The struggle of sending an email to multiple recipients is painful. Whether it’s an email marketing campaign or a weekly reminder for your weekend party, sending individual emails to everyone is time-consuming and not practical for businesses.
Also, if you are not careful, your emails may land in spam folders or junk folders. That is why in this article we are going to discuss how to send emails to multiple recipients at once(without triggering the spam filters).
This hands on guide will help you to send bulk emails to multiple recipients in no time using common ESPs like Gmail and Microsoft outlook.
That’s why we recommend a powerful email outreach tool.
Let’s go through the step-by-step guide to sending mass emails in no time. But before that, let’s quickly take a look at what ‘CC’ and ‘BCC’ stand for when it comes to sending mails to multiple recipients.
How to Send Email to Multiple Recipients in Gmail
First of all, create a free email address with Gmail. Here is a step-by-step breakdown of sending mass emails through the Bcc field with Gmail:
Step 1
Once you open your Gmail account, click on the Compose button to open the email writing pop-up window.
Step 2
In the ‘Subject’ column, write the email subject line.
Step 3
Once you write the subject line, click on the dialog box below and write the email message.
Step 4
Now, go to the ‘To’ column and add your primary recipient’s email address. As you have multiple recipients, add the email addresses separated by commas.
Once you have added all the email addresses, click on the ‘Bcc’ button at the right corner of the ‘To’ column.
Add the primary recipient’s email address in the ‘To’ column.
If you have multiple addresses in your list of contacts, separate multiple addresses by commas.
Once you are done, click on the BCC button at the right of the ‘To’ column.
Important: If you want to keep your primary recipient’s email address hidden, go for the undisclosed recipient method.
If you are wondering how to do it, here’s a breakdown:
- Add your email address in the ‘To’ column as an undisclosed email recipient.
- Now add all the recipients in the ‘To’ field separated by commas.
Step 5
Now click on the ‘Send’ button or schedule it to send later.
How to Send Email to Multiple Recipients In Outlook
Now that you have learned how to send emails to multiple recipients with Gmail let’s see how you can do it with Outlook.
Step 1
Create an Outlook account/log in to your existing Outlook account.
Step 2
Click on the ‘New mail’ button on the top left corner of your screen, and the email dialog box will pop up.
Step 3
Now, click on the ‘Bcc’ button on the right edge of the ‘To’ column.
Step 4
Enter your primary recipient’s email address in the ‘To’ field. Now add other recipients’ addresses separating them by semicolons or commas.
Step 5
Finally, write the email content and hit ‘Send’ or schedule it for later.
Note: Your primary recipient can’t see the hidden email recipients, but the Bcc’d recipients will know that they have been Bcc’d.
1. Accidental Recipients’ Information Sharing
Personal ESPs such as Gmail or Outlook usually allow you to reply to all the direct recipients at once. If you are not paying close attention, you might hit the ‘Reply all’ button while replying to a single recipient’s queries.
This amazing feature will expose all your hidden recipients’ email addresses even if you have opted for the ‘Bcc’ field. This might draw serious repercussions on your business.
2. No Compliance with Internet Laws
Business emails must comply with regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, among others. These laws require proper handling of email marketing, including providing recipients with an unsubscribe option and adhering to opt-in consent rules.
While personal email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail and Outlook do comply with these laws by offering unsubscribe options and respecting user preferences, improper email practices can still lead to emails being flagged by spam filters. This can impact deliverability and reduce email open rates.
3. High Chance of Spam
Both Gmail and Outlook emails can be flagged as spam by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), potentially causing them to be routed to recipients’ spam folders rather than their primary inboxes. This reduces the likelihood of your emails being seen and read promptly by recipients.
4. Lack of Personalization at Scale
There’s no place for personalization in Bcc’d emails. You can only send a generic email to every recipient. This increases the risk of poor customer engagement and lower click-through rates and conversions.
5. No Analytical Data to Monitor Email Performance
Unlike dedicated email marketing platforms, personal ESPs often lack comprehensive analytical tools to track email performance metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This limits your ability to optimize campaigns based on actionable data.
6. Sending Limitations
Personal ESPs typically impose limits on the number of emails that can be sent per day, which can restrict the scalability of your email marketing efforts.
For example, Gmail sending limit varies by account type. Standard Gmail accounts can send up to 500 emails in a 24-hour period. Google Workspace accounts have a higher limit, allowing up to 2,000 emails in a 24-hour period.
How To Send Bulk Emails Using Email Automation Tool?
While there are plenty of email service providers available in the market via which you can send emails to multiple recipients individually – using an email automation tool can give you a competitive edge.
Take Smartlead, for instance—a cold email automation tool designed to streamline the process of sending bulk emails while maintaining a genuinely personalized appearance.
As a next step, let’s see how you can send bulk emails individually using Smartlead.
Step 1: Sign Up For Smartlead
To get started with Smartlead, you just need to sign up today. You can also explore the plans available on the site and choose the one that fits your needs and budget.
Smartlead also offers a free trial, so you can simply start your free trial and follow the below steps with us to send your first cold email campaign.
Step 2: Buy Secondary Domains
Secondary domains serve as valuable assets to complement your primary domain, enhancing your email outreach efforts. For example, for Smartlead, the secondary domains can be: smartleadgrowth.info, smartleadinfo.co, and smarterleaderemails.co, etc.
Why are secondary domains essential for sending bulk cold emails?
