Sending cold emails to high-quality leads is nerve-wracking. When they don’t respond, a dozen thoughts start buzzing. What went wrong? Did I lose a lead? Was it the subject line?
The best thing to do is stop speculating and start sending follow-up emails. Sales on the first email rarely happen. It’s an ongoing process.
We need to know when to start sending follow-ups and when to stop. There’s a lot of nuance that comes with it. We’re here to help you navigate. In this article, we’ll be covering:
- The basics of sales follow-up emails.
- When to start sending follow-up emails and when to stop.
- How to sequence your follow-ups.
- Follow-up email templates you can personalize.
Understanding the Basics of Follow Up Emails
After sending your initial cold sales email, your prospect could either choose to reply, do an action based on your CTA, or not respond. In all three cases, we need to send a follow-up.
If you’re worried about low reply rates, you’re not alone. Studies suggest that 91.5% of cold sales emails are ignored. That’s why follow-ups are critical to any successful email campaign.
The good news is it’s something we can easily automate using an email marketing tool. Plus, we can use follow-up emails in several scenarios.
When to Start and Stop Sales Follow Up Emails
Follow-ups can be done manually, especially if you want to hyper-personalize them for high-quality leads. But, if you want to scale consistently, automation is your best bet.
Automation allows you to easily start or stop the sequence of your follow-up emails based on the following:
Starting Follow Ups Based on Trigger Events
Prospects that trigger events can start an email nurturing sequence. This covers everything from clicking on links to a blog post or a newsletter subscription.
It’s anything that your prospect does that suggests an interest in your products or services. Did a prospect click on your CTA? Was your cold email opened? Or, did you get a reply?
Following Up After A Prospect Replies
One of the easiest ways to qualify leads is to see how they react to your emails. If they sent a reply, even if it’s an objection—we take those as a win. Why? We can turn that no into a yes.
But if they’re already interested (and not ready to buy just yet), you can push leads further down the sales funnel.
Sending Follow Ups After Doing a Demo
When a prospect asks for a demo, that’s a clear indication that they’re interested. After the demo is done, don’t take it as a sign of a done deal.
Make sure to follow up and provide more value. Send deeper, more tailored content their way. Learn how your products can solve both pain points and unconsidered needs.
Follow Ups After Sending Quotes
Let’s say you’ve done a demo. After a couple of back-and-forths between your AEs or SDRs and your prospect’s representatives, they ask you to send a quote.
At this point, prospects are already at the bottom of the sales funnel—we’re about to close on a sale. What happens if they go radio-silent after you send a quote?
A lot could be happening internally. It’s important to stop speculating and do a simple follow-up email.
No-Response Follow Ups
First-touch emails don’t often get replies. However, if prospects still don’t respond after three or four follow-ups—remove them from your email list.
If you keep sending follow-ups to prospects who don’t respond, your email accounts get a bad rep. Best case scenario—your emails are sent to spam. Worst case—your domain gets blocked.
To help prevent issues like these, we need to follow email marketing best practices and write great email follow-ups that are optimized for conversions.
Prepping for Your Sales Follow Up Email Sequence
As mentioned earlier, there are several types of sales follow-up emails for different occasions. But, they do follow the same basic principles. Here’s what you need to know:
Identify Why You’re Sending a Follow Up Email
Do you plan on inviting prospects for a meeting? Are you offering a free demo? Or, are you following up on a previous conversation?
Knowing why you’re following up helps streamline sales cadence and your overall sales process. Here are some of the most common reasons for sales follow-up emails:
- Appointing your next meeting.
- Reaching out following a voicemail.
- After prospects subscribed to newsletters.
- No-response follow-ups.
- To give more information about the product/service.
After identifying the reason for the follow-up, do deeper research on the prospect your sending it to.
Conduct Deeper Research Into Prospects
We’ve naturally done research before sending our initial emails. But, it’s always best practice to keep up-to-date on the latest news in your prospect’s industry or on your prospect.
This helps you better personalize your follow-ups even more than your first-touch emails. Try to target a prospect’s unconsidered needs or even the latest updates on their LinkedIn page.
Once we’ve done our due diligence, it’s time we start prepping for our follow-up sequence or sales cadence.
When To Send Sales Follow Up Emails
Studies show that 80% of sales are closed after at least five follow-ups. Of course, this differs on a case-to-case basis. But, we can already use this as the foundation for our sequences.
