Cold sales emails have some of the highest ROI compared to other lead generation strategies. However, sales rarely close after the first touch, and even the perfect cold email can get ignored. If you want to get noticed, it’s all about creating a compelling sales follow-up sequence.
Unfortunately, many salespeople treat follow-ups as simple reminders. “Hey, John, did you get to read my first email?” doesn’t sound very enticing. Sales follow-up emails need to be relevant, timely, and valuable. In this article, we’ll show templates that provide all three.
Best Tips for Writing Compelling Sales Follow Up Emails
Before getting into the templates, let’s examine what makes a sales follow-up email worth opening. This will help us understand the anatomy of a great follow-up and write better email sequences throughout the sales process.
Always Follow Up With Context
Context makes a follow-up a continuation of your previous sales email rather than a simple reminder. This means a quick summary of why you’re reaching out and why it matters to your prospect.
To ensure you follow up with context, highlight a pain point (or your selling proposition from the cold email), a value-driven reason for the follow-up, and a closing line that emphasizes your call to action.
Include Exactly One Call-to-Action (CTA)
Too many options might overwhelm your prospects. If you want them to book a call, download a case study, or join a webinar at the same time, they might do nothing instead. But does that mean you should use the same CTA as the cold email? Not necessarily.
Let’s say your cold email's CTA is to book a call. You wanted to add value to your sales follow-up email by including a free case study. The best approach here is to ask prospects to download the case study but add the CTA to book a call in the case study.
Add New Value
Let’s assume that prospects read your cold email but didn’t reply. One of the main reasons why they wouldn’t reply is because it wasn’t worth it. In short, there’s not enough value. So, try not to put all your eggs in one basket when sending your cold email.
For example, in your first email, you could tell prospects you can provide them with a free website and social media audit. In the follow-up, you could add a discount to your service.
Personalization is the Minimum
Personalization is the bare minimum in cold sales emails. Using {{first name}} to personalize emails won’t be enough to get a reply. What’s more effective is leveraging lead data to write in-depth personalization. You can use Instantly.ai to automate deeper personalization using {{custom variables}}.
Instantly has thousands of AI prompt templates from our community that can help you effectively personalize cold emails and follow-ups to every lead. Try it for free today!
A/B Test Follow-Up Variations
The only way to know what type of follow-up works best for your audience is to test multiple variations against each other. Just remember to A/B test one element at a time. Here are examples of what you can test:
- Subject lines (value vs urgency):
- “A simple way to get more HVAC leads this month”
- “Limited slots left for free HVAC website and social media audit”
- Opening lines (casual vs direct):
- "Hey {{FirstName}}, I know you’re busy, so I’ll keep this quick. I wanted to follow up on my last message about getting you more HVAC leads."
- "Hi {{FirstName}}, I wanted to check if you’re still open to discussing a proven way to generate 20-30 more HVAC leads per month."
- CTA (urgency vs low friction):
- “We have a couple of spots left for this month’s campaign. Want to grab one?”
- “No pressure—just let us know if you’re open to a quick chat this week!”
8 Sales Follow-Up Email Templates To Adapt
Below are eight sales email follow-up templates curated for different scenarios and touchpoints in the sales process. Some of these might already be circulating in inboxes. So, use these templates as inspiration or a starting point. Don’t forget to personalize and make them your own.
No Response Sales Follow Up
The most common reason you’d want to send a follow-up is when prospects don’t reply to your initial emails. Speculating why it won’t move the needle. Instead, use these templates to try and re-capture your prospects’ attention:
Leveraging Urgency (Sending Your Last Follow-Up)
When prospects don’t reply after multiple follow-ups, it’s time to let them go. However, you could still send one more Hail Mary before removing them from your list.
Subject line: {{first name}}, still interested in {{value proposition}}?
Hey {{first name}},
I wanted to follow up since I haven’t heard from you. I understand if now’s not the right time, but should I close your file?
If you’re still interested in {{product}}, just let me know, and we can {{suggest next steps}}. Otherwise, I’ll assume it’s not a priority right now.
Thanks, and I hope to hear from you soon!
Best,
{{your name}}
Belief + Persistence
You can’t sell products or services if you don’t believe in them. That extends to the emails you send. So, try sending a follow-up that shows persistence and belief in what you sell.
Subject line: {{first name}}, one last email… promise?
Hey {{first name}},
I know sales emails can be annoying, so I get it if you’d prefer I stop.
That said, I’d like to make my case on something I believe you’d find genuinely useful for {{company name}}, so here’s one last chance to check it out:
{{content link}}
No pressure; I just thought you’d find it valuable. Let me know what you think!
