than just the looping cat. I mean, the looping cat is cute for a few seconds, but you would really want to have a storytelling moment.

And that would be my recommendation is trial and error. Be willing to try new things. I know it’s sometimes difficult to say, well, this is the way we’ve been doing it all these years. So let’s just stick with that. I challenge you to try something new and to see how it impacts the business incrementally and long term for the growth, because the proof is going to be in the pudding as we stay in the south.

And that’s going to be in your numbers and your metrics. So that’s, that would be my feedback, Aaron.

Garin Hobbs: Excellent. I’m curious if you have a preference. So, you know, I think you you gave a couple of really great alternatives. The one that I personally prefer and the one that really sort of preserves, I think, best the integrity and value of the full video is what you just mentioned. Hey.

Having that click to view as a browser or click to view sort of online. The alternative, as you said, is more of that sort of multi frame GIF, Scott. Mhmm. More of that multi frame GIF. Do you have a preference of 1 versus the other, or is it more of those, hey, each one kind of has its own place depending upon the circumstances?

Lisa Jones: I think each one has its place depending on the circumstances and what what message you’re seeking to accomplish. So it just depends actually.

Scott Cohen: And this aggression will not stand, Garin. This aggression will not no. I’m sorry. This aggression will not stand.

Garin Hobbs: Silence is violence, Scott, so I’m gonna continue advocating for GIF.

Scott Cohen: No. I I think, you know, it it’s interesting to view in browser, I think, becomes necessary. Right? I mean Right. Most emails these days, you don’t need view and browser, and certainly not at the top if you’re just using static imagery, things like that.

But I think for video, you need it. Right? I mean, I would argue. I mean, the the the percentage of people that click on it on a static email is so low. So low.

Away so we give away so much prime real estate to something like that. I mean, it’s even something that I tell our team, like, guys, bump it to the bottom. We don’t need it up here. Like, it it’s it’s just the data isn’t there. But I would say, obviously, you’re delivering a video.

You wanna can’t see this now, click here. Right? May make the video clickable. Do things like that. I mean, just

Lisa Jones: Exactly.

Scott Cohen: It’s it’s all about that usability for the for the user. Right? Like, most people, if they’re viewing it on a phone, they’re viewing it on their desktop, and it’s a static email. Like, you don’t need a view in browser if you’re in Gmail desktop. Like, settle down.

You know, if it’s a video, you might need it. Right?

Lisa Jones: So Right. Exactly. And one of the aspects of, our growth factor is we started imail where we are a custom service to you, a white glove service. And from the point at which you deliver us the MP 4 and your HTML or if we’re creating your HTML, we encode and compress. We optimize.

We add the IMEI magic. We send it back to you to load into your ESP. That process I just described takes normally 3 business days to complete. That’s because we’re making sure internally all the testing, the mobile responsiveness, everything is there. We’re proud to say that, in the next 30 days, we’re launching the software as a service, the imail storytelling, and it’s a SaaS model that will allow customers to create their account and to upload their own videos.

And our technology will encode and compress and will export out the HTML. And you’re able to create imails in under 3 to 4 minutes.

Garin Hobbs: It’s fantastic. You know, one of the other benefits that really strikes me, for video and email, Lisa, is, I was at a conference recently, and I was, listening to a fascinating presentation by Sarah Gallardo over at Oracle. And one of her areas of expertise is around accessibility. Right? And, one of the interesting facts I learned from her is that the Americans with Disabilities Act is only enforceable through lawsuits.

There’s no organization or agency out there that is forcing compliance. And a lot of, senders of email probably find themselves, you know, potentially open for lawsuits if they’re not, you know, ensuring ultimate accessibility with their emails. It seems to me that, you know, your video and email could go a long way towards not just compliance, but really bringing in a lot more consideration, delivering a better experience for those who, maybe suffer from either visual or cognitive disabilities that would otherwise prevent them from being able to immerse themselves in full email experiences. The fact that you can bring that out, not only in full motion video, but audio as well seems to me like it would open up a much broader world of experience and interaction for those audiences that maybe not have had the opportunity previously.

Lisa Jones: Absolutely. And that’s a passion point for us here at imail is inclusiveness and accessibility. When I started the company, actually, I thought about how can we be supportive of people that may have, you know, disability disabilities and need they everyone deserves a rich compelling experience. So that was one of the the four pillars in my thought process of how can we ensure that? So on I mail, some of our customers prefer to have closed captioning, right?

So that the viewer can follow along in in case they may some people may not just wanna hear sound period. They might just wanna follow the ticker across to see the closed captioning. You’re one of them Scott.

Scott Cohen: On the 90 90% of the time, because, you know, I only turn on volume if I think it’s hilarious and I

Garin Hobbs: want my wife to watch it.

