How to Send a Cold Email? Manual vs Automation

Sending cold emails is more than just typing a message and hitting “send.”

If you are new to it, you’ll likely wonder, “Should you send each email one by one, or use tools that automate the process?“

Sending one by one can be time-consuming, whereas automation may feel less personal. 

The good news is, there’s a right way to use both without hurting your chances of getting replies.

First, let’s get the basics right and know the meaning of Manual Sending and Automated Sending.

Manual sending is the traditional approach where a person personally researches a specific recipient, writes a personalized email for them, and sends it individually.

Automated sending uses a tool or software to send a large volume of cold emails at once, along with a level of personalization built in.

How To Send Cold Emails Using a Manual Approach 

Manual sending is an old-school way of sending cold emails and has been practiced for ages. It is practical and personalized, but also time-consuming if you have a large number of leads as your ICPs.

Let’s take a slow, step-by-step approach to understand how you can send manual cold emails smartly.

• Step 1: Research Your Prospects
• Step 2: Craft a Perfect Email
• Step 3: Always Use a Company Domain or Email Account For Cold Email Outreach
• Step 4: Follow up With Politeness and Persistence

Step:1 Research Your Prospects

When you send cold emails manually, you’re usually reaching out to a small, targeted group. 

That means research is your biggest advantage. The more relevant and personalized your outreach is, the higher your chances of getting a reply.

Before looking at prospects, define who you’re after. Your research should cover:

• Industry or niche
• Company size and location
• Decision-maker roles (title, seniority, department)
• Common pain points your solution solves

To go one step further, if you can invest 5 – 7 minutes per prospect, try finding these details,

For each prospect, jot down:

• Who they are and their role
• A recent trigger (e.g., funding, new hire, expansion)
• The problem they might be facing
• How your solution can help
• A possible angle for your CTA
  

This gives you a ready-to-use reference when you start writing the email.  

Quick Tips:

Create an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) list and update it frequently.

Step 2: Craft a Perfect Email

Once you have your list, it’s time to research your prospect.

The goal isn’t to send a sales pitch; it’s to start a conversation.

First, spend a couple of minutes researching your prospect. Find one small detail—a recent post, a job change, or a product launch to use as your hook. 

Next, select a subject line that sparks curiosity and is short and specific.

After finalizing a subject line, write a concise email body that feels like a real conversation.

Begin with a hook that demonstrates your understanding of their problem, followed by a brief explanation of how you can assist.

End with a low-pressure CTA—something like, “Would you be interested to know more? Instead of high-demand ask.

Step 3: Always Use a Company Domain or Email Account For Cold Email Outreach

For your manual cold email campaigns, always make sure you’re sending from your company domain (like you@yourcompany.com).

Professional email addresses generally have a higher sender reputation and are more likely to land in the primary inbox.

Step 4: Follow up With Politeness and Persistence

Most prospects won’t reply to your first cold email. It’s not always rejection—sometimes they miss it, sometimes they’re busy. That’s why follow-up emails matter.

A well-timed, polite follow-up can bring your message back to the top of their inbox and dramatically increase your chances of getting a response.

Don’t pitch anything new in your follow-up email. Follow-up emails should just be a friendly reminder of your previous proposed pitch.

Send your first follow-up about 3-5 business days after your initial email.

After that, send one or two more a week or so apart. If you still don’t hear back, it’s okay to let it go.

Sending a manual cold email is powerful. It works best when you want to build a deep, personal connection with a handful of key individuals. 

In this case, you can write a genuinely unique message. The result is often a warm, high-quality conversation—one that makes the extra effort worthwhile.

What do you do when your list of potential clients grows from a few to a hundred?

You need a way to take that same personal touch and turn it into a repeatable system.

This is where automated cold emailing comes in.

It’s the modern solution that lets you personalize cold email with a smart, scalable tool to do so for you.

How to Send Cold Emails via Automation?

Cold email automation is necessary when your lead list is growing slowly, making it challenging to personalize each email manually and follow up.

This is the part where automation comes in.

It saves human effort without even losing the personal touch.

Let’s understand each step in detail to launch your automated cold email campaigns.

