Outbound Email Doesn’t Work Anymore. You Need to Do It Anyway.

Published on

August 11th, 2024

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Nathaniel Houghton

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Cold email worked so well that technology evolved to make cold email incredibly easy to do, which in turn destroyed the effectiveness. But after rapidly experimenting with several approaches, we conclude that cold email should not be abandoned.

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Anyone who has ever worked with me knows that I’m an outbound believer. It fits me well: I’ve long preferred big, aggressive, direct sales approaches to long-term marketing investments and (what I used to derisively call) “waiting for the phone to ring.”

Incendium, the growth studio that I founded, was created to help early-stage companies with growth & go-to-market operations. But it’s no surprise that we became an email shop. Over the last 8 years, we’ve worked with hundreds of companies, usually by sending mass outbound to book meetings for their sales teams. From the moment the pandemic hit, it was the best shortcut in B2B marketing.

But last year, something started to change. We initially chalked it up to some inbox algorithm shifts and a slower VC funding environment. But we made adjustments, and performance remained low into 2024. We realized that something bigger was happening. Cold outbound email had eaten itself.

The first domino to fall was mass availability of contact information from 2010 through 2021. When everyone has access to everyone else’s email address at ~$0 on the margin, one huge barrier to doing outbound fell. You can thank LinkedIn and ZoomInfo for opening the door and Apollo for kicking the whole thing down.

In late 2023, something else happened, which was the mass availability of dozens (hundreds?) of point solution AI tools that made writing outbound emails (or anything else) entirely frictionless. Cold email worked so well that technology evolved to make cold email incredibly easy to do, which in turn destroyed the effectiveness of cold email thanks to volume. The problem isn’t delivery rates or poor targeting (at least not any more than these things were problems in 2021). The problem is that prospects are interacting with their inboxes in an entirely different way. They know what cold emails are and they know that it is now socially acceptable to not respond to them (or worse).

So it is true to say that cold email doesn’t work anymore, at least not to drive direct responses and meeting requests. But after rapidly experimenting with several approaches, we conclude that cold email should not be abandoned. In fact, I’m convinced more than ever that it remains a crucial strategy for businesses, especially early-stage companies, and those who cast it aside as a broken channel will quickly fall behind their peers.

What experience suggests after the past year is that founders, marketers, and other B2B leaders need to recalibrate what cold email accomplishes for them. It is no longer a hack or shortcut, but it is still the foundation of a mature growth strategy involving multiple channels, thought leadership, and at its fullest potential, community.

The Changing Landscape of Outbound Email

[Cold email] is no longer a hack or shortcut, but it is still the foundation of a mature growth strategy involving multiple channels

As described above, by the middle of 2023, we were beginning to hit a tipping point. Inboxes reached a level of saturation that we hadn't seen before. The volume of cold emails increased, while their quality decreased. Mass availability of contact information and easy copy creation led to an order of magnitude more messages filling inboxes, causing recipients to become more discerning and less responsive. The days of sending out a high volume of generic emails and expecting results were over.

However, despite the changing dynamics, I noticed something interesting: people were still interacting with these emails. While response rates might have dropped, open rates and click-through rates (CTRs) remained surprisingly robust. This indicated that while responses decreased, the demand on the other end of the line remained the same (if you know where to look).

Outbound Still Matters

A response today doesn’t just indicate curiosity. It’s stronger and probably means the prospect is ready to buy.

Even before the pandemic response rate spike, the highest and best use for cold email was never to drive immediate sales; cold email has always been about identifying potential leads and understanding their needs.

I was surprised to find in looking through old blog posts that this isn’t very different from what we have always believed. I actually wrote about this in Incendium’s first blog post in 2020 – well before the crash. Even when outbound email was at the top of its game, it was best used not to persuade prospects, but rather to naturally reveal those that already have some interest in a brand. The signals have changed, but the underlying principle remains the same.

In the past, a positive response to an outbound email often meant an immediate interest in taking a sales meeting. Today, those signals are subtler. An opened email or a link click can provide valuable insights into a prospect's interests and pain points. And a response today doesn’t just indicate curiosity. It’s stronger and probably means the prospect is ready to buy. By analyzing these interactions, we can tailor our follow-up strategies to better address their needs.

Now is the Time to Layer in Thought Leadership & Community Building

Today, buyers are doing more research before making a purchase decision... This shift necessitates a focus on thought leadership in parallel to any outbound tactics.

As marketing channels have evolved, our thinking on multichannel approaches have as well. If we take cold outbound email for what it is– a tool for discovery– that leaves us with the question of what to do with the prospects that we discover have interest but aren’t ready to make a buying decision. In a world where more prospects would respond directly to email marketing, these were nice-to-have strategies. Now, they are essential.

Today, buyers are doing more research before making a purchase decision. They seek out information, read reviews, and consume content to educate themselves about potential solutions. This shift necessitates a focus on thought leadership in parallel to any outbound tactics.

By positioning yourself as an expert in your field, providing insights, sharing industry trends, and offering solutions to common problems, you build credibility and trust with your audience. When prospects are ready to make a decision, they're more likely to turn to a company they perceive as knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Expertise alone isn’t the only way to build trust, however. Buyers want to feel connected to the brands they engage with. They seek out communities where they can learn, share experiences, and gain insights from others facing similar challenges. Building a community around your brand creates a space for these interactions and keeps them connected to your company throughout the (potentially lengthy) time between being aware and being ready to buy.

Don’t fight long sales cycles. Own the process throughout. This means going beyond just having a presence on social media or a company blog and actively engaging with your audience, fostering discussions, and providing value through various channels.

The New Approach: Outbound + Thought Leadership + Community

This new combination of plays has yielded some of the strongest top of funnel demand for Incendium that we’ve ever had.

The bad news is that we’re no longer in a world where you can choose one strategy. All of the above is required. Here's how we do it:

Outbound Email for Discovery: Outbound email remains our primary tool for discovering potential leads. We use it to identify prospects who show interest through subtle engagement signals like opens and clicks. By analyzing these interactions, we can segment our audience and tailor our follow-up messages accordingly, often using other channels like calling or LinkedIn.
Thought Leadership for Education: We create and share content that educates our audience on industry trends, best practices, and solutions to common challenges. For our team specifically, this includes Incendium’s MadeIt Podcast and YouTube channel, blog posts, weekly webinars, and other online events, and regular posting on our company LinkedIn page and my personal page (I refer to the latter as eating my vegetables since I’m not naturally inclined to be active online). Altogether, this helps to position us as experts and builds trust with our prospects.
Community Building for Engagement: Incendium hosts our own community on Circle for B2B professionals, plus two others for founders and customer experience leaders. In these groups, we post job boards, encourage discussions, host virtual events and in-person meetups, answer questions, and provide a platform for our audience to connect over all sorts of topics.

We've seen firsthand how this approach can drive success even in a saturated inbox environment. This new combination of plays has yielded some of the strongest top of funnel demand for Incendium that we’ve ever had– even before cold email alone stopped working. And we’ve seen similarly impressive results for the clients of ours that are bold enough to try something new. So, don't give up on outbound email. Instead, enhance it with thought leadership and community building, and you'll find that it still has a vital role to play in your business growth.

Nathaniel Houghton is the co-founder of Incendium, a digital hub & studio for B2B demand generation. Incendium is an Inc 5000 honoree and has worked with hundreds of B2B companies including groups backed by Bessemer, Accel, a16z, Greycroft, Founders Fund, Hustle Fund, 500 Startups, Y Combinator, and more. Nate has experience as a founder, sales leader, and investor as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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