How to Write Sales Follow Up Email: Ultimate Guide

The go-to strategy used by sales teams is to employ cold calling, leaving a voicemail or cold emailing when it comes to targeting prospective clients. Not all clients are going to promptly respond to the initial email or call.

How do you prompt them to respond to your email and take the needed action?

Follow-up emails are the most common method used by sales reps when it comes to increasing response rates. Following up a sales pitch call or hard selling email with a follow-up helps you and your product stay relevant and capture the interest of prospects.

What should the ideal cold email templates look like?

Cold emailing campaigns allow the sales pipeline to achieve a greater reach when it comes to prospective clients.

Consists of a personalized message

The best way to grab the attention of your prospect is to tailor the email and its contents according to the recipient.

Adding a portion in your email that is personalized to each recipient helps make it feel more personal and creates room for an in-depth conversation.

One way to achieve this is by ensuring that your email provides readers with a value proposition.

Validate yourself

Make the effort to know more about the person you are reaching out to. If you do not know them personally, or have mutual friends, find a common ground of interest to base your conversation off.

Platforms such as LinkedIn, slack, Facebook communities, Reddit, it and Quora serve as gold mines for this purpose. Professionals use these platforms to connect with people in the industry and have the pain points discussed.

Provide a benefit to the receiver

In order to get a response, it is necessary to address an issue that they may be facing and try to provide a solution for it.

This help establishes initial conversation and sets the tone of the relationship. Doing sufficient research will help sales reps identify a potential pain point and offer relief for the same.

Keep it short, valuable, and actionable

Concise emails are more likely to be read as opposed to longer ones. In order to encourage the recipient to act on the email make it easier by incorporating a call to action option.

Be appreciative.

Most sales email templates do not express appreciation beyond a customary “thank you.” Be respectful in how you approach a conversation when designing your cold email templates. Keep in mind that you are reaching out the someone that does not know you for a favour.

Simply saying statements like ” Thank you. I am really grateful for your response” goes a long way in doubling response rates. Avoid setting a deadline for the reply. Instead, end your emails with the simple “Look forward to hearing from you”. This will encourage the recipient to respond and help you with your query in their own time as opposed to feeling rushed into it.

What is meant by a sales follow-up email?

During cold outreach, it is common for your sales team to reach out to a large number of prospects. The primary aim is to generate a response out of as many leads as possible.

Most commonly clients tend to open emails but forget to respond to them due to their busy schedule or some form of distraction. This is where a follow-up email comes into play.

These emails templates are designed to provoke a response out of your leads. They should be used after the initial conversation has been established.

Why is it recommended to always send a follow-up email?

It is common to feel like you are bothering your leads by sending them regular follow-up emails. However, this is far from the truth.

Prospective leads tend to appreciate the effort put in following up with the primary conversation. It reflects the effort and interest shown by the sales team in trying to invoke a response.

It is advisable to send a sales follow-up email after a sales call or a sales email. This helps to keep the conversation going. It can also be used to reiterate the points discussed initially.

In some situations, you might have addressed your email to the wrong point of contact within the company. In such cases, you can write a follow-up requesting them to put you in touch with the right person for the discussion within the organization.

The golden rules for designing the perfect follow up

Make it personal

If the opening line and the subject of the email are not relevant, the possibility of the prospect progressing further down the sales funnel reduces.

One way to avoid this is by making a strong entrance. Do thorough research about the company, the industry, and current trends. Using this information craft the ideal message that will impress the prospect and shine a light on your value proposition.

Strike the perfect timing

Proposing a meeting way too soon in the process or providing your value proposition with a tad bit late can both negatively impact the chances of success. A single follow-up sales email is not sufficient to optimize a successful conversion rate.

How soon and how often is it recommended to follow up?

It completely depends. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to scheduling follow-up emails. Some situations call for an immediate follow-up within the 24-hour mark. Post a product demo, trade show, or networking event it is imperative to seize the opportunity to move the engagement forward.

