According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a follow-up means “to try to get more information about (something)” and in the sales process is the act of reaching out again to feed the lead more information to try to convert them into clients.

Most of the time, a follow up leads to a meeting or a call, but it might depend on the approach chosen by the sales team according to their goals. Following up is a crucial part of email marketing, as it not only helps to drive lead generation, but it’s also a chance for brand awareness.

Note that only 23.9% of sales emails are open, so if you choose not to follow up your chances to be successful are lower and it’s known that most companies give up after the first email, so creating a follow up strategy can be an outstanding asset to sales development.

Another statistic shows that there is an 18% chance of getting a reply after only one try.

Our goal with this article is to share info about how to use follow up email when no response is received. Here are a few topics we’re going to cover:

• Follow Up Practice Best Cases

• Numbers and rates

• Tips to improve your content strategy directed to follow up emails

• Professional email templates that can be adapted to any industry or situation

• What to measure

How to create the ultimate follow up strategy

During this step, you might need help from someone specialized in content, but you can also allocate a few hours from a sales rep during a specific period to make sure the strategy is being taken care of.

Although one person is going to be in charge of the strategy, it’s important to brainstorm with the whole team about different information that can be “catchy” for the leads, as this will help with content curation for the follow up email after no response strategy - and the blog (if applicable).

Image Source: Techpp.com 

We believe it’s important to consider that there are two categories of follow ups:

• For branding campaigns. These are the nurturing emails sent to people with the intention to feed them with relevant information in order to drive them to take action, such as downloading material and sharing more contact details. The follow ups, in this case, work well to add lead scoring and to establish the company as a market leader.

• For the Sales Development approach. These emails are shorter, straightforward and show a clear intention to discuss business. The follow up method here is different because you need to drive the person to say ‘yes’ to talking to you directly and potentially offline.

Note that these two can be complimentary! As mentioned before, the branding campaign adds a score to the lead, and then the leads with the highest scores can be sent to the SDR team for a more direct approach.

Either way, the approach to create the follow-up strategy will be quite similar, and here is the step by step to plan your strategy:

1. Segmentation

2. Automation

3. Content mapping

4. Performance tracking

Segmentation

The first thing you need to do is to think of all follow up email chains that you can create based on clients’ behavior. For example, here are a few suggestions of categories for follow up email after no response from a client:

• People who did not open the email

• People who opened the email but did not take any actions

• People who clicked on a link

• People who opened the email multiple times

Creating segments allows you to expand the strategy and work with personalized content and offers.

Choose automation

Automation has proven to be one of the most effective ways to increase sales performance, and it can also help to improve communication with leads because it allows you to schedule different follow ups according to the email batches.

By choosing an automation software, you’ll also be able to organize templates and attribute them to each follow up.

Image Source: Mackinac

Content Mapping

Now that you have a list of segments and has chosen an automation tool you can go ahead and work on step number three: creating content. And, in order to do that you have to dig deep and map all kinds of content that your leads would love to read, listen, or see.

Part of learning how to send a follow up email after no response is studying the client and understanding what kind of content will help them solve a problem or will make them wish for more information.

In this phase, the automation tool can be extra helpful and generate content based on artificial intelligence. An AI personal content writer can create content that can be added to the blog and shared through email.

Content mapping should take into account: who, why, and what. For example:

The ‘what’ column is all about listing marketing and sales materials that can drive people to take action, or spark interest in learning more.

Track performance

It’s known that some marketers don’t follow up after the first email and do not run tests to find out what works better, so do yourself a favor and track everything. 

Just like sales performance data, email performance shows a lot about clients' likes and dislikes, and it can be a powerful tool to generate insight. 

You can’t just create a follow up strategy and expect it to work on its own. So, make a list of what needs to be measured and make sure to religiously track the metrics.

You should definitely spend some time studying email data if you wish to increase lead generation and sales conversion.

Tips for creating excellent follow up campaigns

Crafting good emails is a skill that can be developed, and it’s quite useful, as emails are the best way to acquire customers. According to a study by Mckinsey, emails are 40x more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined.

Image Source: Mckinsey

If you follow best practices and tips, the results can be outstanding and speed up your learning curve, so let’s check five things you can do to create attractive follow up emails:

1. Be creative

2. Be funny

3. Use numbers, data, and bullet points

4. Have a good signature

5. Have amazing subject lines

Be creative

Don’t be afraid to be bold and use creative headlines and user experience. You can vary: add videos, GIFs, and other interactive content.