• Step 1: Sign Up and Set Up Your Saleshandy Account
• Step 2: Add Prospect or Build Your Lead List From Scratch
• Step 3: Create a Personalized Cold Email Sequence
• Step 4: Set Up Your Automated Follow-ups
• Step 5: Schedule And Launch Your Campaign
• Step 6: Track Results and Tweak

Step 1: Sign Up and Set Up Your Saleshandy Account

Log in to your Saleshandy account and complete the onboarding process.

After that, you will be able to see the Saleshandy dashboard. So, you can now set up your account by adding your sender email.

Step 2: Add Prospect or Build Your Lead List From Scratch

After your account is set up, you can upload your lead list or use Saleshandy B2B Lead Finder to get a list of your prospects.

It has over 700M professional contacts from 60M+ companies globally.

As per your ICP, you can apply filters like Industry, Role, Company Revenue, Location, etc., to quickly find relevant prospects.

Once you have your cold email list, you can create your sequences.

Step 3: Create a Personalized Cold Email Sequence

While crafting cold emails, you can easily personalize your subject lines and messages and stand out by using merge tags, variable tags, and spintax to add a unique touch for each recipient.

Step 4: Set Up Your Automated Follow-ups

Once your cold email is drafted, add follow-ups within your sequence.

Follow-ups help increase the open rates of cold emails, and you can also schedule follow-up timings so that they run automatically without needing reminders.

Step 5: Schedule And Launch Your Campaign

Once you’ve built your list and written your sequence, you simply set your schedule and hit “Start your Campaign.”

The automation tool takes over from there, sending out your personalized emails and follow-ups exactly as planned.

It automatically stops the sequence for anyone who replies, so you never have to worry about annoying a prospect.

Step 6: Track Results and Tweak

After your campaign is live, check the analytics of your campaign.

You can check important metrics like open rates, click-through rates, inbox placement rates, and much more. 

You can also track issues in your campaigns, such as bounced emails or those landing in the spam folder. 

This data provides real-time insights to improve your outreach continuously. 

So now you’ve learnt both ways of sending cold emails, be it manual or automated ones.

But the real question is — which one is better?

Here’s a quick comparison between Manual and Automated sending to give you an overview –

Automation vs Manual — Which Is the Better Way To Send Cold?

If you’re just starting with cold emailing, reaching out to a small list, testing your emails, or simply figuring things out, manual sending is perfectly fine to begin with.

It’s low-cost, easy to understand, and gives you full control over every single email.

But once your list grows, your follow-ups multiply, and you’re spending more time copying and pasting than actually building, manual sending quickly becomes an issue.

That’s where automation steps in.

With a tool like Saleshandy, you’re not just mass emailing — you’re sending personalized messages at scale, timing them perfectly, and tracking every open and reply without drowning in inbox chaos.

It’s like having a super organized partner that never forgets to follow up.

FAQs About Sending Cold Emails

1. What is cold emailing, and how is it different from spam?

Cold emailing involves reaching out to someone you haven’t interacted with before for business purposes, such as sales or networking. Unlike spam, which is mass-sent, irrelevant, and often intrusive, a cold email is personalized, provides value, and follows ethical best practices to engage the recipient meaningfully.

2. Is cold emailing legal? Will I get in trouble for sending cold emails?

Cold emailing is legal if done correctly. In the U.S., the CAN-SPAM Act allows it as long as you provide an opt-out option, use a real sender address, and keep the subject line honest. In the EU, GDPR requires a legitimate business reason to contact someone and mandates an easy way to opt out. Following these regulations ensures compliance and prevents legal issues.

3. What is the best cold email platform to use?

The best cold email platform depends on your needs. Saleshandy is excellent for finding prospects, writing personalized emails on a large scale, and automating the entire sequence in a single click.

4. What should I include in a cold email to get replies?

A good cold email includes a personalized opening, a clear value proposition, and a simple call to action. Keep it short, focus on the recipient’s needs, and make it easy for them to respond. A compelling subject line and a natural, conversational tone can also improve engagement.

5. How many follow-ups should I send, and how often?

It’s best to send 3-5 follow-ups, spacing them out strategically, first after 2-3 days, then every 4-7 days. Each follow-up should add value, offer new insights, or reframe your message rather than repeating the same content. Consistency, while respecting the recipient’s time, improves response rates.