The usage of email marketing is increasing day by day, and more companies are starting to realize the importance of implementing it in their marketing campaigns. Email marketing is a way for companies to interact with their customers and communicate with them. However, lots of businesses find that their emails weren't getting the responses they were hoping for. A good way to combat this is to turn to cold emailing.
This blog post will provide you with a guide to writing a follow-up to a cold email and some tips to implement in cold email campaigns.
Table of Contents
- The Importance of Sending Follow-Ups to Cold Emails
- When To Send Follow-ups?
- A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Cold Emails
- Effective Cold Email Templates
The Importance of Sending Follow-Ups to Cold Emails
You may be wondering why you should put effort into sending follow-up emails when you've not received a positive response. The reason for sending follow-up emails is that they are an effective way to increase your conversion rate. Plus, sending a well-structured follow-up email can increase your chances of getting a positive response, eventually improving your response rates.
When to Send Follow-ups?
Before sending follow-ups to the initial cold email, you should know the right time to send them. Generally, sending emails should be done at most two times per week. However, this number can be different for follow-ups to cold emails, and it is usually best to send a follow-up email after 2-3 days of sending the initial email.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Cold Emails
- Write an Attractive Email Subject Line
Many email marketers simply resend the first cold email when following up on cold outreach. This cold emailing strategy is ineffective because the email's subject line in the replied email remains the same. The subject lines are the first thing your email recipient sees, and if they did not reply to your first email subject line, the chances are that they will not reply to the forwarded one.
So, when you are following up on cold outreach emails, try to rewrite and edit them into personalized, relevant, and compelling subject lines to attract the receiver's attention.
An example of a compelling and great subject line can be: Hey [Recipients name], ready to continue our discussion?
- Always Mention Why You Are Reaching Out Again
Starting the first sentence of your cold email with "I'm reaching out again" or something similar should be avoided.
The first sentence of your cold outreach should include a generic message, which is the main message of your first email, because it could be that the receiver did not understand what the main message was in the first email and thus, did not respond.
Plus, you should avoid sending the same email when doing cold outreach.
For this reason, make it obvious to the reader what the context of the email is, which has the same message that's included in the initial email. This could increase your chances of getting a reply.
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Tell the Receiver What They Will Gain From Communicating With You
Most people respond to emails from people they have never met if they think they will get something valuable out of the exchange.
When writing cold email outreach, consider offering something in return to the recipients. For example, if you are outreaching for a service, you can include in the email copy that you will give them a 12-month (or however long) free trial period for your service.
Including something that the receiver will gain from replying will encourage them to communicate with you, and you will have achieved an effective and successful cold email campaign.
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End With a Call to Action (CTA) Button
Call to action buttons have been proven to be an effective way to engage your email recipients and get them to try out whatever your company is offering.
Call to action buttons can be hyperlinks that direct the reader to something on your website. Implementing a CTA strategy in your email campaigns makes the reader's job easier since they will be able to get more information regarding your products or services directly from your website.
Effective Cold Email Templates
To get started on your cold emailing strategy, you can use tried and tested cold email templates.
#1 Sending Numerous Follow-ups
It is typical to send numerous follow-up emails. However, writing the same email outreach is not effective. You can try following this email template:
Hello [specific person],
I wondered if you are interested in [what you are offering]. As this is the [number of times you've outreached], we would like to provide you with a discount.
Regards,
Email signature
#2 Mentioning Your Company Name to Inform the Reader About Your Services
You may realize that the reader does not know what your company does and what you offer.
So, you can follow up with a cold email with a piece of more detailed information about your company.
Hello [recipient's name],
I noticed that I had not provided much information about [company name]. I want to take this opportunity and educate you on the services that we offer at [company name] and the perks you will enjoy when you become a part of our team.
[Write about your company]
Regards,
Your name
#3 Changing a Detail From the Primary Email
There could be a situation where you'll need to follow up on an email that you initially sent a while ago. So, if you need to update the email and include new details, try following this email template.
Hello [recipient's name],
It has been some time since I've heard back from you. During the time that has passed since our last talk, there have been some changes regarding [company name]'s services, and I think that these changes will benefit your business.
Regards,
Email signature
#4 Sending a Follow-Up Email to Ask Who to Outreach
Another reason you might not get a reply could be having the wrong email account of a company department. To ask for the right person's email account, try using this template:
Hey [recipient's name],
Since I haven't heard back, I wondered if I am reaching out to the right email address.
If [company name]'s offers apply to you, let me know when you are available to talk. If this is not one of your responsibilities, can you provide me with the right person for this?
All the best,
[Your name]
#5 Following-Up After Giving Out a Discount
As mentioned earlier, you might offer a discount to attract people's attention to your services and give them an experience of the benefits they'll enjoy if they collaborate with you. To keep a record of the discounts you've provided, you can start using customer service software to know when you should send follow-ups to your customers.
Hey [recipient name],
[Company name] would like to thank you for giving our services a chance! I'm reaching out to ask if you were satisfied with our services. If you have any feedback, please provide them so that we can improve our services for the future.
If you want to continue with us, let's have a call to arrange everything.
Best,
Email Signature
#6 Ending an Email Conversation
You may encounter an email conversation where you follow up on cold emails but never get a reply back. In this case, you can try following this template to end the conversation.
Hello [recipient's name],
I noticed that we are not getting any replies from you. Perhaps you don't have the time, or you can't see yourself collaborating with us.
In any case, I'll be closing this file, so to speak. If you'd like to collaborate, please let me know.
Best,
[Company name] Team
To Conclude
Writing follow-ups is tricky, so you have to be careful not to be pushy with your cold outreach while trying your best to get a response from the target audience.
In a nutshell, writing follow-ups to cold emails can effectively increase your response rates. Only 2% of sales are made during the first point of contact on average according to one source. Not getting replies does not mean that your email's content is bad; rather, it could mean that your email was lost in the recipient's inbox or had fallen into their spam folder - or that you need to bump them will a little follow up.