How to Quickly Send Mass Emails in Outlook?

Feeling lost while using Outlook for bulk emails? I get it!

It’s too hard to navigate.

In fact, I had high hopes that Microsoft could make it easier to send bulk emails in the new Outlook, but no luck.

However, since I’ve spent time exploring new and old Outlook, I can break down the process in a simple manner for you.

There are two ways ➜

1. High deliverability method (using email sending tool)
2. Low deliverability method (using Outlook)

If you ask me, I will recommend that you use the first method with high deliverability.

Still, I will explain both ways, and you can decide which one to go for.

Also Read: How to Schedule an Email in Outlook?

How to Send Mass Email in Outlook – Table of Contents

• How to Send Bulk Emails From Outlook (With High Deliverability)
• How to Send Mass Emails in Outlook (With Low Deliverability)
• Why It’s Not Recommended to Perform Bulk Mailing From Outlook Directly
• Now It’s Your Turn!
• FAQs

How to Send Bulk Emails From Outlook (With High Deliverability)

Every recipient is important.

Hence, your every email must land in the inbox.

When you are sending bulk emails from Outlook, there are chances that emails land in spam and eventually your account gets flagged by Email Service Providers (ESPs).

This happens because every ESP has its own email sending limits. 

To overcome this, you can try these three tips

1. Use multiple Outlook accounts and send bulk emails from them
2. Use mail warmers
3. Send personalized emails with dynamic intervals between successive emails

To automate all this, you can use Saleshandy (a cold email software).

Here’s how you can do this within 15 minutes,

• Step 1 – Sign Up and Connect Your Email Accounts
• Step 2 – Setup Your Email Campaign
• Step 3 – Upload Your Prospect List
• Step 4 – Launch Your Campaign

Step 1 – Sign Up and Connect Your Outlook Email Accounts

First of all, you need to sign up on Saleshandy. You simply have to enter your email address and verify it. It’s that simple!!

Now that you’ve verified your email address, you need to connect your Outlook email accounts.

To do that, go to the Saleshandy dashboard, 

1. Click on ‘Settings’ (gear icon) from the left column
2. Open the ‘Email Accounts” tab
3. Click on ‘Add Email Account’

Now, you will get a popup (shared screenshot below). 

You can select Microsoft and start adding your Outlook or Microsoft emails one by one.

If you have a lot of email accounts, then you can directly do bulk importing. Just click on STMP/IMAP and select Bulk Import via CSV.

You will then be guided through the bulk importing process. Here’s what it looks like.

Step 2 – Setup Your Email Campaign

Your email accounts are added. Now, it’s time to create your email sequence.

We have covered this process in the following YouTube video to make things easier for you.

Once you are done with creating your email sequence, you can move forward to the next step (of adding prospects).

Step 3 – Upload Your Prospect List

Now that your sequence is set up. You need to add your recipients to the sending list.

To do this, go to ‘Sequence,’ navigate to ‘Prospects,’ and click on ‘Import via CSV. ‘

Pro tip: To avoid mail bounces, you can use Saleshandy to double check your recipients’ emails when you are uploading the contacts.

Step 4 – Launch Your Campaign

When all the above steps are completed, take a final look at your sequence score.

Go to “Sequence” » “Sequence Score’. There, you can get a good summary of your email accounts, sequence setup, and email copy. It will also give suggestions to improve your overall sequence.

Make sure you try to give a green check to all the errors.

Once done, send a test email to yourself to check if everything is in place.

When everything is in place, you can activate the sequence.

How to Send Mass Emails in Outlook (With Low Deliverability)

Note: This process uses the “Mail Merge” feature to send mass emails from Outlook.

Here’s how you can do it –

• Step 1 – Prepare Your Email With the “Mail Merge” Feature in MS Word
• Step 2 – Set Up Your Mailing List in MS Excel
• Step 3 – Import Contact Details in Your Email Document
• Step 4 – Personalize Your Email With Mail Merge Fields
• Step 5 – Preview and Send Your Email

Step 1 – Prepare Your Email With the “Mail Merge” Feature in MS Word

To send bulk emails in Outlook, use the Mail Merge feature in Microsoft Word.

