How to Write a Follow-up Email After No Response?
In some cases, cold emails aren't reverted. That's when it's important to send a follow-up email. However, it can be awkward to write these emails since professionals are not always sure what to include. In addition, businesses have to second-guess the buying intent of recipients when they do not reply to their emails, making the engagement practically impossible.
It has been found that 50 percent of the maximum conversions occur after the fifth touch, while some studies have shown that it takes six follow-ups to close a lead.
For the best steps and strategies to compose polite follow-up emails, follow our blog.
How Long Should You Wait Before Following Up?
It is important not to wait too long for follow-up emails. Most emails are opened the very same day as they were sent, and it is likely that they will also reply on the same day as well. So if the emails do not receive any reply even after a day, it is best to assume that the replies will not come. However, how can the teams know when to send a follow-up email?
There is a general rule that states that you should wait two to three days before sending the first follow-up email. The subsequent email must be sent after a few additional days of waiting. However, businesses should experiment with the waiting period to understand the best results. A suggested schedule of sending six emails over a 30-day waiting period works best without irritating recipients.
Follow-up Automation
It's nearly impossible for a business to keep track of follow up emails manually if it aims to reach over a thousand prospects a week. For this reason, businesses are now focusing on automating follow up emails instead. This helps them create very scalable and effective follow up email sequences.
A variety of paid tools come with free trial offers and free tools that allow you to use them unlimitedly, so following up on emails becomes much easier. Businesses use these tools to merge mail features, schedule emails, and inform agencies when the emails are paused, triggered, opened, or replied to. On the tool dashboards, data is recorded and analyzed. In addition to AB testing of the emails, different subject lines, body messages, and campaign sequences are also tested within the automation process.
Social media and CRM integrations can streamline outreach, further streamlining outreach.
Channel diversification
You might want to explore and implement the Omni-channel approach if your business's follow up strategy keeps failing. When emails are not drawing responses, try incorporating other channels, such as social media, telephone calls, text messages, or video. Omni-channel strategies have led to an increase in revenue of 9.5% year-over-year for businesses. Additionally, this approach allows targets to receive a complete prospecting, nurturing, and retention experience. By conducting in-depth research, you can determine the channel where the prospects are most active, and then you can send them a follow-up text from that channel.
Make a list of your goals
It is important to understand your goals and what you want to accomplish as a business before applying and implementing the follow-up strategy. A few examples are:
- Do you want to know more about something in particular?
- Interested in meeting the clients
- Final goal is to close the sale
This is the most important aspect of the strategy, as every situation above is different and requires a different approach. Each situation is unique and requires its own unique approach. The process must change to suit the goals and potentially design the campaign accordingly. If the goal is unclear, it is strongly advised to not send follow-up emails.
Consider their perspective
If you know your goals, designing and implementing campaigns is easier. However, businesses must also keep in mind how their prospects will react to this implementation. It is imperative for businesses to understand the optimal frequency of follow-up emails to achieve success. The follow-up emails should not be too invasive or annoying to optimize the user experience. Email frequency can be determined by the following situations:
- When a prospect requests a demo, a higher number of emails are sent.
- It is reasonable to send a few emails after a prospect downloads a few attachments and shows a little interest.
- Prospects who just sent a cold email send the fewest emails.
What is the Best Way to Write a Follow Up Email?
Here are the details that your email should accomplish to make your campaign successful. Once the purpose of the email has been understood, we can proceed to writing the actual email.
Be clear and concise about your goals
Using the best follow up email as a business tool can help you achieve your goals. It is important to note, however, that the particular email may or may not convert your leads into sales. But if a sale hasn't yet been made, the business must continue nurturing the lead. Therefore, regardless of your business goal, make sure you clearly communicate it in the mail. The message could be a product demo, a concept proof, feedback, or a simultaneous process. An email follow-up with a clear subject line and compelling call to action is more likely to get a response at the earliest opportunity.
Provide context and Clear Obstacles
As a result of the last email not receiving a response, follow-up emails are sent. Therefore, clearing communication obstacles becomes increasingly important and helps the prospect understand your message. Start the new email from where you ended the last email to accomplish this. The email could end by providing a solution to any obstacles the prospect may be facing or by creating a custom subject line for better clarity. You can get better responses if you respond to emails when you receive them.
Create More Value
A lack of value must be the reason the prospect has not responded to the emails, so simultaneous emails must be created to deliver value. This is how you can stimulate a conversation with prospects. Ask them for their opinions about pricing, features, and positioning. Using this brownie point is only possible if the prospects indicate they wish to share their opinions. In the next emails, you can ask them for a meeting, demo, or conference, as well as feedback.
Subject lines should be appropriate
Follow up emails are not powerful enough without a compelling subject line. It's this factor that determines whether your email will be opened. In a sea of emails, a catchy subject line will make your email stand out among others. Crisp, short and between 3 and 6 words are the most effective subject lines. So do not ignore a subject line.
