You just had a productive phone call with a potential customer.
They love the products you sell and have the budget to pay for them. Once they get permission from their boss, they'll call you back and make a purchase.
Sounds perfect, right? The only problem is they never call. You wait a week, then another. You're wondering if you should call them again or send a few follow-up emails.
You don't want to feel like a creepy stalker, so you do nothing. After four weeks of radio silence, you give up hope and officially move the potential customer from your CRM's "Closing" stage to the "Missed Opportunities" column. Bummer.
Every sales professional has had a similar experience. It's part of the game. Fortunately, a solid sales follow-up strategy will help you avoid these scenarios and close more deals.
In this guide, we'll explore the art of following up, including how often to follow up, what to say, and how to ensure your follow-up emails don't end up in the trash. Let's go!
Let's start with the big question: how many times should you follow up with your prospects?
The best answer is probably, "Way more than you think." According to Brevet, 80 percent of sales require five follow-ups after an initial meeting.
There are two reasons for this. One, the average person receives 121 emails a day. So, there's a good chance your first few sales emails get buried.
Second, this concept is called the "Rule of 7," which states that a potential customer needs to see or hear your message seven times before buying something. If you only check in once or twice with leads, you're not giving them enough exposure to your sales pitch.
Here's another question: when should you follow up with your prospects?
Different salespeople recommend different time frames. It comes down to each prospect and their level of interest in your products and/or services. Here are some timeline estimates that may correlate to your prospect's situation.
Cold email outreach is a huge part of inside sales. If you don't follow up with potential customers, though, you won't get the response rates you want. No bueno.
When attempting to reach cold sales leads, try something along these lines:
As you can see, this follow-up sequence allows sales teams to check in with cold leads every few business days. As long as you follow up the right way, i.e., personalize your messages, show respect, add value, etc., you should find a fair amount of success with this strategy.
Looking for a free tool to help you level up your cold email game? Our AI-powered cold email generator is just what you need!
When following up with warm leads, take a different approach than the one described above. Throw out the timeline and follow up until you get a solid yes or no.
That's right, I want you to send follow-up messages until your prospects respond. This might make you feel like a dirty spammer, but the truth is, your previous emails could have landed in a junk mail folder, gotten caught in a firewall, or been ignored because the timing wasn't right for your prospect. You have no idea, so you need to keep at it.
As always, ensure you go about this process the right way. It would help if you were persistent but not annoying. Additionally, your messages need to be relevant but not lengthy.
When it comes to frequency, here's my preferred cadence for most sales reps:
With this strategy, you may have to send a massive number of follow-up emails. But if you implement it correctly, your reply rates will go up—I guarantee it.
Following up is only half the battle. Crafting compelling messages that demand to be opened and responded to would help. These five tips will help you accomplish that goal.
Your subject line is the most essential part of your email. Get it right, and your open rates will skyrocket. Get it wrong, and you'll never engage prospects in meaningful sales conversations.
Your subject lines should grab your recipients' attention without over-promising them anything or slipping into clickbait territory. It's tricky, but it can be done if you:
So, what does a quality subject line look like? It depends on who you're talking to. But I've found great success with lines like, "Quick question," "Trying to connect," and "Hi [Name], [Your Name / Company] <> [Their Name / Company]."
I encourage you to try these ideas. They might help you connect with more prospects, jumpstart your sales cycle, and, eventually, close more deals.
You can also create compelling subject lines with Close's Email Subject Line Generator. Improve your open rates and increase your chances of closing more deals!
If you are about to draft a B2B cold email, check out our article about 12 B2B Cold Email Templates. Crafting a persuasive B2B cold email template is essential.
As mentioned above, personalization is essential to successful follow-ups. But don't just personalize your subject lines. Personalize every aspect of your messages. Here's how:
Personalization is hard work, but your efforts will be worth it. According to recent studies, personalized emails can boost revenue by 76 percent!
Your prospective clients receive a ton of emails every day.
If you want them to open, read, and respond to your follow-up messages, you must differentiate yourself from the crowd. Otherwise, you're just another rando wasting their time.
With this in mind, try to give each email a unique spin. Doing so will help you grab your prospect's attention and give them a legitimate reason to write back.
No one will respond to your follow-up messages if they always land in the spam folder. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to steer clear of this scenario:
Concerned about your sales emails ending up in the wrong folders? Discover the steps to ensure accurate email deliverability with an effective technical email setup.
Lastly, use the tools at your disposal to streamline your follow-up process.
You could use email templates so you don't have to type out every follow-up message by hand. You simply copy, paste, personalize, and send. Easy Peasy.
I also recommend using automation tools. This will allow you to follow up with prospects on autopilot, eliminating the need to remember who to message and when.
A CRM like Close will give you all the automation functionality you could ever want.
The Close platform includes an Workflow, for instance. Simply tell Close who you want to follow up with and which templates you want to use. Then let the tool personalize your emails based on your company's database, and send messages at the frequency of your choosing.
Templates and automation software will make the follow-up process way easier, so you'll actually do it. When this happens, your sales career will really take off.
Quality follow-up emails will help you connect with more leads, convert more prospects, and ultimately, allow you to build a stronger, more effective sales process for your company.
You just need to make sure your messages hit the mark. As long as you nail your subject line, personalize your messages, give your emails a unique spin, avoid the spam folder, and use automation to follow up faster, you'll do just fine.
Speaking of automation, have you tried Close yet? Our industry-leading CRM for startups and small businesses has all the tools you need to boost sales. One of those tools is a full-fledged email workflow which you can use to automate entire follow-up sequences.
Start your free 14-day trial of Close today to see if it can elevate your team's follow-up game!