Personalize outreach to improve your email campaigns

4 ways to personalize your outreach without losing scale

According to recent Fortune article, Insight Partners sends 300,000 emails annually to 65,000 companies. But here's the puzzle—how do you personalize at that scale?

CEOs get bombarded with generic outreach daily. Your message needs to stand out from the crowd or it gets deleted.

The volume problem

The article revealed more about Insight Partners' sourcing machine: their analysts estimate it takes around nine touches to break through to a potential lead. With 300,000 emails sent annually, that's a lot of follow-ups.

Here's my speculation: maybe those nine touches could be fewer if each message was better personalized. When you lead with generic pitches, you need more attempts to build trust. When you demonstrate real knowledge of their business upfront, conversations start faster.

Most successful email campaigns I've run rely on research and personalization. The question is whether you can do that at Insight's scale.

4 ways to personalize at scale

After running hundreds of email campaigns, here's what actually works:

1. Lead with specific company data

   • Reference their recent funding round, hiring surge, or product launch. Shows you did homework, not mass outreach.

2. Connect the dots to their business

   • Don't just say "we help software companies." Explain how you've helped similar companies solve their exact challenge.

3. Time your outreach to company milestones

   • Reach out after earnings, new partnerships, or executive changes. Your message feels relevant, not random.

4. Keep follow-ups varied

   • Each of your "nine touches" needs a different reason to engage. Share an industry insight, reference a mutual connection, or highlight a relevant case study.

The bottom line: Volume and personalization aren't mutually exclusive. Build systems that trigger research-backed outreach, not spray-and-pray campaigns.