Why "Spray And Pray" Outbound Will Destroy Your Business

There's a type of outbound strategy that's incredibly popular right now.

It goes like this: send as many emails as humanly possible, to as many people as possible, and hope something sticks.

10,000 emails per month. 50,000 if you're really ambitious.

Blast your way to success, right?

Wrong.

This strategy will absolutely destroy your business, and here's why.

You're Burning Your Reputation

Every email you send is a tiny piece of your reputation.

Send a thoughtful, relevant email to the right person? You build credibility.

Send a generic, obviously automated email to someone who has no reason to care? You look like spam.

Now multiply that by 10,000 emails.

You're not "building brand awareness." You're training thousands of people to ignore you.

And once you've burned a prospect, you can't unburn them. They're done with you forever.

You're Destroying Your Deliverability

Email providers are smart. They know when you're sending mass generic emails.

When your open rates are terrible and your reply rates are non-existent, Gmail and Outlook start sending your emails to spam.

Not just for that campaign. For everything.

You'll spend months trying to fix your sender reputation, buying new domains, warming up new inboxes, just to do the same thing all over again.

It's a death spiral.

You're Attracting The Wrong People

Even if spray and pray "works" and you book some meetings, they're usually with the wrong people.

Because your messaging is so generic, the only people who respond are those who respond to everything. Tire kickers. People with nothing better to do. Prospects who will never close.

You end up wasting hours on calls that go nowhere.

What Actually Works

The opposite of spray and pray: targeted, thoughtful outreach to a small list of highly qualified prospects.

Here's what that looks like:

1. Build a tight ICP

Not "B2B SaaS companies." That's 10,000 companies.

"B2B SaaS companies, 20-100 employees, selling to enterprise, raised Series A in the last 18 months."

That's maybe 200 companies. Way more manageable.

2. Write copy that's actually relevant

You can't write one email that works for everyone.

Segment your list. Write different angles for different personas. Reference things that actually matter to them.

3. Send fewer emails

You don't need to email 10,000 people. You need to email the right 500 people.

Lower volume, higher quality, better results.

4. Focus on deliverability

Warm up your domains properly. Don't send 500 emails a day from one inbox. Set up your SPF/DKIM/DMARC correctly.

Do it right or don't do it at all.

The Bottom Line

Spray and pray feels productive. You're "doing outbound." You're sending thousands of emails. You're busy.

But busy doesn't mean effective.

You're better off sending 50 thoughtful emails per week to the right people than 5,000 trash emails to everyone.

Quality over quantity. Every single time.

If you want cold email campaigns that actually builds your business instead of burning it down, let's talk.