What we don’t want to do is send daily follow-ups. We want to portray a sense of urgency without being seen as intrusive. Take this sequence after sending a first email, for example:
- Follow-up email 1 - Day 3.
- Follow-up email 2 - Day 7.
- Follow-up email 3 - Day 14.
- Follow-up email 4 - Day 30 (Ask for opt-out).
- Follow-up email 5 - Day 32 (Opt-out email).
To streamline this process, you can use Instantly’s Campaign Builder to automate sequences with smart scheduling. This allows you to maximize the response rates of your follow-ups.
If prospects don’t respond after more than five emails, you can always try sending a hail mary email. But, if you still get no response, always try to leave a good impression.
Sales Follow Up Email Templates
As always, use email templates as a foundation you can build on. Don’t just copy-paste everything and change variables—unless you want to end up as spam.
Take your time and personalize these sales follow-up templates and make them your own.
Keeping it Short and Sweet
This is email 101: Keep emails short and concise. In the case of follow-ups, it should even be shorter. But that doesn’t mean you need to disregard common courtesy.
Again, keep a sense of urgency but don’t be pushy. Here’s a template you can use:
Hey {{First Name}},
Have you had a chance to read my first email? Anyway, we’ve got an update to {{product}} that integrates it with {{CRM}}. Now, your sales pipeline becomes more streamlined.
Would you like a free personalized tour of the product? We can schedule it at your most convenient time.
Kind regards,
{{Your Name}}
Low Effort CTA
We love low-effort call-to-actions because it doesn’t take much—but, it's an amazing conversation starter. Of course, we want to schedule those meetings or free demos.
But in most cases, even a quick 15-minute call can be too much of an ask—especially for a cold sales email. So, we can pivot and follow up with a low-effort CTA instead, like:
- Clicking a link to high-quality and high-value content.
- Subscribing to a newsletter.
- Downloading valuable content.
Hey {{First Name}},
Just wanted to follow up regarding {{product}}. We created a new guide on how we used {{product}} to help {{client}} get 7x more leads in 3 months. Here’s a link to the PDF file so you can take it on the go!
Kind regards,
{{Your Name}}
Sales Call Follow Up Email
After a sales call, no matter the state of the call—whether it was positive or negative, always send a follow-up email. The follow-up can be used to show appreciation for the meeting.
It could also be the perfect opportunity to share extra resources about your product or services. Here’s an example to look into:
Hey {{First Name}},
Loved our chat this afternoon.
Just wanted to give a quick rundown of what we discussed earlier. I’ve attached the slide I used during the presentation. Please feel free to share it with your team.
Let me know if we can help with anything else!
Regards,
{{Your Name}}
The Opt-Out
Forcing a sale won’t do your business any good. When a prospect doesn’t respond or opts out of receiving emails from your business, it’s best to respect their wishes.
Always remember to be graceful with your exit. Here’s a template you can use:
Hey {{First name}},
Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be… We totally get that.
Before we lose you, we want to make sure you’re absolutely uninterested in our service. But, if you are…feel free to contact us anytime. If we don’t hear from you, this will be the last you’ll hear from us.
Regards,
{{Your name}}
Unconsidered Needs Follow Up
If you’re offering solutions to a prospect’s common pain points, competitors will be doing the same. What differentiates you might just be how you can solve unconsidered needs.
Hey, {{First name}}
Our tool might be built for streamlining lead generation, but, it also helps with {{unconsidered need}}. I’m sure this is something you struggle with as well.
We actually made a guide on how we solved this problem ourselves. {{Client}} used this strategy and saw improvements after only two months. Here’s our case study on it if you’re interested.
Regards,
{{Your name}}
Key Takeaways
When prospects don’t reply to your initial emails, that doesn’t mean you’ve lost them. That’s why it’s essential that you follow up to make sure they’re still interested. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Understand why you’re sending follow-ups.
- Don’t send daily follow-ups. Stagger them within a month.
- Try using low-effort CTAs to get a conversation going.
- Find out what your prospects’ unconsidered needs are.
- Automate follow-ups and scheduling to streamline campaigns.
If you want to automate your email nurturing, sequencing, and follow-ups—look no further than Instantly! Try our free trial today and see results in an instant!
