👋Who this Clay guide is for

There’s a ton of video guides, hands-on tutorials, and mini-case studies already out there.

So this is not another one of those. Chances are, you’ve probably already seen a few (or a lot of them). 

However, folks I talk to (founders, marketing leaders, and sales folks) still find it difficult to apply it to their own use cases.

So this guide is an attempt to help you finally start using Clay 🚀and get some wins 🎉 from it… 

Without spending 3 months noodling around and zapping up all your free credits. đŸ™‚

🤖 How to think about Clay

It’s more important to understand how to think about Clay… than it is to be technically proficient at it.

You can always hire someone to build the table for you. But you can’t outsource the “brains” 🧠 behind it as quickly nor as easily. 

After all, you know your ideal customer best.

You can break Clay into 5 different parts:

 
1. Import the data from somewhere

For ❄️ cold outreach lists, there’s a few basic considerations here:

  • Ease (and size) of generating the list.
  • How well targeted the list is.
  • How well enriched the data is. 
Generally speaking, data providers like Apollo will be the easiest and get you the largest lists. So it’s a great place to start.
 
Scraping a more specific data pool 🎯 (Yelp, Clutch.co, Facebook groups, etc.) can yield better results, but you might also run out of viable contacts much sooner as well.
 
2. Enrich the data

What other data points do you need in order to effectively filter down and personalize your outreach? 

Clay provides access to dozens of enrichments that you can use – without being locked into 💵 expensive contracts with them. 

You can also “waterfall” enrichments, letting Clay check multiple data providers to maximize your chances of getting valid matches.

3. Do Research
This is where the ✨ magic ✨ happens for a lot of folks.
 
Claygent (and a few other tools) automates tasks that would consume a whole team of SDRs or virtual assistants.
 
In Clay, it only takes a few minutes to automatically qualify, pull blurbs, or do research.
 
4. Personalize the copy
With ChatGPT (and others), you can create personalized blurbs based on the auto-researched data from the previous steps. 
 
No need to 💼 hire “first line writers” on Upwork or have this consume your team’s time.
 
5. Export the data
Clay can automatically send your data to your outreach tool and CRM. 
 
By separating Clay into 5 distinct parts, it becomes a lot easier to sort through mentally 🤔. 
 

⏰How to get up and running (in a few hours)

Now it’s time to put it all together for your own table!

1. List all the steps of your current outbound process

Then nest each step under the 5 categories we just went over.

  • Import
  • Enrich
  • Research
  • AI Copywriting
  • Export
 
2. Knock out all the easy steps first

Clay makes a lot of things dead simple. 😃

  • Import/Export. Both of these can be done manually to start.
  • Enrichments. Most enrichments are plug-and-play.
3. Iterate on the more difficult steps. 

This is where things get a bit tougher. 🥲

  • Research
  • Personalized Copywriting

For these, you can use 🦾 ChatGPT to “work backwards” and provide you with the best prompts to give you the outputs you’re looking for.

Here is a prompt you can copy and paste to get started, but there are many others out there as well.

“I want you to become my expert ChatGPT Prompt Generator. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The prompt will be used by you, ChatGPT, to achieve the best results for my goals and objectives. You will follow the following process: 1. Your initial response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual iterations by going through the next steps. 2. Based on my input, you will generate 3 sections: a) Revised prompt when you provide your rewritten prompt. It should be clear, concise, and easily understood by you, b) Suggestions when you provide suggestions on what details to include in the prompt to improve it, and c) Questions when you ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt. 3. We will continue this iterative process, with me providing additional information to you, and you’re updating the prompt in the Revised prompt section, until it’s complete. Together, we will achieve the best results that will help me accomplish my tasks with the best possible result.”

⚡How to get up and running in a few minutes

If you don’t have the time to go through the steps listed above, then try the below:

  • Find someone who already figured it out and copy their approach. Don’t reinvent the wheel. 🛞
  • Use someone else’s shared Clay table and customize to fit. Worry about perfection later.
  • Hire a competent expert to do it. The fact that you can “speak Clay” will help them get it built out for you quickly. 

💰How to test Clay for a minimal cost

Here are some ways to keep things cheap while you’re testing:

  • Pre-enrich as much data as possible before uploading to Clay. 
  • Use APIs to connect platforms you’re already subscribed to. 🔗
  • Have your team fill in the gaps where an enrichment might be too costly to start. 

Clay has a reputation for being expensive, but think of it this way: Hiring someone to do this manually is much more expensive. 

✅That wasn’t too bad right?  

I hope that helped make Clay a bit more approachable! ❤️

Once you can mentally deconstruct Clay, your brain will start to connect new dots. 

You’ll begin to find new ways on how you can accelerate outbound, inbound, and existing customer relationships! 

🌪️Rather have it done for you? 

At Clay a la Carte – we build Clay Tables for you in 3 days, not 3 months trying to DIY. 

If you’d like to see a sample table (that’s customized to your needs), click here.