Best,
{{your Name}}
Re-Engagement Follow-Up
Prospects don’t always follow through on a deal. It happens. When it does, a best practice to keep the deal alive is to keep a file on these high-value prospects, follow them on socials, and wait for an opportunity to reconnect.
Upgraded Products or Services
When you first talk with a prospect, your products or services might not be the right fit for them. But things could go better in your favor after an upgrade and some time.
Subject line: {{first name}}, this might help with {{pain point}}
Hey {{first name}},
We talked about {{topic}}, and I wanted to follow up because we’ve just rolled out {{new feature}} that brings {{solution}} to {{pain point}}.
Last we spoke, it might not have been the right time for {{company name}}. But since you guys recently had {{company news}}, {{new feature}} could be invaluable as you scale.
I would love to give you a quick walkthrough. Do you think you can free up time this week?
Best,
{{your name}}
Gauging Interest
Warm leads show interest in your product. If you’ve sent warm sales emails but didn’t get a reply, that doesn’t mean they’re a dead-end. Follow up with an interest check to see what’s up:
Subject line: Any thoughts on {{value proposition}}
Hi {{first name}},
I haven’t heard from you since I reached out on {{date}} about {{topic}}. I wanted to check back in to see if you're still interested in how we can help improve {{pain point}} for {{company name}}.
Feel free to send a reply whenever! Happy to answer any questions you might have.
Best,
{{your name}}
Adding Value Sales Email Follow-Up
The best sales emails don’t hard sell. Instead, they offer immediate value. So, find something you can add on top of your initial offer that’s still relevant to your prospects.
Immediate Value (DIY Solutions to Pain Points)
People love it when they can solve a problem themselves. So, try to offer step-by-step solutions on how they can address a pain point and offer advice on how to improve it further.
Subject line: A small change that can help solve {{pain point}}
Hey {{first name}},
I haven’t heard from you in a while. But, if you’re still dealing with {{pain point}}, here’s something simple we applied to {{competitor}} that helped them get {{benefits}}.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
I’d love to get on a quick call to discuss how we can tailor this strategy to {{company name}}. Would you be free this week?
Thanks in advance,
{{your name}}
Value from Others (Sharing Success Stories + Social Proof)
Sometimes, prospects need to contextualize the value you provide. One of the best ways to do so is by sharing success stories and social proof from competitors you’ve helped.
Subject line: {{first name}}, {{competitor}} just saw {{result}}—your turn?
Hi {{FirstName}},
We recently worked with {{competitor}} and helped them achieve a {{percentage}} increase in {{result}}. Given our past conversation about {{pain point}}, this might be relevant to {{company name}}.
Would you be open to a quick call to explore if we could replicate these results?
Best regards,
{{your name}}
Sales Follow-Up Email to Customer Support
One of our Cold Email Masterclass group members, Romàn Czerny, shared his success with cold emailing customer support. Here are some templates you can use for this strategy:
Casual Request to Customer Support
Think of going through customer support as the equivalent of walking up to the front desk and asking for permission to go to the boss’s office. Here’s a template you can use for this request:
Subject line: Mind passing this along to {{founder’s name}}?
Hey there,
I’m {{your name}} from {{your company}}. We did a site audit for {{prospect’s company}} and developed a roadmap for {{goal}}. Would you be able to forward this {{Loom link/PDF file}} to {{founder’s name}}? I think they’ll find it useful since it covers {{key takeaways}}.
I really appreciate it. Let me know if you need anything from me!
Best regards,
{{your name}}
Using Urgency to Get Through the Door
It’s a more aggressive approach, but using urgency might be just what you need to get your foot inside the door.
Subject line: Time-sensitive—Can you share this with {{founder’s name}}?
Hi there,
I wanted to see if you could forward this {{Loom link/PDF file}} to {{founder’s name}} as soon as possible. It contains {{brief benefit or key takeaway}}, and I think it’s important for them to review.
Let me know if you need anything from me. Thanks for your help!
Thanks in advance,
{{your name}}
Key Takeaways
Follow-up emails ensure that your sales team is proactive and that potential sales aren’t left to chance. To recap, here are some insights you might’ve missed in this article:
- To ensure that sales follow-up emails aren’t just reminders, remember to add value, contextualize, and personalize.
- The more lead data you have, the better the personalization and segmentation.
- Always A/B test follow-up variations to find which emails perform best for your audience.
Instantly.ai is a top-rated, all-in-one sales engagement platform that lets you automate personalization, cold sales email sequences, follow-ups, and A/B testing. The cherry on top? You can try it for free today!