Start by creating a new Word document.

Go to the “Mailings” tab > “Start Mail Merge” and then “Email Messages.” If you are having trouble navigating this step, check the screenshot below.

You can now type the mail with appropriate placeholders in places where you will add merge fields in the next steps.

When your email message is ready, the next task is to set up recipients.

Step 2 – Set Up Your Mailing List in MS Excel

To add contacts to your mailing list, you need to create an Excel spreadsheet and fill in your recipient data.

Start by creating a Blank Workbook in Excel.

In the sheet, name the columns based on your data, such as ‘First Name’, ‘Email’, or ‘Company’. 

Then, add the data points to the spreadsheet under the respective headers.

Check the following screenshot for reference.

Once done, go to “File” and “Save” your spreadsheet. After this, you need to connect the sheet with your Word email document.

Step 3 – Import Contact Details in Your Email Document

Now, go back to your email document. In the “Mailings” tab, go to “Select Recipients”, and then “Use an Existing List” (as shown below).

Now select the Excel document that you created in the previous step.

Step 4 – Personalize Your Email With Mail Merge Fields

Here comes the crucial part. To personalize your email, go to “Inset Merge Field”.

The system will automatically pick fields from the column headers. You can use these elements to replace the placeholders (as shown in the following example).

Make sure you don’t miss type any merge field, or else your recipient might get an email like this.

Step 5 – Preview and Send Your Email

Now that your email is all set up with text, merge fields, and recipients.

The next step is to do the final testing and then send!! 

To check the preview of the email, click on “Preview Results” in the “Mailings” tab.

You can check the test results for different recipients by clicking on next. Here’s how the email preview will look like.

If you’re happy with the preview, you can move forward to the sending part.

For that, go to “Finish & Merge” in the “Mailings” tab and select “Send Email Messages”.

You will get a popup which will give you the option to select the column header that contains the emails of the recipients in the “To” field.

You can also add a subject line (please note that the subject line will be common to all the recipients).

After that, click “Ok”. 

Now, check your Outbox. You will see all your emails being sent.

Why It’s Not Recommended to Perform Bulk Mailing From Outlook Directly?

No doubt, sending emails from Outlook is convenient.

But sending “mass” emails? No!!! It’s a tedious and unreliable process.

I’ll tell you the main disadvantages of using Outlook for mass emailing.

Strict Daily Email Sending Limit

The first limitation of using Outlook for bulk mailing is that it caps the number of emails you can send daily.

Along with that, you can add a maximum of 500 email recipients in a day.

If you are not planning to send emails heavily, then it’s not a big issue. 

But if you plan to extensively experiment with email outreach, then this limitation is troublesome.

Lack of Advanced Email Personalization Features

When you are scaling, making your emails personalized becomes more and more difficult.

And, Outlook does not have features that can make your email more personalized for each recipient.

Though Outlook’s ‘Mail Merge’ feature allows you to personalize your email with merge tags, that’s it.

When it comes to adding dynamic content like tailored product recommendations or interactive content to your emails, Outlook bails out on you.

For complex (but necessary) personalization requires sophisticated email outreach tools that are specially designed for this purpose.

Manual Email Tracking & Follow-Up

Another serious disadvantage of sending bulk emails from Outlook is that you have to take follow-ups manually and track performance.

Forget about the tedious process of taking personalized follow-ups. 

The most hopeless part is that you don’t know how your emails are performing.

Are your recipients opening them? Are they clicking on your links? 

Let’s say you’ve sent 5 variants of an email to 500 prospects, how will you know which version got the most engagement?

Unfortunately, Outlook doesn’t provide any tracking or analytics features.

