7 [Critical] Sales Follow Up Email Ideas You Must Use

Do you send a lot of emails to prospects? And is your response rate…very, very low?

Maybe your emails do get an initial response every once in a while. Then, when you reply with your sales follow-up email, does the prospect disappear?

This is a really common issue that we see. Most follow-up emails are the weak link in the process.

It’s time to make sure that your sales follow-up emails are truly engaging, enticing the prospect into having a real conversation with you.

Having a strong sales follow-up email will make a huge difference in ultimately setting appointments. In this video, I’m going to show you 7 critical sales follow-up email ideas you must use. Check it out:

1. Know your entire email process.

If you’re using cold email campaigns to send out a few emails to prospects, do you know exactly how many emails you’re sending out, and what each email is going to focus on? If you’re using cold email automation, then chances are you do—but many salespeople don’t. They’re just kind of haphazardly, randomly sending out emails. Then they’re following up when they set a reminder in their calendar to follow up, but they don’t have the entire email process mapped out.

One of the most important sales follow up email ideas is simply knowing your entire email process, in and out. Let’s say you’re sending 5 emails to a prospect over the course of a month. All of those emails must be providing value to the prospect. They must be sent at strategic times. And they’ve got to be relevant and personalized. None of this is truly possible without a mapped out plan for your entire email process.

Knowing your entire email process will make your sales follow up emails so much stronger. Prospects rarely respond to the first email, and they’re much more likely to respond to one of those later sales follow up emails. That’s why we need to know our entire email process, from start to finish.

2. Heavy personalization.

When it comes to cold email, one of the biggest concerns prospects have is whether they’re actually hearing from a real human being—or a bot. People don’t want to engage with emails that fail to demonstrate that there’s a real person behind the message. That’s why heavy personalization is one of the most critical sales follow-up email ideas you can master.

You can easily source personal details about prospects from their LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter profiles. Work-related personalization details show that you really understand their organization and what’s going on in their world. The more you can personalize those sales follow-up emails, the more likely the prospect ultimately is to respond to what you have to say. Demonstrating that you’re a real person goes a long way when it comes to follow up sales emails. It’s absolutely critical, and it can instantly improve the value you’re demonstrating in the course of the email.

3. Keep it short.

Prospects have very short attention spans. This means that you don’t want to be sending a 7-page email to a prospect. It’s just a complete waste of time, and it’s actually going to lower the likelihood that they respond. If they don’t even know you, they’re not going to read a 300-word essay that was written by you. Keep your sales follow up emails pretty short—and by that, I mean two, possibly three very short paragraphs. Or even shorter than that. The shorter you keep your sales follow-up emails, the more likely they are to respond.

4. Focus on them.

One of the biggest mistakes I see with sales follow-up email ideas is the misconception that the emails should be focused on the salesperson or the organization they represent. Your prospects don’t care about you and they certainly don’t care about your organization. They don’t even really care about your offering. Make sure that your sales follow-up emails are only focused on them.

How many emails have you sent that lead with something like “I am,” or “we are”, or “we do this”? Your prospects don’t care about that. As soon as they see that language, they’re already gone. You’ve got to focus your sales follow up emails on the prospect, on their world, and on what’s going on with them. Not you.

5. KACTA.

KACTA stands for Kick-Ass Call-to-Action. You must have a KACTA in your follow up sales emails. If your call-to-action is something weak like “let’s hop on a phone call,” then chances are your prospect is going to be pretty uninterested in that. But if you can have a KACTA that the prospect would actually be genuinely intrigued by, you’re in a much better place. Maybe it’s an audit on what they’re currently doing, or something truly high-value that the prospect will say yes to. Your positive reply rate on your sales follow-up emails is going to go way through the roof.

6. Close with a question.

I can’t tell you how many sales follow up emails I see that end with something like, “Let me know if you think this would be a fit,” or, “Feel free to reach back out if you want to connect.” Why go through all the trouble to send out sales follow-up emails if you’re not even closing with something that’s going to actually engage them? Always close your emails with a question.

Try something as simple as, “Does this make some sense to pursue?” or, “Could you see how this might be useful in your organization?” It doesn’t really matter what the question is. The point is that you want to close your sales follow-up emails with a question that really sucks them in to reply with an answer. Whether it’s yes or no, you just want them to write back.

7. Pick up the phone.

Salespeople tend to send out sales follow up emails…and then ask, “Okay. What should I do next?”

Get on the phone.

You have a phone, and if you’ve got access to the prospect’s phone number, then just call them right away. This demonstrates that you’re a real human being and not just some bot. That’s why picking up the phone is actually one of the most powerful sales follow up email ideas out there. Be quick to just pick up the phone if you can.

So there you have it. Now you know 7 critical sales follow-up email ideas you must use. Which of these ideas did you find most useful for your own sales emails? Be sure to share below in the comment section to get involved in the conversation.