Don't Let Your Cold Emails Go Unanswered 📧

May 28th, 2024

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“Follow-ups don’t work and annoy people!”

In some cases, yes, this is true. However, if done right, not only do follow-ups work … but many people genuinely appreciate the touch point.

Being “professionally persistent” is the key.

We’ve scheduled thousands of sales meetings through Email Outreach Company and track each one to see how many emails it takes to get a meeting scheduled.

The results: it takes on average 3.5 emails to schedule a meeting.

Only 17% of our meetings are scheduled on the first email — if you don’t follow up, you’re missing out on 83% of the meetings you could be getting! (see chart below)

With ~10% of our meetings coming on the 8th follow-up email!

Are you following up? What’s your copy? When are you sending these follow-ups?

Keep reading for tips on copy and timing of follow-ups.

In the meantime, here are some highlights:

• 👥 People are Busy: We may read an email and have interest, but forget to respond — people will appreciate your professional persistence as it brings an important topic back on their radar.

• ❎ Respect the “No”: When a prospect unsubscribes or tells you they’re not interested, remove them from your sequence and respect their inbox.

• 🕒 Timing Is Everything in Follow-Ups: It may not be a need today, but maybe in 1 week or 1 month it will be — capitalize on the power of timing by following up.

🚀 Propel Your Sales Forward: Master the Art of Cold Emailing Decision-Makers! Watch the full 52-min video here

Video published: March 15, 2024

Catch my feature on The Sales Podcast by The Sales Whisperer with Wes Schaeffer — we talked about startups, sales, cold email, and for the purpose of this newsletter, following up!

Key Takeaways

• 📈 Persistence Pays Off: A systematic follow-up strategy, requiring several touches, significantly increases the chances of converting leads. (34:50)

• 🛠️ Tool Selection Matters: Choosing the right tools for cold and warm emailing, like Instantly for cold approaches, can enhance reach and effectiveness. (20:55)

• 🎯 Quality Over Quantity: The value of a lead outweighs volume in cold emailing; focusing on quality and directness leads to better close rates. (13:26)

Product Spotlight:

We run all of our 3,000+ inboxes for our clients through Instantly.ai.

And we generate most of our 500,000-contact lists through Instantly.

It’s great for list building, running campaigns (including follow-ups), and replying to prospects.

If you haven’t signed up, I highly recommend you give it a try.

Winning follow-ups:

1. Short & sweet: 2-4 sentences (Hi {NAME}, Just a gentle nudge about {VALUE PROP}. {1 sentence CTA}.

2. Refer back to the original email: the original email is where the majority of your “pitch for a meeting” will come from — the follow-up is intended to act as a gentle nudge to see if there is/isn’t interest.

3. Respect their inbox: by not continuing to follow up if they ask to be removed from the sequence, by not being rude to them for not responding (I’m surprised I even need to say this!), and by making it easy for them to say “yes, let’s talk” or “No, I’m not interested”.

Following up works and is more appreciated than we realize 👇

Given that there isn't a universal approach to follow-up emails, consider this suggested timeline for sending your follow-up emails:

• Follow-up #1: +2 days after initial email

• Follow-up #2: +4 days after initial email

• Follow-up #3: +7 days after initial email

• Follow-up #4: +11 days after initial email

• Follow-up #5: +14 days after initial email

• Follow-up #6: +21 days after initial email

• Follow-up #7: +28 days after initial email

• Follow-up #8: +35 days after initial email

My Last $.02

We have an internal Slack channel with Memorable Responses — basically prospects telling us how great our emails are — we also have a Slack channel with Mean/Ugly Responses — basically prospects telling us how much they don’t like our emails.

On more than one occasion, we’ve had a prospect tell us to kick rocks (to keep it PG) and within 5 minutes another prospect tells us our email is the greatest thing since sliced bread — to the SAME follow-up email.

The learning — you can’t please everyone.

We just need to do our best to be professionally persistent while respecting our prospect’s inboxes.

Effective follow-up is both an art and a science. They require a blend of timing, customization, and persistence. By following these strategies, you'll get more responses, more meetings, and more sales.

Persistence pays off and follow-ups work — I promise.

Until next time, happy emailing!

Adam

Adam Rosen
Founder
Email Outreach Company
New York, New York
www.eocworks.com

PS — ready to leverage cold email for more sales? Schedule a call and let's get you started.