Scott Cohen: Maybe that’s just my Instagram habit, but that’s what I do. I’d look at them and, oh, this seems interesting because if I don’t, she’d be like, what is that? And then I go, never mind. And yeah. So there’s some, you know, embarrassment saving pieces or just, you know, marriage saving pieces right there.

You know? So yeah. It for for those of us who don’t have those those, you know, disabilities or or concerns Mhmm. Closed captioning is still a lovely thing.

Lisa Jones: It is. It definitely is. And, you know, there are certain standards and colors and and alt text, things that can be forever, forever, ever, a very long time. But I went back and I went back to Harvard and I wanted to go to Harvard. It was on my bucket list of things to do, but I wanted to go back so that I could gain thought leadership, bring it also back to our global team so they can learn from the experiences as well through me.

And one of the classes that I took for a semester was on accessibility and inclusiveness and thinking of how to create better designs that are more, reaching to a broader audience. And and there are so many different, guidelines for that, but I appreciate what you both are saying because it’s so important that we take that in consideration as a global community.

Scott Cohen: And spoiler alert, she’s our next interview next week. So

Lisa Jones: Oh, is she? You don’t care. When you mentioned her, when you mentioned you met her, was it inbox? Was it email innovation summit?

Garin Hobbs: It was. Absolutely.

Lisa Jones: Right. When we spoke and you mentioned that you met her and that you were compelled by her speech on inclusiveness and accessibility, I reached out to her the same day. And I said, I was just reading with someone and, Garin, I told her. And I said he was compelled by your speech so much so that it inspired me, and I wanted to reach out and connect. And she was like, oh, Lisa.

Thank you so much. I wanna say thanks, Garin, for connecting us as well because I love to be around other thought leaders in this area. So

Scott Cohen: This is the community. Right? This is the email community. It’s it’s what we do. It’s one love.

It is. Well, I mean, speaking of treating people right and giving them wonderful experiences, let’s talk about personalization, the buzzword du jour. Well, du decade of email.

Garin Hobbs: Yeah.

Scott Cohen: With AI coming into the picture with intense speed there, I’d read the this is a classic 3 part question. How important is personalization in video? How can personalization be achieved in video now? And then the ultimate question, how do you see personalization in video being delivered at scale?

Lisa Jones: Great questions. So let’s go back to the first one. The first one is say that again. What is personalization? How do I see personal look at personal one.

Scott Cohen: How important is personalization in email?

Lisa Jones: Alright. Let’s take that on. So personalization is important because it goes back to each one of us feeling special and empowered and that we matter because we do matter. So personalization is everything. If that’s the name, if that’s, a p s e PS is, believe it or not, still work in email in some cases.

Scott Cohen: Oh, oh my god. My last company that be before I came back to inbox army, it was every time we did a plain text email, which by the way plain text, ugly works. It works. It works. It works.

A PS every time because Yes. It it it would it was just like, where’s the PS? Oh, crap. I forgot the PS. Like, it yeah.

They work. They absolutely work.

Lisa Jones: Right. And we we all love our names. I mean, that’s something our parents gave us. That was that was given to us. So we take pride in that name for most of us.

We do. So personalization is everything because it it acknowledges who we are. Now let’s go to the second question. The second question is, Scott, remind me.

Scott Cohen: How can personalization be achieved in video today?

Lisa Jones: The way personalization can be achieved in video today is making sure that when you are now I’m thinking about it from the standpoint of this. When you’re creating the video and you’re a major brand, you’re not gonna say hi, Sam. Hi, Michael. Hi, Judy. It’s not gonna go to that level of personalization because I’m considering that personal as well.

But what you can do is to think about that segment of the market that you’re addressing so that when you’re sending out communications to different segments of your email list and you’re doing your split test, you’re thinking about what’s important to that particular segment that you’re reaching out to. So making it more personal to them. If I’m applying for auto auto auto insurance, and you’re sending me, let’s say a white couple with 5 kids and it’s it’s not personal to me. So what do you is that you, Garin?

Scott Cohen: It is.

Lisa Jones: But I melted on the head. That is too funny. Right. So you should be talking to me. You should know something about me.

Just say, you know, this is Lisa. She’s an African American female. Things about me that matter. So that when I receive that communication, it’s more tailored to my experiences personally. That’s my answer to the second question.

Garin Hobbs: Yeah. I could I can see some other examples that would probably be, really relevant as well. So, you know, different points in the customer journey, different automations as well. We see you’ve abandoned your cart. You probably have some questions.

Here are some of the most common questions that people have. Things of that nature, right, where we’re, to your point, not necessarily matching it up to the individual, but we’re personalizing it to the point in space and time in that customer’s journey and the things that are likely, most important and or most relevant to them.

Lisa Jones: Love it. Do you

Scott Cohen: Absolutely. Do you think because the third question was achieving personalization at

Lisa Jones: scale. Uh-huh.

Scott Cohen: People would argue scale is that 1 to 1. I I’m not a proponent of that necessarily because Mhmm. Let’s be fair. At some point, one to 1 is going to be, you guys know too much about me. Right?