Statistics show that nearly 70% of sales emails stop at step one. It is vital to note that most sales emails are rarely substituted with follow-up emails.

Based on studies, it is proven that if recipients are inclined to respond to an email, there is a 90% probability that they are bound to do it within 48 hours of receiving it.

Two days after the initial mail is when the first follow-up mail must be scheduled for. This lines up with the timeline and helps you achieve an increased open and response rate.

The number of sales follow-up emails sent purely depends on the length of your campaign. There is no fixed number that needs to be followed as a golden rule.

An 8 to 12 stage sequence comprising of calls and emails is considered an apt place to start. You can use A/B testing to fine-tune your email playbook to determine the optimal follow-up frequency for your sort of business, sales process, and buyer profiles.

That is the thing about sales outreach. It is customized and personal to every brand and its set of leads. You can either manually send these follow-ups or automate them using email tracking software to help save time.

We provide you with a repository of sales follow-up templates that can be leveraged by your team to boost the reach of the campaign. Automating the process allows you to design the follow-up email sequence of your choice.

One of the best practices to be followed when it comes to following up with leads is to wait a few days rather than sending a follow-up email immediately.

According to market research, using a single follow-up sequence helps boost the reply rate by 22%. As very few users follow up with prospects efficiently, if you indulge in sending follow-ups, you fall under a niche category.

Leads perceive this as an effort and appreciate the extra effort made to establish a relationship as opposed to simply hard selling. Scheduling an appropriate follow-up email sequence helps you stand out from the competition.

Going the extra mile by sending the follow-up email signifies that you care about the output and reaction of the lead towards the primary email. This adds a human touch to the interaction and helps leads form bonds with people rather than businesses. Explore some ultimate sales outreach tools in the market.

Elements of a sales follow up email

Sales follow up email subject line

The first impression is critical. The email subject line of the sales emails is the key to helping you create a great first impression when sending emails to prospective clients.

Studies show that having a strong attention-grabbing email subject line leads to an increased open rate of about 42%.

The key traits of a successful email subject line are as follows:

• Straight to the point, short, and sweet
• Personalized with a casual tone
• Highly relevant
• Includes a call to action option
• Incorporates the name of the contact or the prospective company

When it comes to email subject lines, the concept of one-size-fits-all does not exist.

Email opener

The email opener is a crucial part of the sales follow-up email template. It highlights the initial mail and helps remind clients that you have already contacted them earlier.

It helps set the tone for the discussion and provides clients with context.

Defining your intent

Once you land the proper introduction and ensure that the client is aware of your previous conversation, the next step is to summarise the purpose of emailing them.

The probability of the client remembering the contents of the previous messages is very rare. It is advised to reiterate the same message in a different format.

Compelling follow-up email templates are structured to help identify the main goals and convey the primary objectives efficiently. It is crucial to keep it short and sweet.

Call to action

A prospective client is more likely to respond when provided with a clear choice of action going forward. It is advisable to propose a time and date for a meeting or call to help make progress.

In addition to this, if your lead is not the right contact to discuss your product or service, you may also ask for the contact details of the appropriate person.

The winning follow-up strategy

Step 1

The primary action is to send out the first cold email. It is crucial to make sure that it is personalized and adheres to all the best practices. Pay attention to details such as the company name, subject line, and so on.

Step 2

Send your first follow-up email 1 day after the initial email. It should add value to the mail sent earlier. Make sure you stick to the previous messages. You can personalize the email by incorporating humor-driven memes or images.

Step 3

Schedule your second follow-up email 2 days after your second email. There are two things you can address via this email. The first is to draw attention to your call to action. The second is to request your prospect to connect you to the concerned person within the agency to proceed with discussions.

Step 4

Schedule your third follow-up email 4-5 days after your second email. This email is usually the decision-maker as to how the conversation progresses. If you are yet to get a response in spite of sending multiple follow-up emails, at this point you can choose to either close your file on the client or make them feel like they are losing out on a golden opportunity to help boost their business.

