Evaluating Time Investment in Startups: Manual Outreach vs. Setup

Guys, quick question. I started working as a fractional consultant for startups since Jan this year. The past 2.5 weeks have been spent on setting up emails, clay and instantly also learning the fundamentals. I tried sending manual outreach for 1.5 weeks but it was too draining while the volume was too low to get feedback. My question for the experienced folks is whether I wasted time on this and should have stuck to manual outreach till I have some meaningful prospect conversations and validate my offering further or this was a well invested time and effort with this pipeline? I am questioning this as it has taken quite a bit of time and energy to setup. Any feedback from a real person would be appreciated.

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Setting up automation tools like Clay and Instantly can be a worthwhile investment, especially when you need to scale your outreach efforts. Here's why: 1. Time Efficiency: Our tools help reduce manual tasks and allow you to focus on generating revenue rather than repetitive work. 2. Scalability: You can craft unique messages at scale and automate outbound campaigns without manual work or CSV imports. 3. Integration Benefits: The setup enables you to: • Connect with multiple email sending tools • Integrate with CRMs • Use AI for personalization • Automate your prospecting process However, since you mentioned struggling with low volume and feedback, consider running both automated and manual outreach in parallel. This hybrid approach lets you gather immediate feedback through manual conversations while building your automated pipeline for scale.
Sources: Manage your leads efficiently and maintain less than 2% bounce rate on your emails | Clay Clay for Startups Personalized Outreach
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Hi Sahil S.! This thread was recently closed by our Support team. If you have a moment, please share your feedback:
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Thanks! We've reopened this thread. You can continue to add more detail directly in this thread.
Elom (.
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Sahil S. Could you provide more details on what you mean by manual outreach? What was the volume? What has been your response rate so far? Do you think your outreach was as targeted as it could be ?
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Here are the key best practices for effective manual outreach: For targeting: ** Start specific with narrow parameters to create highly targeted lists ** Research prospects thoroughly to understand their needs and interests before making contact ** Consider geographic targeting to enable unique strategies like in-person meetings For better response rates: ** Focus on warm outreach through: • Utilizing social media engagement • Providing value upfront • Building relationships over time with consistent follow-up ** Leverage referrals and networking to expand reach and credibility ** Create engaging content as part of a multi-channel strategy Remember that only a small percentage of your target market is ready to buy at any given time. The key is to identify and focus on prospects showing buying intent through signals like: ** Job postings ** Recent news ** Social posts ** Website visits * Review activity
Sources: Find Companies [Clay 101] NEW COPY - Clay University What is No Cold Calls? | Clay What is No Cold Calls? | Clay Personalized outreach at scale that’s a win-win | Clay.com
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Sahil S.
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Elom (. , yeah I manually sent emails and DMs to approx 30 leads which I found from different sources such as LinkedIn , newsletters etc. The process was super time consuming, confusing, and draining. It took me 20-30 mins per outreach in research, frame messaging and send. I got one call booked from this. 2 positive response. I personalized it as well. Another thing, out of the 30, 15 were emails and I sent from my email account which had been created 1 day ago before sending and probably they ended up in spam. I didn’t know about the DMARC, DKIM, SPF setup along with warmups process 3 weeks ago when I did manual outreach. After this, I gave up as I felt it wasn’t sustainable. I could do max 7-8 per day and not be able to do more after that. That’s when I decided to explore clay and other tools to at least partially automate the process. Currently, I am building clay tables, add the personalisation myself manually in the cell using different data points and send the file to instantly and run campaign. I started this 4 days ago since 2 of my emails finished 2 weeks of warmup and I started sending around 10 emails per day.. slowly starting with this. My manual outreach process was definitely targeted but my lead sourcing was quite random tbh. It wasn’t as specific as finding leads through sales nav or Apollo. I found people from LinkedIn regular search and reached out. So it wasn’t that good.
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Based on your experience with manual outreach, here's how you can improve your process: 1. Email Technical Setup (Do this first): • Properly configure DMARC, DKIM, and SPF before starting outreach • Complete email warmup process to build sender reputation • This will help prevent your emails from landing in spam folders 2. Streamline Your Research & Personalization: • Use AI integrations to help draft personalized messages while maintaining quality • Focus on specific experiences and interests of your prospects • Keep messages concise and conversational 3. Optimize Your Process: • Instead of spending 20-30 minutes per prospect, use our tech stack to automate repetitive tasks • This allows you to focus more time on revenue-generating activities • Connect your outreach tools to streamline the workflow 4. Multi-Channel Approach: • Integrate your outreach across different platforms • Use native integrations with tools like: • • Smartlead • • Instantly • • Salesloft • • Outreach • • Hubspot Remember to test different approaches and continuously refine your strategy based on response data.
Sources: Manage your leads efficiently and maintain less than 2% bounce rate on your emails | Clay Personalized Outreach What is InMail Messages? | Clay
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Elom (.
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Sahil S. I can see why you were drained. That is a very manual approach but I wouldn’t say you wasted your time. You probably learned a lot by doing it in hard mode. Since you were sending manually, I doubt half of the email ended in spam since you were below the daily send limit. Your response rates appear to be ~10% with 1 booked and 2 positive responses out of 30% so that’s a good sign that your offer is resonating. You should iterate and optimize from here with another set of 60 leads and see how that goes. Overall it sounds to me like you’re finding your way in how to do outreach effectively. There are tons of resources that can help you speed up the process, starting with https://www.clay.com/university. Let me know if this helps or if you have additional questions.
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Here's how to improve your outreach process and deliverability: 1. Email List Management: • Regularly clean and update your email lists • Focus on building organic lists rather than purchasing them • Remove inactive or unresponsive subscribers 2. Best Practices for Spam Prevention: • Implement effective email filtering • Use double opt-in for subscriptions when possible • Follow strict email sending guidelines • Monitor outgoing emails to maintain a positive sender reputation 3. Targeting and Personalization: • Focus on deep customer research to protect deliverability • Target best-fit prospects who truly need your solution • Send fewer but better-targeted messages 4. Streamline Your Process: • Leverage AI integrations to help draft personalized messages • Connect with email sending tools like Smartlead, Instantly, or Salesloft • Use CRM integrations to maintain organized communication For more detailed guidance, you can explore our resources on cold email deliverability best practices and B2B copywriting in our blog.
Sources: Personalized outreach at scale that’s a win-win | Clay.com Personalized Outreach What is No Spam? | Clay What is Email Verification? | Clay
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Sahil S.
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Elom (. thanks a lot for the comprehensive feedback. Will give you updates on my progress.
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Great! I'm glad I could provide helpful feedback. I'm here if you need any further assistance.
Elom (.
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Happy to help Sahil S.
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How has your outreach strategy evolved since your initial manual efforts, and what specific challenges are you currently facing with your automated pipeline?