By Russell Cargill
Table of Contents
You can break down mass emailing to three main parts.
First, you have your recipient list. This is the list of email addresses you’ll be mass emailing to, which could be your customers, newsletter subscribers, or leads.
The second part is the email content. What are you going to send? Will it be plain text emails, images, links, or any other media included in the email?
Finally, or perhaps this should be decided first, which email service provider (ESP) are you going to use?
Here is a list of some of the most popular bulk email platforms:
But what is mass emailing best used for?
Honestly, it really depends. Some people think of mass emailing as cold outreach (emailing people who’ve never heard of you). Others think of sending mass emails as newsletters or product updates.
In this article, I’m going to focus on the “newsletter” aspect of mass emailing.
When sending bulk emails to a large list, there are a few things to consider:
- How do you make sure your emails actually reach the inbox and don’t end up in the spam folder?
- What’s the best ESP for you?
- Are there best practices you should be following?
- How do you personalize thousands of emails, such as using the recipient’s name and tailoring the content to their interests?
- Email regulations, like GDPR in Europe and CAN-SPAM in the U.S., to avoid any legal issues.
Choosing the Right Mass Email Platform
The right platform for you will depend on your goals. For example, if you run an E-comm store and would like to send email campaigns to a large list, Klaviyo will likely be your best bet.
As for newsletters, I think beehiiv is the best platform for that.
Here is what to think about when choosing the right platform for you:
- Templates: Is there a variety of pre-designed templates that can save you time and ensure that all your emails look the same? Or, can you design your own template easily?
- List Management: Is it easy for you to manage your list and organize segments?
- Automation: Are the automation features going to allow you to send emails based on user actions?
- Analytics: Do the basic analytics help you track your email performance and understand what’s working?
- Compliance Tools: Are there tools to manage consent, unsubscribe requests, and other regulatory requirements that are crucial for staying compliant with laws like GDPR and CAN-SPAM?
Most platforms will offer these features at a minimum which means, the biggest deciding factor for most users is often price.
It’s up to you to take the time and weigh your options based on your needs.
Limitations of Mass Emailing
One of the main limitations, or a potential downside, of mass emailing is deliverability issues. Depending on several factors, including domain reputation, not all of your emails will reach your recipients’ inboxes.
It’s not uncommon for emails, including newsletters, to end up in the promotion inbox or the dreaded spam inbox. Some emails may be blocked by the email provider altogether.
How and why does this happen, and how can you avoid it?
The most common reason is that emails are sent to invalid addresses.
As I mentioned before, a brand new domain would not have had the time to establish a sending reputation (think of it as a trust score), so mass sending can cause emails to bounce or not be delivered.
Here’s how to mitigate as best as possible:
- Choose a reliable Email Service Provider that has good deliverability rates.
- Regularly remove invalid or inactive email addresses to reduce bounce rates.
- Gradually increase the volume of emails sent from a new domain to build a positive sending reputation.
- Use tools like Google Postmaster to keep an eye on your sender score and take corrective actions if it drops.
Risk of Being Marked as Spam
Emails marked as spam will damage your sender’s reputation and reduce the chances of your emails reaching the inbox. This can happen if your emails are too promotional, contain certain trigger words, or are sent too frequently.
There are well-known best practices to keep your emails from being marked as spam. These are:
- Avoid using words and phrases commonly flagged as spam, like “Free,” “Buy now,” or “Limited time offer.”
- Mix promotional emails with informative and engaging content to avoid coming across as overly salesy.
- Ensure that your recipients have opted in to receive your emails to reduce the likelihood of them marking your emails as spam.
- Provide a clear and easy way for recipients to unsubscribe if they no longer wish to receive your emails.
Legal Compliance Requirements
Email marketing is regulated by laws such as GDPR in Europe and the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States.
To comply with these laws, you need to familiarize yourself with the specific regulations that apply to your audience.
I could write a whole article on legal requirements alone, but I won’t bore you.
In short, it’s important to obtain explicit permission from recipients before adding them to your email list, always include an unsubscribe link and a physical address in your emails, and regularly check for updates to email marketing regulations to adjust your practices accordingly.
Depending on where you live, there are likely to be other requirements you must adhere to. A word of warning, failing to comply with these laws can land you in some hot water and carry hefty fines.
Preparing Your Email List for Bulk Sending
The first thing you’ll do is clean your email list. To do this, start by removing any duplicate addresses to ensure each recipient only appears once.
Check each email address for proper syntax, ensuring it follows the correct format (e.g., [email protected]). Remove any addresses with invalid domains and look for common typos, such as “gmial” instead of “gmail.”
