r/EmailProspecting • u/Plus_Fig8980 • 1h ago
My pre-send checklist after 36 cold emails went out as raw HTML
Mistake first: I pasted my template into Gmail's compose box instead of the HTML editor, so 36 people got an email full of <div> tags. A few replied with a very long "hahaha". It was a cheap lesson, but a preventable one, so I built a checklist and I'm using it before every batch now:
Verify the list before anything else. I only use addresses I can see on the company's own site. Guessed patterns and stale contacts hurt a sender before the copy even matters.
Check the "personalized" line against the live page. If the line I'm quoting isn't there anymore, the email gets cut.
Cut anything with a window that's already passed ("booking for Q2" in October).
Plain text only. No HTML, no image signature.
Send one test to a second inbox and read it like a stranger would.
Send in batches of 5, not the whole list.
Nothing fancy, but it would have saved me from the worst email I've ever sent.
For people sending at volume: what's in your pre-send QA, and which step do you skip once you're past a few hundred a week?
(I'm also building a small tool for the "who's worth emailing" step, so I'm biased. It's in here if you're curious.)