Like, there’s you you can’t be the guy who owns the corner drugstore in the 19 forties anymore. It doesn’t work that way. I agree. But I’m but I’m curious as to where where the line is and would, you know, AI is doing video. I mean, there’s there one of my editing tools, I literally plugged in a script and it pushed out thing.

It sounded like me.

Lisa Jones: It did?

Scott Cohen: It was creepy. Yeah. I mean, it had stuff I’d done. It doesn’t have my delivery cadence and, you know, my dry sense of humor and stuff. I played it, but I played it for my wife, and she’s like, yeah, that sounds like you.

I mean, a little slow. I’m like, that’s not me.

Garin Hobbs: That is Oh, wow.

Scott Cohen: Right? It wasn’t my face, but I’ve also see like, I see, what was his name? Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn interviewed himself.

Lisa Jones: No. I have to

Scott Cohen: He plugged in. He plugged you can look it up on YouTube. He plugged in every single thing he’s ever written and talked about, like, he trained in his own model and then interviewed himself and actually had his AI interview him. It was it’s nuts. I mean, you can tell the difference a little bit, but you’re going like, Skynet’s here.

Lisa Jones: Yeah. I know. Skynet’s

Scott Cohen: But but I’m curious, like, where, like, will AI make it to you said, like, don’t put first name in the in the in the video. I totally understand that. But would we get there? And would it be at the speed of like, I think about automations. Right?

Oh, would I be able to have a personalized video that’s built and we just build the automation once and AI builds it and plugs in it, like, that’s the future. Right? I mean

Lisa Jones: Yes.

Scott Cohen: Where are we with that? And maybe I’m freaking myself out, and I need to calm down.

Lisa Jones: No. I I think all of that is coming. It’s gonna be a Jetson’s age for sure. It’s all coming, to life because I do believe at some point you’re gonna be able to have that personalized content per name and the videos automatically generated. I just recently, I’ve been talking to Microsoft and they set me up with the copilot.

Right? So I can learn and the team can learn copilot. So it’s still new to me, but there are so many avenues to grow and to learn. And as one Microsoft executive said, he said, AI is the what’s the word that he used? The slowest that it’ll ever be.

He called it the most stupid it will ever be. Now is what it is. So if it’s the most stupid now, what does that mean for our future? I think the sky is the limit. Might be Skynet.

I don’t know, but the sky is is big. It’s it’s it’s a lot that’s gonna happen.

Scott Cohen: We just need that one person who runs the kill switch. Right? I mean, I’ve seen some job postings around that. You get paid a half $1,000,000 a year, and you just need to know how to unplug things and pour water on it. And I go, that’s not a bad job.

Lisa Jones: Right.

Scott Cohen: And AI is probably taking notes on me right now going, he’s one of the he’s one of the first to go.

Garin Hobbs: Hey. I was swatting you at this very moment.

Lisa Jones: Yeah. Right. But it’s so it’s so exciting because it’s a it’s another part of our experience. It’s part it’s it’s helping also in human connection just to be able to self express yourself of how you feel about anything, and to personalize it. So I love it.

I also love chat GPT and being able to develop the content components as well. So, I mean, I, I believe in leveraging as many tools, be a lifelong learner and to experiment. Like I said again, you know, it’s okay to come out of the comfort zone and try things new. Some things are gonna work. Some things are gonna fail, but that’s okay.

All of that is part of the journey, and you keep moving forward and learning.

Garin Hobbs: Amen.

Lisa Jones: That’s I

Scott Cohen: you know what? That’s a perfect place to to call it. You know? I’m just we could just nerd out for another hour. But you know what?

I think this is a great place to start. Lisa, where can people find out more about you and about Imail?

Lisa Jones: Thank you. I would love for people to everyone to connect with me, so I can learn from you as well and our team. You can reach out to me at, LinkedIn. Let’s go with Lisa s Jones, on LinkedIn. And, of course, the company is Imail Inc.

That’s e y e m a I l I n c. You can reach out to us online as well. And Instagram is imail_inc. But would welcome the opportunity to engage, collaborate if we can help you or engage in conversation. We love talking all things email and imail.

We’re here for it.

Garin Hobbs: Fantastic. If you do not reach out to Lisa, you are missing out. Not only the genuinely nicest person in email, but brings the absolute most energy. It’s very clear that you absolutely love what you do, and we love what you do as well, Lisa. So thanks for taking some time to join us.

Scott Cohen: It’s it’s contagious. I’m feeling good on a Friday.

Lisa Jones: Oh, you both are the best. Thank you so much for making my Friday so much brighter.

Scott Cohen: Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us, Lisa. And thanks to you, our listeners and watchers, for tuning in. If you’d like to learn more about Inbox Army, check us out inbox army.com. Till next time.

Be safe and be well.

Garin Hobbs: Cheers all.
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