Use This Play to Reconnect After Out-of-Office Silence

It’s vacation season. Have you stepped away for a few days yet?

I just had a long weekend at a lake in the woods, and while that was great, I’m happy to be back in the great indoors where the mosquitos can’t get me. 

Wherever your prospects are, we’ve got a play to give them a warm welcome upon their return from OOO so you never miss an opportunity to build that relationship. 

This week’s newsletter also has:

• Fresh Scoops to point you toward new sales opps
• Big AI news from around the web

Play by Play: Welcome Back

We’ve open-sourced our go-to-market playbook to help everyone sell smarter and win faster. Each month, we share one of these proven plays, including their description, triggers, actions, and message templates.

Out of Office Welcome Back

Don’t miss any opportunity to build rapport in the sales process. If a prospect’s out-of-office reply comes back from a drip campaign you’re running, set up a timely response with a welcome back message.

Using automation, drop any out-of-office leads into a separate sequence before resuming your drip campaign. The new sequence schedules a short, cheery welcome back email two days after the lead is scheduled to return to the office. Reps should immediately call once the lead opens the welcome back message.

Triggers

• Identify out of office (OOO) replies from email and associated date of return

Actions

• Start play upon return to office date if specified (otherwise wait 7 days)

• Send records to your CRM
• Assign to an Account Owner
• Enroll in OOO Welcome Back Campaign

Messaging

Subject: Welcome Back!

Body: Hi [first name]:

Hope you enjoyed your time off! I’m bumping up my previous email to the top of your inbox. I truly believe that the information I sent you can make a significant impact for you and your organization this year. Looking forward to hearing back.

With your success in mind, [sales rep first name]

This play, along with dozens of others AND the best signals to track, have been compiled into our new AI GTM Signals Library. ZoomInfo customers can open these plays directly in-platform and put them to work in real-time.

Ready to see it for yourself? Click here.

What’s the Scoop? Insights From Our Database

These Scoops are found in our GTM Intelligence Platform, sourced through customer surveys and the ZoomInfo research team. Have a solution that could help one of these companies? Throw your hat in the ring. And to find other Scoops that align with your product, here’s a free trial offer.

• Hilton is looking to purchase a solution related to expense tracking.
• Nordstrom could use a hand with competitive intelligence.
• Amazon wants to solve issues with network infrastructure.
• Mutual of Omaha is evaluating CRM solutions.
• Warner Bros. Discovery has shown interest in workforce training and development.

The AI Watercooler

Here’s some AI news from around the web that caught our attention:

Amazon Drops Another $100M on GenAI

Amazon just pumped another $100M into its AWS Generative AI Innovation Center to help businesses fast-track their AI adoption. The goal is smarter, agentic AI that can actually do stuff — think planning, decision-making, and execution. Big names like BMW and AstraZeneca are already on board and have moved from experimentation to full-blown deployment since the center’s launch in 2023. With this investment, Amazon is pushing its way into the agentic AI goldrush. And it looks like they just got a bigger shovel. 

$2B Says This AI Startup is the One to Watch

Thinking Machines Lab just launched with a record-setting $2B seed round and $12B valuation. At the helm: Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, joined by a dream team of AI talent (many from OpenAI). The startup’s goal is to build a human-friendly, multimodal, semi-open source AI. The AI will interact “through conversation, through sight, through the messy way we collaborate,” Murati said. Watch out ChatGPT: the sequel just might outshine the pilot. 

Delta Gives AI the Pilot Seat for Pricing

Delta plans to roll out AI ticket pricing on 20% of domestic flights by the end of the year (compared to 3% today). Their tool, built with Israeli firm Fetcherr, predicts what each traveler is willing to pay. These more personalized prices could benefit travelers by offering timely deals, but could also drive more price variability between passengers to increase revenue. 

Time will tell: Delta plans to pilot this program for 18-24 months to test impact on bookings, transparency, and customer trust. My question: does the algorithm know whether you’re a window or an aisle person?

Thanks for reading!

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