You can do this manually by downloading your list into a CSV file and then uploading it into a spreadsheet.
From there, you can sort, filter, and clean the data by removing duplicates, validating email formats, and checking for any suspicious or clearly invalid addresses.
This method is thorough but can be time-consuming. I have used ChatGPT for this in the past which worked quite well.
Alternatively, you can use an email verification service like NeverBounce or Hunter. These tools automate the whole process, saving you time and providing a higher level of accuracy. They verify the validity of email addresses, check for syntax errors, identify invalid domains, and even detect temporary or disposable emails.
Here’s a quick checklist for you below:
- Remove duplicates
- Check for syntax errors
- Remove invalid domains
- Use email verification services (e.g., NeverBounce, ZeroBounce, Hunter)
- Remove addresses with hard bounces
- Segment by:
- Demographic information (e.g., age, gender, location)
- Behavioural information (e.g., purchase history, website activity)
- Engagement levels (e.g., highly engaged, moderately engaged, inactive)
- Identify and remove/re-engage subscribers inactive for 6-12 months
- Ensure compliance with all relevant regulations (e.g., GDPR, Can-SPAM, opt-outs, privacy policies, sender identification) etc.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Email List Segmentation
It’s surprising how many marketers still struggle with the basic fundamentals of segmenting.
The most common mistakes I see are:
- Inadequate information about subscribers, including their demographics, interests, behaviours, or purchase history, presents a hurdle in effectively segmenting the list.
- Segments that are overly broad or generic, like “all customers” or “all prospects,” risk delivering messages that lack resonance with specific subgroups within the segment.
- Neglecting to regularly update segment data can create inaccurate or outdated segments over time, failing to align with shifting subscriber preferences and behaviours.
- Segments that are too narrow- creating what I call micro-segments- may condense the list making delivery of targeted campaigns difficult.
- Overlooking subscriber engagement metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, or purchase behaviour.
Why Trust Me? Russell, the founder of the InboxConnect marketing agency, has over five years of deep expertise in email marketing. Under his leadership, the agency has become known for innovative strategies with notable successes, including campaigns for renowned clients like Payoneer.
How To Send a Mass Email in Gmail
Let me start by saying, free Gmail accounts are limited to 500 emails per day, and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) users can send up to 2,000 emails per day. If you want to email a list larger than those numbers, you need to look for a more suitable paid option.
FYI: beehiiv allows you to send unlimited emails to up to 2500 subscribers for free.
Alright, so you’re just getting started with sending out emails, and you’re thinking, “Hey, let’s keep it simple and start small with Gmail.”
The simplest way to do this is to BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) everyone on your list.
Open Gmail and compose a new email as usual. In the “To” field, enter your own email address as a placeholder.
Then, in the “BCC” field, add all the email addresses you want to send the email to, separating each address with a comma.
Don’t do this manually, though. Head on over to ChatGPT, copy and paste in the emails and then prompt ChatGPT to separate each email with a comma for you. Then copy and paste that over to the BCC in Gmail.
Using a Contact Group
Create a contact group if you know you’ll email the same large group of people repeatedly.
Open Google Contacts. On the left sidebar, click on the plus sign next to “Labels” to create and name a new label (e.g., “Newsletter Subscribers” or “Team Members”).
Then, select the contacts you want to include in this group by clicking the checkboxes next to their names.
When you’re ready to send an email, return to Gmail, click “Compose,” and in the “To” field, enter the name of the label you created.
Gmail will automatically populate the field with all the email addresses associated with that label.
Using Google Sheets With a Mail Merge Add-on
You’ll need to use Google Sheets and mail merge add-on if you want to send personalized emails to a large audience.
Create a new spreadsheet. In the first row, label your columns (e.g., First Name, Last Name, Email).
Next, install a mail merge add-on. Click on “Extensions” in the top menu, select “Add-ons”, and then “Get add-ons”.
Search for a mail merge add-on such as “Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)” and install it. Once the add-on is installed, follow the prompts to link your Google Sheet to the add-on.
Compose your email template within Gmail, making sure to include placeholders that exactly match your column headers (e.g., ).
Return to your Google Sheet, click on “Extensions”, select your mail merge add-on, and follow the steps to start the merge.
Review and send your emails. The add-on will customize and send each email individually based on your template and data.
A little technical, but it will save you a ton of time and add that personal touch.