Best practices to observe when sending sales follow up emails

Now you know the vital role that follow-up emails play in boosting reply rates from potential leads when aligned rightly with the marketing campaign and the sales process.

To use the process at its full capacity to boost the sales team’s productivity, a number of best practices have been defined.

Use an Omnichannel approach

Make sure to get closer to your prospective clients gradually. Once they respond to your email, schedule a phone call as the next step of your follow up. Going forward you can try to schedule an in-person meeting.

Continuously upping your follow up game is known to help sales professionals build better one-on-one relationships with prospects and help convert more deals.

Give importance to your prospect

The follow-ups should all be designed to revolve around the prospect. Talk about them, their company, their business and mention your product or service only in the capacity of providing a value proposition.

Identifying a pain point of your prospect and addressing it by providing them with solutions is the best way for a sales rep to capture the attention of the prospect.

Define the following steps

Be upfront and ask your prospects how long they will need to make an informed decision and schedule the next follow up. This allows you to take charge of this scheduling and reduces the dependency on the prospect.

Ask questions

Make sure to ask relevant questions in your subject lines. Including relevant content in the subject line signifies that the email offers solutions and a few more ideas.

Personalize it

The number one rule of cold emailing is to make sure that the email does not sound too phoney or evidently scream that it has been copied from email templates. To add a sense of personalization, you can proceed by addressing the person by their name, the prospect’s company name, job description and so on.

Various business related platforms such as Facebook community, slack, quora, and Reddit are gold mines that can be leveraged to collect information about your prospect.

Using this information as a part of your cold outreach will help connect better with prospects and give room for a more in-depth conversation.

Make sure you do sufficient research

Various social business platforms provide information about the industry, trends and so on.

These platforms also provide sales leaders with data on the pain point discussed by the customer and current areas of interest. You can use this information to add a value proposition to your email.

Make sure to never include repetitive content from the previous email in your follow up email templates.

Add value to your email

Addressing a pain point helps the conversation stay relevant. Keep the contents of the email concise and informative. Keep in mind that prospects do not have the time and patience to read through long drawn out messages.

The goal of follow up sales emails is to reiterate the information conveyed in the previous email in a crisp and concise manner.

Avoid using industry jargon

Do not use complicated terms and phrases as a part of your follow up email templates. Be natural and keep the conversation casual. Remember that the aim is to convey the benefits of your product or service in layman’s terms.

The contents of the email should help the reader understand the pros of your product or service in a simplified manner. Excessive use of industry jargon tends to confuse and alienate the prospects as opposed to bringing them closer.

Do not clutter your message

It is advisable to focus on a single aspect rather than talking about multiple offers or products at one go. Retain the focus towards a single product service and link it to a distinct call-to-action.

Avoid attaching way too many images or links as a part of your follow-up email template. It tends to confuse people since they have to figure out exactly what you want them to do. The narrative of your follow up email should be clear and lead them towards the action you want them to take.

Know when to stop

Not all prospects are going to be interested in your product or service. It is vital to include an unsubscribe option as a part of your follow up email templates. This provides readers with the option to opt out of receiving future communication if they are not interested.

In the situation that you do not have an automated unsubscribe option, immediately remove prospects from the follow-up email thread if they request the same.

Avoid engaging in passive-aggressive emails

Irrespective of the number of follow up emails that you have sent, you should continue to be polite throughout the sales cycle. Letting your frustration reflect in your emails will only reduce the chances of getting a positive response.

Sales follow up email templates for various situations

Follow up after sharing resources

You have shared a list of resources with the prospect and have not received a reply, you can tailor the follow-up email by being more specific to the last conversation.

Chances are they might have gotten busy and not responded in spite of having opened the email. In this case, you can draw your attention towards specific resources that are related to their pain points and needs.

Follow up after sales demo

Most clients do not ignore emails post the demo stage. They are very likely to be interested in purchasing your product service. However, in the unlikely situation that a customer has stopped responding to emails post receiving the demo, it is advisable to follow up with them to make sure that you stay on their radar.

