MCP

Dynamic media

TL;DR

  • If it appears at all, dynamic media is a later-sequence differentiator, never an opener.
  • The evidence base is thin — practitioner-reported, no independent corpus. Treat every claim as an experiment to rerun on your own numbers.
  • Media multiplies production cost per prospect; the Economics of personalization frame applies with a steeper cost line.

Personalized images (the prospect's name on a whiteboard, their homepage in a screenshot), short recorded videos, and per-prospect landing pages promise the strongest "a human made this for you" signal available. Visual prospecting as a discipline is Justin Michael's lane — Tech-Powered Sales (2021, with Tony Hughes) [1] treats media and the automation stack behind it as a core outbound skill set.

What the evidence supports

Be honest about the base: the case for dynamic media is practitioner-reported, with no independent corpus behind it — nothing like the large reply-rate datasets that anchor the rest of this module. Reported wins are individual campaigns and anecdotes. That does not make the tactic worthless; it makes it something you validate against your own results (Measurement and iteration) rather than adopt on faith.

Where it can fit

  • Later touches, warmed threads. A video or a personalized page lands best once a thread exists — a pattern break mid-sequence (Sequences and follow-ups), not an introduction.
  • Never the first touch. Embedded images and attachments in a first cold email add spam-filter weight — see Deliverability and compliance essentials.
  • High-value tiers only. A real video per prospect costs more minutes than a researched one-liner, which makes it bespoke-tier spend — reserve it for accounts priced accordingly.

If a segment-level version exists — one video for a whole segment rather than one per prospect — test that first: it keeps the pattern break and drops the per-row cost.

References

  1. Justin Michael & Tony Hughes — Tech-Powered Sales (book, HarperCollins Leadership, 2021)