According to DB, 2022

Cold email campaigns with 4 to7 follow-up emails get 3x higher reply rates.

Follow-up emails are sales emails sent after failing to generate a response from an initial sales email. They are more general forms of email sent to achieve various types of objectives - set up a meeting, build relationships, etc., after the previously sent emails failed to achieve those objectives

The key objectives of follow-up emails are to;

  Request for more information from the prospects

  Request for a meeting.

  Keep up with your prospects.

  Show gratitude for a previous assistance

Based on a report by smallbizgenius,

Lead nurturing emails receive 4-10 more responses than standalone email blasts.

Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

A nurturing email is an email sent to move potential customers along the sales funnel to encourage them to convert - become paying customers. They are more sales-focused emails sent to your prospective customers to get to make a purchase decision much faster.

The key objectives of nurturing emails are to;

  Build relationships (trust)with your leads/prospects.

  Shorten your sales cycle.

  Maximize ROI from your sales & marketing campaigns.

  Generate more sales from your email outreach.

Follow-up emails and nurturing emails are value-driven emails sent to get prospects to achieve some specific objectives.

Here are some of the important steps to follow when writing your follow-up emails.

Define and clarify your objectives for sending a follow-up email to your prospects.

Review what your first email was about and the goal you sought to achieve, if you don’t get a response a few days after that, craft a follow-up email to either achieve your initial goals or a new one. Here’s an example shared by Liinea,

(Image: Liinea)

Include and emphasize a mutual connection, previous meetings or conversations, an identifier, or a common interest in your follow-up email to help your prospects/email recipients remember you.

Highlighting your connection with your prospects can help them refresh their memory and make it easier to understand your email to improve your response rate.

Examples of these email openers are;

• Last time we spoke about … (topic)
• Your director (Name) referred me to reach out to you about … (topic).

Below is an example from HubSpot;

(Image: HubSpot)

Don’t waste your prospect's time with a long, unclear email. Make your email short, straight to the point with a clearly defined purpose - tell them why you’re sending them the follow-up email. Examples of this are;

• I want to invite you to join us at (event)(date), I think the topic discussed will be beneficial for your role at (company name).
• Dear Zee, as we discussed last week, here’s a link (Insert link) for the content marketing template for your marketing team.

Below is an example from Ortto;

(Image: Ortto)

Craft a strong, eye-catching subject line to briefly describe your email content and entice your recipients to open your emails. Some of the important subject lines statistics according to HubSpot are;

Emails with “Quick” in the subject lines were opened 17% lesser than those without the word.

Emails with “Tomorrow” in the subject line were opened 10% more than those without.

Below is an example from Newoldstamp;

(Image: Newoldstamp)

Reply recommends sending 3 to 4 follow-up emails in the same email thread and three more emails in a new thread.

Here are some of the important steps to follow when writing your nurturing emails.

Have a clear goal in mind when writing your nurturing emails. Your nurturing emails could be for the following objectives - Deliver on a promise, Introduce a new product, offer a discount, Improve engagement, or Answer a FAQ

According to earthweb, personalized subject lines can accomplish 26% of the email success rate.

A personalized and attention-grabbing subject line and greeting connects you with your prospects and sets the mood for a positive email open/response rate.

A nurturing email is a sales/ conversion-driven email sent to make your prospects make a purchase decision. Address their pain points/challenges to grab their attention to your email and highlight how your products/services can help them solve the challenges.

Social proofs provide your recipients with evidence of others that have purchased your products or services and how they gained value from using/buying them. Adding testimonials or reviews in your email improves your prospects’ trust in your business. Here’s an example from Freshworks;

(Image: Freshsales)

Include a fascinating piece of information or facts about your product or service, industry, or general knowledge to get them excited and stir their interest in your email. For example,

(Image: Freshworks)

Don’t force sales on your prospects in your nurturing email, instead carefully and strategically move them along the sales funnel until they eventually become paying customers.

Rather than use CTAs like - Buy/Purchase Now or book a call/demo, use CTAs like;

• Check out this template,
• Let’s talk,
• Check out this resource or link, etc.

Uninterested leads or the ones who have no need for your product or service have no place in your nurturing campaigns. Include an unsubscribe link or button to take out these sets of people.

Schedule and automate your email follow-up with email automation tools like Sloovi Outreach, to scale your email outreach with mass personalization and automated follow-ups.

Reply recommends that your follow-up emails should provide your prospects with value and revolve around them (recipients)and not you.

(Image: Freshsales)

Based on a report from Yesware,

91.24% of email messages are opened the same day they are sent, with 1.68% opening their emails a day later.

89.74% of email responses come the same day the original message was sent, with 3.06% of responses being sent the next day

The reality of this is that if your recipients are going to respond or open your email, they would have done that the same day. If you don’t get a response within this time, you should send a follow-up email to remind them.

EmailAnalytics recommends a follow-up schedule of best practices below;

• First follow-up: 2 business days
• Second follow-up: 3-5 business days
• Third follow-up: 5-7 business days
• Fourth follow-up: 2-4 weeks
• Fifth follow-up: 1 month (and more in that pattern).

According to MailMunch, the best days to send your emails are

• Tuesdays (with an open rate of 18%) - 10 am, 6 am, 2 pm, and 8 pm.
• Thursdays - 8 pm, 10 am, 6 am, and 2 pm.
• Wednesdays - 2 pm, 8 pm, 10 am, and 6 am.