5 Easy Ways to Get More from Your Sales Follow Up Emails
Are your sales emails getting ignored? If the answer is “yes,” you’re not alone. Most sales emails these days get ignored. According to stats, only 24% of sales emails are opened.
But before you decide to drop this channel from your sales strategy, check out these stats, you have a 21% chance of getting a reply to your second email if the first goes unanswered. (Source). You have a 13% chance to get a response on the 4th follow up.
The stats make it absolutely clear that follow-up emails play a pivotal role in your email strategy. But not all sales follow up emails are created equal. Some have a much higher probability of getting a response than others. Given below are five sure-fire ways to take your follow up emails to the next level, so you can crush your sales goals.
1. Use clear and compelling subject lines
If the subject line fails to draw people in, your email will get deleted; if it captures their attention, they’ll read on. Try putting yourself in the shoes of your prospects. High-level prospects receive hundreds of sales emails on a daily basis. No one has the time to go through that many messages, and your prospects are no exception. They have no choice but to scan the subject lines and quickly decide which one is worth their time. So, avoid using generic subject lines. If the subject isn’t clear, [the receiver] might not know what the conversation is about. But don’t stop there – clarity is only one piece of the puzzle – if you want more prospects to open your follow up emails you need to intrigue them so that they’ll be interested in knowing what’s inside your message.
If sending bad email subject lines can tank your marketing emails open rates by 1X, the effect of a similar error in sales follow up emails can be 5X.
2. Don’t tell too much, don’t ask too much
One of the biggest mistakes people make when crafting sales follow up email copy is writing too much or too less.
While writing a long email is good, it gives you a chance to convey everything. But you have to remember that your prospects are super busy people. If your message is too long, they’ll quickly move on without responding, even if it’s a personalized one. But, don’t be too brief: a 10-word email is much less effective than a 200-word email. So, try to wrap up your follow up emails in six or seven sentences — and a little bit shorter is even better.
Once you clearly stated the purpose the next thing you need to do is to make a clear ask. Never leave it on the recipients to decide what to do – they’ll never do anything if you don’t ask them to do it. So, make it absolutely clear what you want your prospects to do. The more obvious, the better. But, be reasonable with the ask and make it easy for the receiver to execute your ask.
The key to great sales follow up email is to remain two things: crisp and relevant.
3. Learn how to craft emails
Unless you are an email copywriter, you can likely improve your copywriting skills by taking an email copywriting course. But even if you’re not interested in joining a sales email copywriting course, there are boundless opportunity to learn things on the internet. Just Google the terms “email copywriting,” “Sales email copywriting” “Best sales follow up email,” Good sales follow up email, and you will get a lot of high-quality resources – you can learn anything from how to write a good subject line to crafting a sales follow up email copy from them.
Even if you know how to write a sales follow up email copy, you should check out these resources. Heck, every marketer should learn about email copywriting because, why not?
4. A/B test your sales follow up emails
A/B testing is a powerful tool that can increase your sales follow up email performance. So, invest some time in it. Test every element of your follow up emails just as you do for your cold email campaigns. In particular:
- Test your subject lines
- Test different templates
- Test different timings of the day to find out the best time to send your email
- Send at different days to find out the best day to send your follow up email
- Test different Call-to-actions (CTAs)
A/B testing will keep your small fractures from turning into breaks. Keep iterating your follow up emails to increase your ultimate odds of success.
5. Use video in your follow up emails
When it comes to follow up emails, your prospective customers already know you. You don’t need to introduce yourself, your company or tell them about your position in the market. But you do need to stand out in crowded inboxes. Videos are a great way to do that. They are a great way to capture attention – you can put them in the subject lines of your emails and include the thumbnail in the email body.
Record a personalized video to capture your prospective customers’ attention and tie it back to your recent conversation. Not only videos will make your follow up emails super effective, but they are easier to create than typing up a long email.