Follow-up Email Best Practices & Examples
If you’re looking for a strategy on how to effectively use follow-ups, stick around. In this article, we’ll be covering:
- The benefits of follow-up emails.
- How often we should do follow-ups.
- Examples of no-response follow-up emails.
- Follow-up email best practices.
- And understanding when to give up on leads.
Are follow-up emails effective?
Follow-up emails are a necessity. According to studies, only 2% of first-contact emails end in a closed deal. During email outreach campaigns, sales usually occur after 8 touchpoints.
Research on email marketing suggests that follow-up emails have a 65.8% increased reply rate than the previous one. Marketers that don’t do follow-ups have an open rate of 16%.
Those that do have an average open rate of 27%. This difference could mean the difference between a closed sale and a customer looking the other way.
It’s no secret that follow-ups are essential for email campaigns. But how often should you send them?
How often and how many follow-ups should you send?
There won’t be a singular answer to how many follow-ups you can send. The number of follow-up emails you can send will always vary. But each one should serve a purpose.
Studies say sending out three emails but each circumstance is different. Yesware conducted a test that showed 4th follow-up email dropped in open rates.
Scheduling when you send emails is also important. Email follow-up is easier if you know the individual professionally.
Sending a professional request immediately won't hurt your reputation or connection. The stakes are higher when it’s a person you’ve never met.
At the very least, you can wait for at least five working days.
Follow-up Emails After No Response: 4 Best Practices
If your follow-up emails don’t get the replies we were hoping for, there could be an underlying issue. To ensure that your emails are optimized, do the following:
Keep Them Short and Simple
Keep your subject lines and email body short and understandable. Address pain points, provide value, and highlight what your business can do.
If more content is needed, link to a landing page. If you want better conversion rates, make sure you include clear CTAs and accessible contact information.
Automate Your Follow-up Sequences
You can manually track all of your emails if your leads are within the single to double digits. But this becomes an issue if you want to scale.
Keeping track of all of them manually can be a nightmare. If you want to streamline follow-up sequences, you need email automation. This ensures emails are scheduled on time.
Marketers also use follow-up email templates in tandem with automation. Utilizing a good customer relationship management (CRM) tool also helps optimize the process.
Be Polite and Send at the Right Times & Frequency
One of the golden rules of writing follow-up emails is to be polite. It's easy to get frustrated when leads don’t respond after sending a quality email.
But drafting quality emails is the easy part. The challenge is knowing when you should send an email and how often.
When you know the person you’re sending an email to, you can send follow-ups immediately. For first-touch cold email follow-ups, you should wait a minimum of five working days.
Include a CTA
As mentioned earlier, each email should have a purpose. This could be to convert, start a conversation, or close a sale.
At the very least, your CTAs should provide an easy step to move forward with a meeting. These are often highlighted and seen above the fold to stand out.
Examples of Follow-up Emails After No Response
Source: Pixabay
Now that we know the best practices for follow-up emails, here are some examples you can take inspiration from. These examples follow email copywriting best practices.
Follow-up Email With Added Value
Entice your prospects to open your follow-up emails with added value. Here is an example you can use:
Subject Line: {{First name}}, I have something that could be of use to you.
Hi there, {{First name}}
I wanted to let you know that I thought your recent article about {{Digital Marketing}} was quite helpful.
Since this is a topic that interests you, I thought I'd share some articles I came up with on {{Digital Marketing Best Practices}}.
{{Link 1}}
{{Link 2}}
I'm interested in talking more about how {{name of your product}} may assist your firm in meeting its {{Digital Marketing}} objectives for this year.
Let's set up some time to talk briefly so we can get things sorted out.
Cheers,
{{Your Name}}
Gentle Reminder Follow-up Email
Sometimes, leads can forget about a scheduled meeting. Follow up with a gentle reminder such as:
Subject Line: Meeting with {{Your Business}} Reminder
Greetings, {{First Name}},
We have a scheduled meeting on {{Date and Time}}.
Specifics are provided below.
{{Physical Address or Zoom link}}
Hoping to hear from you soon.
{{Your Name}}
Quick Follow-up Email After No Response
A quick follow-up email after no response can increase open rates by up to 11%. Here’s an example you can follow:
Subject Line: {{First Name}} – Can’t Reach You
Hi, {{First Name}},
Hope you’re doing well.
I’m {{Your name}}, reaching out to you from {{Your Business}}. This is about yesterday’s {{product/service}} inquiry. I can’t seem to reach you.
If you need to get in touch with me, please do so at {{Your number/email}} or provide another cell phone number I can contact. I'm looking forward to your response.
Cheers,
{{Your Name}}
Break-up Follow-up Email
Letting go of a lead is hard. But it’s for the best. It keeps your email list clean and saves you time and resources. Here is an example:
Subject Line: Things just didn't work out this time.
Hello, {{First Name}}
Since you haven't gotten back to me regarding your project, I'm going to assume your plans have changed and you no longer wish to move through with it.
If you decide to proceed at some time in the future, we'd appreciate it if you'd keep us in mind.
Sincerely,
{{Your Name}}
Key Takeaways
Follow-up emails are integral for every email marketing campaign. Sales rarely close after first-touch emails. If you want to get the best return on investment (ROI) for your campaigns, consider the following:
- Studies show that three follow-up emails are most optimal. After the 4th follow-up, response rates drop.
- You can follow up on leads through other platforms such as LinkedIn.
- It’s better to remove unresponsive leads than keep them on your list.
- Add better deals or more offers to entice responses from important leads.
- Always be polite and consider the time and frequency of your email schedules.
If you want to streamline and automate your follow-up emails, look no further than Instantly.ai. Signup today and explore how AI-powered automation can take your email campaigns to the next level.