When you send cold emails or sales emails, you’ll rarely receive a reply the first time. Most people need to hear from you a few times before thinking about responding. Some will go away and look at your website. Others might look at your reviews or testimonials. They feel that they need to do some research first. This is why it’s vital that you follow up with every opportunity.
Doing manual follow-up is an arduous task, especially when you’re working at scale. Your email campaign might be sent to 10,000 recipients. Following up with them might amount to sending around 50,000 emails. This is why you need follow-up email software. These tools take a considerable amount of the legwork out of email follow-up.
In this article, we will share what you should look for in a follow-up email software and then consider some of the best options available. Before comparing the tools, you need to know what you’re looking for.
- What are the key features a good follow-up email software should have?
- Which tools will work best for you?
Follow-Up Email Software Tool Key Features
There is a growing number of tools that might catch your eye. If you’re looking to source one for your business, you might not know where to start. It’s always important to consider what is important to you and your business goals. The tool should work alongside you to enhance your ability, not hinder it.
Automation
The first thing to look for in any tool is the automation capabilities. Without automation, there’s not much of a follow-up tool. The whole point is that the tool works to complete follow-up tasks on your behalf so that you can focus your time on more important matters.
Key automation features include:
- Email scheduling
- Action based triggers
- Email sequencing
- Categorization
These are the bare minimums. Scheduling allows your emails to be sent precisely when you want them to be without you having to press the send button. Triggers allow you to create advanced sequences that automatically send follow-ups should an event happen or not. For example, if someone reads your email but doesn’t respond within two days, another email is sent. This would be a time trigger.
Categorization links to lead management. If you have a connected CRM or even a lead management system within the follow-up tool, you can use it for categorization. Leads that respond in certain ways or don’t respond at all are categorized accordingly.
You need to have features such as this in place. Better versions will have intuitive dashboards, making automation incredibly easy to create.
Personalization and Customization
You should include personalization whenever you send a marketing or sales email, whether it’s the first in a campaign or a follow-up. People like to feel that they’re being directly addressed and not just part of yet another mass mailing campaign.
Your follow-up software should include personalization and customization options within templates editors. This system should link directly to the automation side of the tool, meaning you don’t have to add personalization manually.
Integrations
You already have your email provider in place. You likely have a CRM that you’re using. There will be other tools and tech that you’re using on a daily basis, such as communication or project management tools. The best tools will integrate seamlessly with your existing stack, minimizing implementation issues.
Analytics
Whenever you run a campaign, you want to be able to measure success and determine what areas require improvement. Most email marketing tools will come with some form of analytics, but it is important you’re able to filter your results. This means you can accurately assess the outcome of your follow-ups.
Scalability
As your business grows, thanks to things like effective email follow-up, you need tools that can grow with you. Each tool you consider should have an obvious way of scaling, both in terms of capability and pricing.
The Best 5 Follow-Up Email Software Tools
Instantly
First on our list is Instantly. Instantly offers a comprehensive suite of email marketing tools, not least email follow-up. Once you’ve connected Instantly to your email account (which you can add unlimited numbers of, by the way!), you can begin automating your follow-up.
Start by creating a campaign, building a sequence with triggers and events. Then watch as the system connects with and automatically follows up with your email list. At Instantly, we use the term subsequences. These subsequences create conditions that allow automated follow-ups. They're based on triggers such as lead status or even keywords in a reply.
Each email in the sequence is automatically populated with personalization through merge tags. You simply need to connect your data to Instantly, and you’re ready to go.
Instantly is a breeze to use. You’ll find yourself creating sequences (and subsequences) within minutes. Whole campaigns are just as straightforward to develop, and if you’re stuck for content, there’s a welcome set of templates for you to use.
Once the campaign is underway, you can visit the analytics dashboard, where you’ll see an array of insights. Every metric related to your campaigns is available at the click of a button.
Pricing Tiers:
Growth: $37/month
Hypergrowth: $97/month
Free Trial: Available for both tiers.
Key Features:
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Unlimited Email Warmup
- Email Sequencing and Subsequencing
- Personalization At Scale Through Merging
- Comprehensive Analytics
- Support (Live Chat For Growth, Premium For Hypergrowth)
Saleshandy
Similar to Instantly, Saleshandy was developed to help businesses run cold outreach campaigns. It comes with a comprehensive suite of tracking metrics that allow you to measure conversion rates and lead generation. There’s an advanced email sequencing aspect of the tool that gives you plenty of options for follow-up. It’s especially powerful when combined with user segmentation to deliver a personalized experience.
There are plenty of follow-up email templates, but if you’re stuck, you can also try out the built-in AI-powered writing assistant.
Pricing Tiers:
$49 a month (+1 extra slot at no additional charge)
Free Trial: Available for both tiers.
Key Features:
- A/B Testing
- Up To 1,500 New Prospects Per Month
- Free Warm-Up And Recovery For Each Slot
- Free Email List Verification And Validation
- Unlimited Follow-Ups And Team Members
Gmelius
One for Gmail users, Gmelius is a low-cost option that adds some powerful functionality to the Google workspace. It’s a tool that combines email outreach with automated follow-ups. Follow-up emails are based on triggers you can set within your workflows. Once you’ve selected the conditions for each follow-up, you’re ready to begin the campaign.
Gmelius works for teams, especially as it can create a shared inbox, allowing for plenty of collaboration.
Pricing Tiers:
From $15 a month
Free Trial: Available for both tiers.
Key Features:
- Build your own workflows
- Share an inbox and specific emails across your team
- Use templates for email follow-up
- Create your own sequences
FollowUpThen
FollowUpThen is less an automated email tool and more a reminder system. Once you’ve sent an email (from any platform you choose), you can set yourself a reminder. All you need to do is ping an email to an address, and it will reply after a specific amount of time, telling you to complete the follow-up process.
It’s not as comprehensive as other tools on this list but might serve well as an entry-level tool for smaller businesses.
Pricing Tiers:
Free for 50 active reminders, $4 a month gets you unlimited follow-ups.
Free Trial: The free version serves as a trial.
Key Features:
- Simple system using the BCC system.
- Works with almost all inboxes.
- Great entry-level option.
Followup.cc
Another Google Workspace only option. Followup.cc, offers reminders and automated follow-ups through their tool. The automation allows users to set follow-ups based on a schedule and when there hasn’t been a response yet. If you’re a Salesforce user, you’ll find their integration with the CRM welcome. Note that automated follow-ups are only available from the mid-tier.
Pricing Tiers:
From $23 a month
Free Trial: Available for all tiers.
Key Features:
- Email tracking
- Scheduled email sending
- Automated email follow-up at some tiers
Key Takeaways
When you’re able to automate your email follow-up, you free yourself up to focus on engaged leads and more pressing matters. Rest safely in the knowledge that you’re still connecting with your prospects on a personal level. You’re just doing it automatically and efficiently.
- Automation should be at the top of your list when comparing tools. If you’re still having to follow up manually, there isn’t much point in investing in a tool.
- The best tools will integrate with your inbox and current tech stack.
- Be sure to select a tool that offers analytics if you want to see how successful your campaign has been.
When you follow up with your prospects, you give yourself the best opportunities for conversion. It shouldn’t be a nice to have. It should be a mandatory part of your sales process. Using follow-up email software makes it easy. That’s where Instantly can help, get started today.