Follow up after missing a call

If you have sent an email as well as called the client and not received any response it is advisable to wait for a week. Post this you can send a follow-up email to reestablish your value proposition and how you can help boost the company’s main priorities.

Another factor to consider is that you may not be getting a response because they are not the right person for the enquiry or it is an unqualified lead. In this situation, request to be directed towards the concerned person or close your file for the current lead and wait to land the right contact.

Follow up after sending a contract

Most freelance and smaller businesses tend to send a quote fairly early on in the sales cycle as a post to established companies. When it comes to bigger companies, sending a contract is a huge deal. This usually signifies that the client is ready to sign and will no longer require a follow-up email for the same.

If you have reached the contract stage with a prospect, chances are you have money to create an effective connection. Leverage these emotions to keep the excitement and enthusiasm afloat.

Follow up after a client submits a sales inquiry

If a prospect reaches out with an inquiry, the probability of them wanting to purchase your product is high. Given the situation that they do not respond to your reply make sure to follow up as the lead is still hot.

Provide them with a quick review of their query and how your product service can help alleviate the same.

Follow up after a trigger event

Another circumstance that necessitates a follow-up email is when a trigger event happens. If you observe a prospect re-opening an email or proposal you sent, you should try to follow up with them.

Draw attention towards the particular trigger event that they are revisiting and try to provide additional value for the same in your follow up email template.

Follow up after connecting on social media

If you have connected with a prospect on social media to whom you have sent a mail and not received a response, it is advisable to follow up once again. It is especially key if they are interested in what you are offering. Provide additional value in your follow up email as compared to your last conversation. Most importantly do not forget to include a clear call to action button which will make it easier for them to make a decision.

Mistakes to avoid when sending a sales follow up email

There are a number of common mistakes that individuals make when sending sales follow up emails. These mistakes could result in the recipient ignoring the follow-up. The most prominent mistakes to look out for and avoid at all costs are as follows.

Not curating the ideal subject line

When sending the sales follow up email it is very common for sales professionals to be inclined to use the term ” follow up” as a part of the email subject line. This does not add any value to the email and will lead to a lack of interest for the recipient.

Instead, it is advisable to write an email subject line that has direct relevance to the message or topics discussed as a part of the email. This leads to a higher open rate of sales follow up emails.

Leaving out the context of the email

When writing your sales follow up email make sure to stay relevant and give attention to the context of your message. This will help the recipient understand the scope of the discussion and allow them to zero in on the response of their choice more easily.

If your sales follow up email lacks context, it may take the recipient more time to piece together all your previous communications in order to make a well-informed decision.

Not including a call to action option

Follow up emails that do not have a call to action option included are more likely to be ignored. Providing the recipient with a clear direction on how to take the conversation forward is more likely to help you achieve a positive response.

Not timing the follow-up

Waiting for a longer period of time to send a sales to follow up email main result in the recipient forgetting the details of your previous conversation. Always try to send follow up emails and reminders in a reasonable time frame after your previous conversation.

Writing an email that is way too long

The main part of your message may get diluted or lost if you’re follow up email is too lengthy. Try to be direct, concise, and to the point with the content of the email. The recipient will be able to quickly scan through the content and understand your intent. Check out the detailed guide for what is b2b sales and sales pipeline stages.

Wrapping up

When it comes to the success of your business operations the efforts of your marketing team and the sales team’s productivity play a crucial role. The right mix of cold emailing paired with a persistent and well-balanced sales follow up email schedule plays an important role.

As discussed there is no fixed approach when it comes to sales follow up emails. Ensure to continuously track the response rate and other metrics to streamline your sales pipeline. Use these to tweak your campaign to drive more engagement and an increased response rate from your prospects. You can explore another guide for how to write follow up email.

The benefits of automating and streamlining the follow-up process are evident. Sloovi is designed to help sales reps simplify the outreach campaign process and boost successful prospect conversion. Equip your sales team with the tools needed to streamline their outreach process thereby allowing them to convert more prospects into longstanding customers. You can take another guide for the email follow up samples.