Unless you have specialized email outreach software, you will have problems with automating the follow-up process based on recipient behaviors.

Low Email Deliverability

Outlook is designed for simple email conversations. If you use it to email blast your audience, then it won’t give you the desired results.

For example, if you start sending mass emails from Outlook, there is a chance that other ESPs will identify your pattern and throw your emails into a spam folder.

If this continues, your sender reputation will get a serious beating, and it will ruin your email deliverability.

In short, the more emails you send using Outlook, the higher the chances of your emails landing in the spam folder. 

No Opt-Out Mechanism

If you are sending bulk emails, you need to provide a built-in opt-out or unsubscribe mechanism.

It’s not just about being courteous; it’s actually a legal requirement under laws like the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S. and GDPR in Europe to offer a clear and easy way for recipients to unsubscribe from your emails.

Since you are using Outlook, you will have to manually manage all the out-out requests (which is time-consuming).

PS. Neglecting to honor these requests promptly can damage your brand reputation and even lead to legal issues.

No Time Interval Between Emails

Another serious flaw of Outlook is its inability to set a time interval between emails.

Sounds insignificant, right? But in reality, it makes a huge difference when you are sending a large volume of emails.

In fact, if you start sending bulk emails suddenly, it will trigger spam-detecting algorithms. 

As a result, the Email Service Providers (ESPs) will start throwing your email into spam which will lead to ruining your sender’s reputation.

Email outreach tools, on the other hand, automatically set specific time intervals between each sent email to avoid triggering spam triggers. Unfortunately, Outlook lacks this feature.

High Risk of Getting Blacklisted

What’s the worst that can happen?

Well, if you insist on sending bulk emails from your Outlook account (which is considered a bad practice), you will end up getting blacklisted by ESPs.

If your email account gets blacklisted, your emails (including important ones) will land in the spam folder, or worse, not get delivered at all.

This can affect your ability to communicate with your recipients unless you get another email or a new domain. But it’s a costly method.

Though there are ways to avoid getting blacklisted, it’s a long and complicated process. So, it’s best to avoid getting your Outlook account blacklisted in the first place.

Check out the next section if you still intend to send mass emails through Outlook.

Now It’s Your Turn!

And there you have it! 

Now you have an idea of the following items,

• The smart way to send mass emails from Outlook (from Saleshandy)
• The traditional way to send mass emails from Outlook itself
• Problems in sending mass emails from Outlook

FAQs

How to send a mass email to a group in Outlook?

To send emails to multiple recipients using Mail Merge in Outlook, you’ll need to create a contact list in an Excel spreadsheet, access the Mail Merge feature in Outlook, write your email message, insert merge fields, and send your email messages.

How many BCC emails can you send in Outlook?

Free Outlook email accounts have a daily sending limit of 300 emails daily, while Microsoft 365 accounts have 10,000 emails daily. (Also note that you can only mail to 500 contacts at max)

How to send bulk emails in Outlook without spamming?

To mail merge from Excel to Outlook, you need to follow these steps:

• In Excel, create a sheet with columns for all the data you want to merge like first name, last name, email, etc. This will be your data source.
• In Outlook, go to Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard.
• Select Letters as the document type and click Next.
• Select “Use an existing list” and browse to select the Excel sheet you created. Click Next.
• If prompted, select the worksheet with your data. Click Next.
• Insert merge fields from Excel into your email body by clicking More Items > Insert Merge Field > [Field Name].
• Click Next to go through the wizard, preview the merge results, and complete the merge.
• When ready, click Finish & Merge > Send Email Messages.

How to send bulk emails with individual names in Outlook?

First, you need to access the merge mail feature and then import names from Excel. This way, you can add individual emails with the help of the mail merge fields. I have covered this step by step here.

How to hide recipients from mass email in Outlook?

If you are using the mail merge feature, then it will hide recipients by default. In case you are sending mass emails from Outlook directly, then you will get an option to opt for hiding recipients.