When crafting cold emails, go ahead and improve your cold email subject line, as it will provide a higher chance that the recipients will open your message. Emal design is also quite important, as the visual part attracts some people.

Check out this example of headers Slack used in one of their campaigns:

Image Source: Linkedin

Be funny

You can use humor to spice up the content. Humor actually helps increase responses as an average of 40% of people prefer humorous emails, but take baby steps and check how people react at first.

You can begin by adding a funny image, for example:

Image Source: MailRelay

The secret here is to find the right tone for your brand because you might think that humor doesn’t apply to your business at all. However, you can still try to find a way to break the ice by using humor and changing how people see your company, hopefully establishing a better rapport.

Humor might be the key to your client’s heart (and pocket). You should consider it.

Use numbers, data and bullet points

Information based on data is more likely to be trusted than random statements, so make sure to add a few bullet points and numbers to show the lead that you are familiar with market trends.

In fact, showing data seems to be an interesting trigger to get people curious and wishing for more content.

Check out Hubspot’s approach by using bold letters and percentage in the first sentence:

Image Source: Sumo

Bullet point lists also work well, because they condense the message, and help highlight relevant details. See below Autopilot’s approach with a general greeting, bullet points, fun CTA, and a short signature.

Image Source: Sumo

Have a good signature

The email signature is usually overlooked, and sales reps miss a great chance to advertise and get the lead’s attention.

If you want to make sure you are following best practices, always take a look at email signature templates and get inspired to create an even better one.

For now, we’ll show you two good examples, one for each approach that we are considering: SDR and branding. 

• Sample #1: For the SDR email follow up, it’s a good idea to add a picture, to use only a few colors, and to add a slogan or relevant information about the role.

Source: Canva

• Sample #2: For general branding campaigns, choose to add an address, contact information, logo, and feel free to add a promotional or an advertising banner.

Source: Canva

In both cases, you can and should add links to yours or the company’s social media.

Finally, we’re going to discuss the subject lines which might be the most important part of the strategy as it is the first thing the lead sees. 

Have amazing subject lines

If you don’t craft an exceptional subject line, the chances are that open rates will be quite low, so this is something that needs to be carefully done and tracked. When it comes to a follow-up email subject line, it’s highly recommended to run A/B tests to see what works best and brings better results. 

Let’s check a few examples based on categories:

• Funny

• FOMO
• Address a pain point
• Curiosity

Funny

“[lead name], [lead name], [lead name]. We need to talk.”

“Don’t you dare delete me! I know where to find you.”

“Time flies, and so do discounts. Grab yours now”

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

“Nooo, Your Subscription is Expiring”

“This is your last chance to win a gift card”

“Clock is ticking. Don’t let this opportunity go to waste.”

Address a Pain Point

“100 Blog Post Ideas”

“Don’t Make These Four Sales Mistakes”

“Report about [relevant subject]”

Curiosity

“Introducing Our Latest [add feature]”

“Rough Day? Let’s make it better”

“You shouldn’t open this email”

How to write a follow-up email after no response

Writing email marketing campaigns might seem complicated, but if you use the right tools and think about an informative email chain, things can get easier. There’s not a rule about how many follow up emails you should create, so let’s begin by checking a few follow-up email samples after no response.

The email chain can consist of a second follow up email after response, a third one, or a fourth. It’s up to you, but remember that in the last case you can add a follow-up networking email after no response.

Check out a few templates for your inspiration:

Tip: Sometimes, when you reach out to people who were subscribed to a free email list, you can be more generic about the content shared, but most of the time it’s important to personalize.

Conclusion about follow up email strategy

By creating a follow-up email campaign, your company can increase the chances of conversion due to long term branding. Plus, the follow ups can be efficiently planned and done if the right tools are used during the process. 

It’s time to take the follow up emails to the next level and surprise people with great content, useful information, and a bit of out of the box subject lines and design.

Here’s a quick recap about what we talked about in the article:

1. Subject lines are very important

2. 70% of marketers give up after the first email sent

3. Focus on segmentation

4. Use automation to improve productivity

5. Don’t be afraid to innovate

We hope you enjoyed the read and that the rate of your follow up emails after no response starts to decrease because of your fantastic follow up strategy.