For the love of email marketing, please stop doing cold outreach now!
Cold outreach refers to the process where you reach out to or contact someone via email who doesn’t have any connection with your business.
It could also be defined as the email equivalent of cold calling.
It is a process that is being used increasingly by new, and even long-established businesses, to try and generate new business.
Several tools are available that will use your Google Workspace or Office 365 account to automate the sending of these emails. No, I will NOT name them or link to them.
It depends on where in the world your business is based and where in the world your target audience is located. Beyond that very vague and broad definition, speak to a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, I don't pretend to be one, and I don't even play one on TV.
Regardless of whether it is legal or not, Mailbox Providers do NOT like it, and eventually, all cold outreach emails do go to spam.
It very much depends on who you ask. If you ask any of the companies that sell leads or provide the tools to send cold outreach, they will all tell you it is the absolute best way to generate new business.
As someone who receives a ridiculous amount of cold outreach email every single day, I can tell you for a fact that I have never, in all the many years I have received these messages, bought anything because of them. 99% of them go straight to spam anyway.
I am unaware of any in-depth studies proving the effectiveness of cold outreach.
Another name for spam is UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email).
So … Is cold outreach …
Unsolicited -- YES
Commercial -- YES
Email -- YES
Ergo … Cold Outreach = UCE = SPAM!