7 Tips for Following Up on Email Pitches to Increase Sales

Do cold emails usually turn into leads? The obvious answer is “NO!”

And here’s the proof. Robert Clay, founder of Marketing Wizdom, reported that only 2% of leads convert after the initial contact.

The magic of converting target customers into paying customers lies in the follow-up emails. If your target audience didn’t reply to your initial email, get them to take a look at your pitch by sending amazing follow-up emails they can’t ignore!

In this article, you’ll learn some less discussed yet effective tips for following up on email pitches. These will raise your response rates without annoying anyone. All this will ultimately result in more sales.

Why should you always send follow-up emails

According to research, sending one more follow-up email boosts your average response rate by 22%. Also, follow-up emails generally receive more replies. Compared to the initial email, the first follow-up email has a 40% higher reply rate.

Most sales professionals know the impact of follow-ups. Yet, the data paints a dismal picture. 48% of salespeople send no follow-up email, and 44% give up after the first attempt.

The number of salespeople who never follow up is 48%. And after the first effort, 44% gave up. Only 8% of sales reps regularly follow up. And if you’re one of them, you’re giving yourself a significant competitive advantage.

7 less talked about tips for following up on email pitches.

If you’re not following up on email pitches correctly, it could have disastrous effects on your reputation.

According to a Harvard Business Review survey, 56% of prospects are dissatisfied with the follow-up emails they receive in their inboxes. And nearly 48% of prospects who receive poor follow-up will then spread the word about their negative experience to at least ten other people. Never send follow-up emails without having an effective strategy in place.

So, keep the following quick tips in mind when sending follow-up emails.

1. Write a catchy subject line.

A strong email subject line is the foundation of any email. 47% of email recipients base their decision to open an email on the subject line. 

A powerful subject line accomplishes multiple objectives:

• conveying value, 
• arousing curiosity, 
• and building trust.

Try to keep the email subject line to five words or less. People check 56% of emails using their mobile devices, where long subject lines will get cut off.

Here are a few examples of effective follow-up email subject lines:

• “Reminding you to sign up for XYZ” – This email serves as a courteous event reminder.
• “Reminder for network event” – Another polite follow-up email subject line regarding an event.
• “It would be wonderful to hear from you.” – This is a casual and laid-back subject you should only use to follow up on a sales pitch email with someone you already know.
• “I appreciate our meeting” – This is a new approach to getting in touch with someone you’ve already met. Instead of requesting a reaction, you’re forging a bond.
• “Resources list for [company name]” – Another excellent choice that piques the interest of your potential customer in your offerings.

When choosing a subject line for a follow-up email, don’t use the same line you did in the first email. The recipient may have missed your previous email for a reason. If you send the very same subject line again, it will be disregarded again.

2. Consider giving some context in your follow-up email.

Including the context in your emails makes them more entertaining, interesting, and relevant to the email recipient.

Consider these:

• Have you ever interacted with that individual before? Is there something to use as a reference? Maybe a discussion on Twitter or a blog post? 
• Contextual information helps you establish a more personal connection with the recipient. In that case, converting them is significantly easier. 

Here’s a follow up email template to show how to provide context in your follow-up emails.

Try to generate context if you haven’t spoken to or interacted with the recipient. Consider the person’s tweets, for instance. All My Tweets quickly gathers every tweet from a specific account and displays them on one screen.

Related: The 9 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools to Save Time

Finding pain points then becomes as simple as looking up keywords. All you need to do now is craft your follow-up email in such a way that it provides a solution to those pain points.

Example:

Jason Zook used follow-up emails to close 75% of the 2,000 engagements he attracted over the years. He accomplished this by sending personalized emails and contextualizing his email communications.

3. Remove The RE: And Send A New Email

Following up with a reply to your initial email is a terrific idea. It maintains the conversation in one thread. It’s beneficial when you want to add new or relevant information on top of your first sales email pitch. Even though this is a tested strategy, it is also frequently discovered that sending a brand-new email works just as well. 

The line of thought is that there was a reason why the initial email didn’t receive a response. It’s unlikely that the same subject or content will catch someone’s attention twice. A new email is a clean slate to attract readers to open your email.

4. Make answering as simple as you can

Your follow-up email has a higher chance of getting a response if you make it easy for recipients to act. But remember to be careful about how you use it.

Example 1: Give numbered choices as response options.

Example 2: I’m emailing once more due to…

The salesperson uses a CRM and circles back after a certain number of days to gauge interest in example #2. It’s a unique and fresh idea as it shows the salesperson’s approach in complete transparency.

With a single input of 1 or 0, the follow-up email also establishes expectations and offers recipients a simple escape by promising to stop bugging them. It’s a perfect win-win situation.

5. Imagine yourself in your prospects’ position.

Before composing or sending a follow-up email, take reader experience into account. Consider your follow-up email frequency. Forget what the experts advise you to do or not do, and consider the situation from the reader’s perspective.

Unnecessary follow-ups are a pain. Few follow-ups slow down the process. Discover the ideal balance for your goals.

Think about the following:

• Why should they care about this? 
• What mood are they in? 
• What kind of background do they have? 
• Do I have a cause to follow up (apart from the obvious one)?

Create a follow-up strategy to target customers rather than yourself by finding answers to these questions. And that could be the difference-maker.

All follow-ups require a different strategy, so let the context determine the approach:

• You can be aggressive in meeting prospects’ demands if they have asked for a call or a demo.
• If they downloaded something from your website, they indicated interest but did not want to be contacted directly. You must show the value of what you have to offer. Since they haven’t asked for anything, you must be extremely cautious while sending cold follow-up emails.
• Always remember to add a call to action for the recipients.

6. Add some humor to the follow-up email.

Humor livens up your follow-up email. Add a splash of comedy for a better chance of standing out among the thousands of emails. 

Your chances of winning over potential customers increase if you make them laugh. But, make sure that this is suitable for your audience. 

Find out what information your prospects are interested in on Twitter and LinkedIn. And if they like humor.

Adding amusing GIFs, photos, and videos to your follow-up emails is an easy way to spice your follow-up emails up. A picture is worth 1000 words.

Example: Use this Kermit meme to let people know you’re still waiting to hear back from them after sending them an email.

Here’s a follow-up email template with some humor. 

7. Make the email skimmable for the reader.

Like it or not, professionals skim emails more often than they read them. Write your follow-up emails in an easy-to-read format so the prospect can quickly scan and understand why you’re sending them.

Make the content in your emails easy to scan by bolding the most significant parts and including bullet points to highlight information. These will assist your prospects in getting the gist of it.

Short sentences and paragraphs also help scanning. Longer sentences make your content harder to understand.

Use these suggestions in your first email to reduce the need for a follow-up email. 

Check out this example from Twillio, which uses bullet points to divide the text into small readable chunks:

Wrapping up our tips for following up on email pitches

Write your follow-up emails with the same care as your email pitch. An unprofessional email sent at the incorrect time usually backfires. The expert tips in this article will help you create a bulletproof follow-up email.

Keep the topic and your recipient in mind when writing the email. Avoid sounding disappointed if they don’t respond.

Want to become a better Gmail user? Check out our Gmail productivity tips to become a more efficient salesperson.

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