What Is The Best Way To Send Cold Emails?

Cold emails are different from other types of email.

This means that you need to send your cold emails in a specific way if you want to land in the primary inbox and receive responses.

In this article, I’ll show you the best way to send cold emails when doing B2B outbound sales:

- What is cold email?
- How is cold email different from other types of email?
- What is the best way to send cold emails?
- Do you need to use cold email software?
- Final thoughts

What is cold email?

A cold email is when you send an unsolicited email to someone that you have not previously had contact with.

Cold emails are usually sent in the context of B2B sales.

For example, if you are selling an enterprise SaaS product to hospitals, then you would want to make a list of hospital directors in your area, and send them all personalized cold emails.

A cold email is supposed to be personalized one-to-one communication (not spam). You want to make your cold email look like it was written just for that one recipient.

You should only send cold emails to business email addresses (like [email protected]); you should never send cold emails to personal email accounts (like @gmail.com), as this is illegal.

How is cold email different from other types of email?

Cold email is different to other types of email primarily because it is one-to-one communication.

Each cold email that you send should look personalized for that particular recipient.

This is very different from other types of email which often are not personalized.

For example, transactional emails are not personalized, as everyone receives the same email. An example of a transactional email is when you sign up for an account with an online service (like Facebook) and you then need to verify your email address. The verification email that you receive from Facebook is a transactional email, often sent from an SMTP provider, such as SendGrid or Mailgun.

I wrote an article that explains why you should never use an SMTP provider to send cold emails.

Another example of an email type that is different from cold email is newsletter email. Newsletter emails are sent to subscribers that opted into a newsletter’s email list. This is fundamentally different to cold emails that are unsolicited.

I wrote another article that explains why you should never send cold emails from newsletter software like Mailchimp.

To summarize the difference between a cold email and other types of email:

A cold email should look like personalized one-to-one communication. When the recipient receives your cold email, it should appear in their inbox like an email that they received from one of their work colleagues. It should land in their primary inbox (not their promotions, social or spam folders).

What is the best way to send cold emails?

The best way to send cold emails is by creating a professional email account with Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365).

You can then send your cold emails from your Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365) account.

A professional email account is associated with a domain, such as [email protected], you should never send cold emails from a personal email account (like @gmail.com).

The reason why using a professional email account from Google or Microsoft is best is because this will maximize your chances of landing in the primary inbox (not spam).

Google and Microsoft have the most trusted email servers (IP addresses), meaning that if you send your cold emails from their servers, then you are more likely to land in the primary inbox.

If you send your cold emails from an SMTP provider (like SendGrid) or a newsletter software (like Mailchimp), then your emails will go to the promotions tab or spam, since email service providers can see that your emails are being sent from an IP address associated with an SMTP provider.

Additionally, the only way to receive a high response rate when sending cold emails is to make your emails look personalized (one-to-one communication). If you send your emails from a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account, then your emails will look like they were sent from a real person.

If you send your emails from an SMTP provider (like SendGrid), then your emails will state “via sendgrid.net” next to the from email address, meaning that your recipients will think that you are sending the same email to other people, causing them to ignore your email.

Furthermore, SMTP providers and newsletter softwares don’t allow cold email sending on their platforms, as it’s against their terms of service, meaning that they will ban your account.

If you want to learn how to set up a professional email account with Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365), then check out my article How To Set Up A Domain & Mailbox For Cold Email.

On a related note, I recommend that you don’t use Zoho for sending cold emails since their IP addresses have a bad reputation. You can learn more about this in my article Is Zoho Good For Cold Emailing?

Do you need to use cold email software?

As mentioned above, when you send cold emails, you are doing so from your professional Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365) account.

However, I recommend that you still use a specialized cold email software (like Emailchaser) to ensure that your emails land in the primary inbox (not spam).

You can connect your Gmail or Outlook email account(s) to your Emailchaser account. The email sending is still happening from Google or Microsoft servers (IP addresses), but connecting to Emailchaser gives you access to lots of features that help prevent your cold emails from going to spam that aren’t related to server IP addresses.

I wrote an article that outlines all of the ways that Emailchaser prevents your cold emails from going to spam: 10 Ways That Emailchaser Prevents Your Cold Emails From Going To Spam.

If you are sending a low volume of cold emails, then you don't need to use a cold email software.

If you are sending a high volume of cold emails (100+ per day), then you need to use a cold email software like Emailchaser. The reason for this is that you need to use inbox rotation to scale your sending volume without going to spam. You can only use inbox rotation with a specialized tool like Emailchaser.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

The best way to send cold emails is from a professional Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365) account.

You should also use a specialized cold email software (like Emailchaser) to ensure that your emails go to the primary inbox (not spam). Emailchaser allows you to connect your Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365) accounts with just a few clicks.

If you are ready to start sending cold emails, then check out my article How To Send Cold Emails Without Landing In Spam - Beginner’s Guide. In this article, I show you step-by-step how to send cold emails the right way.