I'm planning to send short emails to e-com shop owners telling them their email ecosystem is leaving money on the table, then offer a Loom video showing specific improvements (pop-ups, welcome emails, etc.). Should I send the customized Loom video in the first email, or first ask if they want it and only record for people who reply positively, so I can scale better?
I've seen this exact tension a lot — people trying to make a scaling decision before an effectiveness decision. Always validate effectiveness first, then worry about scaling. You can't send thousands of fully custom Looms a day, but you can send maybe 100-300 over 4-5 days, see who responds positively and jumps on a call, and use that as proof the approach works. Once you've validated it, then you look for ways to templatize it — maybe you find a way to only customize the first few seconds and stitch the rest together with something like FFmpeg, turning it into a scalable process. That's the core friction in outreach with custom video right now: do you send the Loom, which takes forever and probably won't get watched, or do you ask first and risk it feeling less genuine ('you didn't actually record this for me')? How well asking-first scales really depends on the sophistication of your market. But start by proving effectiveness before optimizing for scale.
loom videosscaling outreachvalidation before scale
The Loom video approach was terrible for me. My other approach was sending a lead magnet (a Google doc). To reconcile scale with customization, there are two approaches: low volume, high customization—sending a personalized Loom video that solves a problem, delivers value, and builds a warm connection to maybe 10‑30 people a day; and high volume, low result—blasting a generic “do you mind if I send you a Loom video?” to a million people and only recording when they reply. The latter is overdone and saturated; it’s not effective anymore.
I’d recommend using large email campaigns for volume and sending Loom videos for a personal touch. Large campaigns let you reach many prospects quickly, while Looms are free and can be used to follow up or explain a service without any cost.
Record a Loom video that acts like a modern, asynchronous cold call. Front‑load value by pointing out a specific problem on the prospect’s website and offering to fix it immediately. Keep it 100 % personalized and brief, then send it via email or DM and wait for a reply. As an example of a system you can pitch, I recently launched a campaign for website agencies: when you build a site for a client, you also generate 100 free, AI‑written, high‑quality blog posts tailored to their topics. You can pitch that as a way to give the client an extra content boost alongside the website. I sent about 150 emails, got five positive responses in a day and expect a few more, which is roughly a 2 % reply rate. You can copy the copy, but I’d recommend tweaking it so it doesn’t look derivative. The core idea is to offer a tangible, immediate benefit—like a batch of pre‑loaded blog posts—that solves a pain point for the agency.
Email deliverability isn’t a simple spam‑or‑not‑spam binary; it’s more like a sliding scale. Adding a link to an email nudges it toward the spam side, but excellent copywriting can pull it back toward the inbox. Adding images moves it further toward spam, yet a strong warm‑up routine, a pristine list, and high engagement can still keep you in the inbox. If you send a Loom video that’s incredibly high‑value and gets a great response, you might willingly take a small deliverability hit because the back‑end conversion makes up for it. Likewise, cutting your daily email volume—say, from 25‑30 down to 5‑10—improves your sender reputation and helps the mailbox provider see you as a real user. Platforms like Instantly let you run separate campaigns (e.g., a Loom‑video‑only campaign) and monitor deliverability on just those mailboxes, so you can isolate any impact. In short, when I say Loom personalized videos are the best form of cold outreach, I’m talking about using them to apply for jobs on Upwork (and similarly via Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn DMs, and email).