Tips for Avoiding Gmail’s Spam Filter
- Use clear and relevant subject lines that accurately represent the email content
- Limit the number of links and images in your emails
- Avoid overly promotional or sales-heavy language
- Optimize email formatting with a clean, professional template
- Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records
- Monitor engagement metrics like open and click-through rates
- Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive/invalid addresses
- Ensure you have explicit opt-in consent from all recipients before emailing
- Comply with anti-spam laws and email provider terms of service
- Use a reputable email marketing platform designed for bulk sending
- Set reasonable daily email volumes based on your list size
- Warm up IP addresses gradually rather than sending spikes of high volume
- Include easy unsubscribe options in your emails
- Avoid tactics aimed at bypassing spam filters through suspicious methods
How To Send Mass Email in Outlook
Using Outlook for your mass emails is quite similar to using Gmail.
First, make sure that you have a data source containing contact information, typically in Excel format.
I’ll link a video below that will walk you through it.
1. Prepare Your Data Source
- Open your Excel spreadsheet containing the contact information.
- Ensure it includes all necessary fields like name and email address.
- Remove any rows above the column headings.
Next, create the email content template using Microsoft Word.
3. Start Mail Merge in Word
- Open Microsoft Word.
- Go to the “Mailings” tab.
- Click on “Start Mail Merge.”
- Click on “Select Recipients.”
- Choose “Use an Existing List.”
- Navigate to and select your Excel data source.
- Confirm the location of your contact details.
- Ensure the option for the first row of data containing column headings is selected.
- Click where you want to insert a merge field.
- Click on “Insert Merge Field” and choose the appropriate field from your data source.
6. Customize Email Content
- Paste your email content into Word.
- Personalize it using merge fields, such as the recipient’s first name.
- Preview the content to ensure it appears correctly.
- Go to “Finish & Merge” in Word.
- Choose “Send Email Messages.”
- Select the email field for the recipients.
- Enter a subject for the emails.
- Choose the range of emails to send.
- Click “OK” to start sending emails.
- Outlook will send the emails one by one.
- Open Outlook and navigate to your sent items or outbox.
- Verify that the emails were sent successfully.
- Open one of the emails to confirm the personalization.
Incorporating Visual Elements in Bulk Emails
Visuals can definitely grab attention. Think about it, when you open an email, your eyes are naturally drawn to images or videos.
They can also help with branding. If you use your logo, brand colours, and consistent style, people will recognize your emails right away.
Visuals are also great for explaining complex ideas quickly. If you’re sharing data, for example, an infographic or chart can make it much easier to understand than a bunch of text.
Videos can be super powerful for demonstrating a product or sharing a message with a personal touch.
All positives so far, right? Well, like I said, there are a few things to watch out for.
One big one is loading time. If your images or videos are too large, they can take forever to load, and people might just delete the email out of frustration.
So, it’s important to optimize them to be as small as possible while still looking good. Also, make sure to include alt text for images, which shows up if the image doesn’t load. It helps with accessibility and can improve your email’s chances of not being marked as spam.
This way, people who use screen readers or have images turned off can still get the full message.
Here’s where it can get tricky. Not all email clients display images and videos the same way. It’s a good idea to test your emails on different platforms like Gmail, Outlook, and on both desktop and mobile devices.
And for videos, sometimes it’s better to use a thumbnail image that links to the video on a website, just in case the email client doesn’t support embedded videos.
If your email has too many images and not enough text, it might get flagged as spam. A good balance is key. The industry standard is 60% text and 40% image.
So, to sum up, using visuals can be really beneficial as long as you optimize them, test for compatibility, balance your images with text, and ensure accessibility.
Choosing the Right Time To Send Mass Emails
If possible, look at your past email data. When do people tend to open your emails the most? Maybe you noticed that emails sent on Tuesday mornings get the highest open rates.
If you’re new and don’t have much data, start with general trends. B2B emails tend to perform best on weekdays, particularly Tuesday through Thursday.
B2C emails do better on weekends or evenings when people are checking personal emails. You can check out this article here for more insights on send times.
I wouldn’t just stick to one particular time slot. I’d test different days and times to see what works best for your audience. Send one batch on Tuesday morning and another on Thursday afternoon, then compare the results.
Wrapping Things Up
At the end of the day, the key to successful email marketing isn’t spamming mass emails to every man and his dog.
It’s about providing value to your audience through insightful content, exclusive offers, or building a real connection with your subscribers.
That’s where beehiiv truly shines. beehiiv’s tools make it simple to craft beautiful, engaging newsletters that keep your readers coming back.
There are a bunch of other tools that’ll make your life much easier, such as:
- A powerful text editor that allows you to create your own templates
- Custom automation
- A referral program
- Unique monetization methods
- Detailed analytics
Plus, a ton of other awesome features.
With beehiiv, you have everything you need to start sending emails to your list. Best of all, there are no sending limits, even on the free plan.
By Russell Cargill
