Use BCC When You Send Emails

I rarely ever send group emails, especially when trying to sell domain names to end user buyers. I think sending individual emails that are tailored to each recipient can help improve the open rate and can also help improve the sale through rate. I understand that it might be more efficient to send group emails though, and if you do, here’s one piece of advice: use the blind carbon copy (BCC) feature.

There have been a number of times that I received emails from people or companies, and the sender carbon copied (CC) recipients instead of BCCing them. There are two major issues with this:

Obviously, privacy is a major issue when the CC feature is used because everyone on the recipient list can see others who were emailed, and it may be an issue for some people, especially those vigilant about their privacy. It’s especially an issue when a domain industry company does it because it gives people a buyer list they might wish the spam. Most people are ethical in this business, but some people would happily tarnish their name to make a couple dollars.

The second issue is that people may respond to all, and when that happens, everyone receives their replies. Often, when someone has included hundreds of email addresses, other people will chime in and ask everyone else to stop emailing the list. You then have people who reply to those people to tell them that their emails are just continuing the annoyance. It becomes a frustrating time suck.

If you need to send a large group email, I strongly urge you to BCC recipients. This is especially the case when you don’t know the recipients, as it will certainly prevent you from closing a deal. It’s the right thing to do, and you will annoy fewer people if you use BCC.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

  1. Can’t wait for your next post about what is the ‘@’ symbol! 😀

    On a serious note: Keep the list of emails on a BCC under 10. Many web hosts will block bigger mass emails or tag them as a violation. Individual emails sent through an email client or a script that manages lists would take care of that issue.

    • What is common sense for you, me, and most of us, isn’t so obvious for many. I received two emails without BCC last week. One was a solicitation for a domain name (luckily nobody replied) and the other was solicitation for web development and SEO work, and many people replied. I had to set up a filter to trash all of those replies before they made it to my inboc.

      I agree with you on the # of people to BCC, even if they are people you often email.

  2. If you choose “Reply All” on an email containing otherwise “concealed” BCC recipients, all the BCC recipients will be revealed in the process.

    This is why the use of BCC is strongly discouraged for use in business and professional email – it’s a risky proposition that often blows-up on the user.

    Rather than copy someone on an email using “clandestine” measures like BCC, a better approach is to simply forward the email to that recipient – AFTER-THE-FACT.

    • This is not true. What would be the point of BCC if that was the case?

      You can view the source code of emails (if you have an email client that supports this feature), which definitively shows exactly what comes through and what doesn’t. The BCC recipient list does not show up to the recipients.

  3. There are two ways around not accidentally making this mistake. One is to use a mail merge add on for your email client. This allows you to personalize emails, too.

    The other is to quickly send individualized emails through buzzstream. I personally prefer using buzzstream these days for domain sale outreach as it keeps all of my historical correspondence and reduces the need for a massive amount of overwhelming spreadsheets.

    • You’d be surprised. I get a whole bunch of emails weekly from new domain investors who found me through my blog. I’d be happy to forward them all to you so you can see 🙂

    • One challenge for me as a blogger is to create content that interests people who do this all day every day, as well as to help/interest people who are looking to make a few extra dollars a week or whatever investing in domain names part time.

    • You do a great job creating content Elliot. I wish I had the capacity to write several meaningful and engaging blog posts a day, day after day after day. It’s a lot harder than people think.

  4. In my experience I have mostly seen the email goes to junk/spam box if sent through CC/BCC with mass number of email IDs at one time.

    I agree with you Elliot that using BCC feature is good but I prefer to send individual emails if I am trying to contact an end-user. Because I always mention their company name in every sales letter.

  5. I had a business trip to south america and our manager requested a profile on another professional. The report was sent to him and the person in question was copied as well, by mistake. If you work online, mastering cc, bcc, and all other options is vital.

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