Why It Matters
Outbound email is how sales teams fill their pipeline. When done well, a targeted outbound campaign can generate qualified leads at a fraction of the cost of paid advertising. But it's a double-edged sword. Poor targeting, bad messaging, or excessive volume will get you flagged as spam and can even get your domain blacklisted.
How It Works
A typical outbound workflow looks like this: identify target prospects, find their email addresses (usually via LinkedIn or a data provider), write a personalized sequence of 3-5 emails, and send them over a period of 1-2 weeks. The key word is "personalized" -- generic templates that could apply to anyone rarely get responses above 1-2%.
Most outbound teams use dedicated sending domains (separate from their main company domain) to protect their primary domain's reputation. They also warm up new domains and IPs gradually before ramping to full volume.
Quick Tips
- Keep cold email volume under 50-100 per day per mailbox when starting out to avoid triggering spam filters
- Personalize at least the first sentence with something specific to the recipient, not just their name
- Use a separate domain for outbound so any reputation issues don't affect your transactional email