How to Send Follow-up Emails?
A follow-up email should be sent once the emails have been well written. If the business is sending follow-up emails individually, here's how you can automate that process and send them in bulk. This will make it easier for the emails to be responded to.
Introduction to Automated Follow-ups
It used to take a lot of time to organize and send follow-up emails, which reduced the efficiency of the team and delayed the response to several emails.
As a result, the system has been automated, and schedules have been created to send emails according to their specified dates and times.
Follow-up emails can be set up automatically by following these steps:
- Register for an automation platform- Automation platforms are free to sign up and have a 14-day free trial. The service can be accessed by businesses using their Gmail, G Suite, or Microsoft accounts. Upon signing in, the dashboard will be displayed for the user account.
- New Campaign Creation- Once the dashboard has been accessed, the user can go directly to “Email Campaign” and create a new campaign. You can create the sequence here by naming the campaign and uploading a CSV file containing the name of the email recipients, as well as other details. An updated CSV will help prevent bounces and improve your email reputation by preventing high bounce rates.
- Drafting Stage 1 Email- This section allows businesses to create the email content. This will be the first email sent and requires careful drafting. Increasing personalization can be achieved through automation. Email open rates also increase as a result.
- Draft Follow-Up Stages- Once the first stage has been drafted, it is time for the next stages to fall in line. After drafting, you can put it on a queue or sequence with a schedule for sending. Then you can add up more sequences until you have sent off the desired number of emails.
- Test Each Stage Emails- Before sending the emails, make sure it is an effective follow up email and test deliverability. It would be helpful to test the emails by sending them to recipients to see how they appear in their inboxes.
- Set Intervals & Schedules- Once all tests have been conducted, it is necessary to check trigger conditions for each follow-up email. After that, follow-up sequences can be added and schedules can be created. Email sequences can contain information such as dates, times, and time zones.
How Do You Make Your Follow-Ups More Effective?
As we understand how to write and send follow-up emails most effectively, we can now understand how to optimize them to increase response rates.
Scheduling follow ups
A cold email outreach campaign's success depends on knowing when to send the emails, as this is another factor that also determines its success. When the recipient lives in another
time zone, the emails must be scheduled according to that zone. This will ensure that the email will be delivered and open. If they do, there is a high possibility that the emails will also generate responses.
It would also be impossible to find the emails if they were sent too early or too late in the day. Emails must be scheduled to be sent at a time when recipients are likely to open them. Since all of the above factors cannot be handled manually, the business follow-up emails must be automated.
Follow up persistently
Research suggests that 9 follow-ups have shown an aggregate increase of 54% open rates and 43% response rates. As discussed above, responses are only drawn in after quite a few follow-ups. As a result, businesses must realize that more closures come only after more methodical follow-ups. It is always a good idea not to overdo the emails.
Rather than wasting extra time with unresponsive leads, utilize that time to nurture moderate and highly responsive leads. A meaningful follow-up email will help resolve their issues and increase their engagement with the brand. The content of the email is very important here.
Optimizing follow-up intervals
The business must ensure that they are sending the right emails when they send a lot of them. Regular emails annoy the recipient and might also invade their personal space. By sending emails at shorter intervals, the recipient would have the privilege of replying and potentially converting.
Following up across channels
There is no success in the follow up email strategies if other channels are not utilized simultaneously.
Sending direct messages and connection requests to your prospects mentioning the email conversation is a great way to get their valuable feedback.
You can also engage with your prospects on Twitter by liking their tweets and retweeting them.
Personalize offers and discounts
It is possible to update your prospect's buying experience by offering better customized and personalized offers and discounts. If any specific objections have been holding them back, these offers may make the difference. Moreover, they will be prevented from engaging in further engagements, resulting in quicker closing of the deals.
Follow-up email templates for B2B sales
These email templates not only save you time, but they also help you with quick personalization.
- Following up after no response- When the prospect does not reply to emails, it is better not to send plain emails. Case studies or resources can be included in emails instead. Their business issues and pain points will be resolved as a result. Your emails must also explain how your product can help them.
- Following up with a referral request- The emails do not always reach the decision-makers. In your follow-up emails, try recapping your previous emails and reiterating your product. End each email by asking the recipient to connect you with the decision-maker by highlighting how they would benefit from the same.
- Follow up after a trigger - These emails are sent to turn the prospect's interest into a strong interest in your product. In order to make your follow up email stand out, it should include a request for a demo when your previous email sparked interest.
- Following up after networking - These follow up email templates are mostly sent after a conference or an event, and are sent based on prospects' interest levels. The purpose of these emails is usually to arrange meetings, free trials, or demos. Emails like these add value to existing relationships.
Using the best practices for follow up emails does not only get results; it also ensures that the message gets delivered to the right inbox and does not land in the spam folder. A good email followup practice will also improve your email reputation score, which will improve the trust of recipients. In order to step up the success ladder, you need to write follow up emails that matter and leverage their true power.