Firstly, they effectively distribute the email-sending workload, thereby enhancing deliverability rates. By spreading the volume across multiple domains, you reduce the risk of triggering spam filters and improve the chances of reaching your recipients’ inboxes.
Secondly, utilizing secondary domains helps safeguard the reputation of your primary domain. Rather than jeopardizing its standing by sending large volumes of cold emails, you can utilize secondary domains to mitigate the risk of potential blacklisting issues.
How do you know how many secondary domains to purchase?
Let’s say you need to send emails to 10,000 people and as per Smartlead recommendations, you’re limited to sending a maximum of 50 emails per address, you’ll require 200 email addresses (10,000 divided by 50) to achieve your goal.
It’s advisable to create only three email addresses per secondary domain. Therefore, divide 200 by 3, and you’ll find that you need approximately 66 to 67 secondary domains.
Similarly, if you’re contemplating sending 5,000 cold emails, you’ll need approximately 33 to 34 secondary domains and 100 email addresses.
For sending 1,000 cold emails, six to seven secondary domains should suffice, along with 20 email accounts.
Step 3: Add Bulk Email Accounts
Once you have purchased the secondary domains, you can go ahead and add them into Smartlead.
– Login to your Smartlead account
– Head over to ‘Email Accounts’ tab and click on ‘Add Accounts’
Step 4: Complete Email Authentication
Next, you will need to ensure that email authentication is done for all these accounts.
Email authentication primarily involves setting up the SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX record for the email IDs.
- SPF: Verified sender authorization, enhancing deliverability.
- DKIM: Adds digital signatures for message integrity and security.
- DMARC: Supervises SPF and DKIM, providing authentication guidelines and reporting.
- MX Records: Direct incoming emails to the correct servers.
Step 5: Warm-up Your Email Accounts
Warming up email accounts is crucial for cold email success, especially with new domains and large email volumes like 10,000 messages.
Ensure you warm up your new email accounts for a minimum of 2 weeks before initiating your campaign.
Step 6: Create a Lead List
Creating a lead list is made simple with a cold email tool that includes a contact list building feature.
For instance, Smartlead offers the Listkit integration, allowing you to effortlessly generate a targeted lead list directly within the Smartlead app with just a few clicks.
If you prefer using a separate platform for list building, consider the following options:
- Databases: These repositories contain comprehensive information about potential customers, including industry, contact details, company size, locations, and performance metrics. Utilizing various filters, you can search these databases to find prospects that match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Apollo.io is a widely used B2B database platform.
- Email Finders and Scrapers: These tools are designed to extract publicly available email addresses from the internet. Popular options include Clay, GetProspect, Skrapp.io, and Hunter.io.
Remember to verify your lists thoroughly before launching campaigns. Tools like Usebouncer, Bulkemailchecker, and MillionVerifier can help ensure the accuracy and validity of your contacts.
Next, upload the lead list in Smartlead.
From the main dashboard, click on ‘Email Campaign’ >> ‘Create Campaign’.
With Smartlead, you have two convenient options for importing your lead list – CSV or CRM.
Next, link each column in your CSV file to the corresponding dropdown option. If you have additional fields, such as “Custom First Line,” select “Custom” from the dropdown menu. This allows you to include specific information not covered by standard fields, ensuring your data is more personalized.
Once completed, you’ll be presented with a pop-up displaying a summary of your contact list, as depicted below.
Step 7: Create The Email Sequence
After clicking “Save & Next,” you’ll proceed to the next step: sequences.
Here, you’ll craft the email body, subject line, and establish the follow-up schedule for your cold email campaign.
When composing the email body, utilize the “spam checker” feature available on Smartlead. It will highlight words or phrases that could trigger spam filters.
Review the results and refine your email copy accordingly to enhance deliverability and engagement.
Step 8: Set Follow-Ups
You can also set-up automated follow-ups in every email campaign. In Smartlead, we recommend not following up more than three times.
Step 9: Choose Sender Accounts and Schedule The Campaign
Once you’re done scheduling the sequence, you can go ahead and select the email accounts from which you want to send these emails.
The schedule campaign setting will help you manage settings related to your campaigns. These include the time zone of your campaign, time period between sequences, etc.
You can also get a final review of your campaign and ensure that everything is accurate.
Why Should You Use a Dedicated Email Marketing Tool for Mass Emails?
It’s evident that personal email providers are not good for sending mass emails. There are many email marketing tools or cold email outreach tools, such as Smartlead, that work better in targeting your prospective audience than Gmail or Outlook.
You can send a larger number of emails, that too without having to use the Bcc method.
Here are the benefits of using a dedicated tool for your email marketing strategy:
1. Better Deliverability
As Gmail/Outlook/Yahoo are designed for personal usage, spam filters are more likely to mark mass emails sent from these platforms as ‘spam.’ On the other hand, dedicated email marketing solutions send bulk emails in compliance with internet laws, thus improving deliverability rates for your cold email outreach campaigns.
2. Campaign Analytics & Real-Time Data
Unlike Gmail and Outlook, email marketing tools offer in-depth email analytics of your email marketing campaigns. You get data on your email open rates, deliverability rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, etc.
You can also track the bounce rates of your mass emailing campaigns. Moreover, these tools offer real-time data to take immediate action.
3. No Need to BCC
You don’t need to “Bcc” your recipients; your email list remains hidden from the recipients by default.
4. Personalization
Email marketing offers full customization of email messages within a campaign. You can send customized emails to your prospects for better click-through rates and increased conversions.
Besides these, you can segment your contact list, send push notifications and newsletters, and make the emails mobile-friendly.