5 Email Templates and Tips to Strengthen Your Follow-up Game

5 Email Templates and Tips to Strengthen Your Follow-up Game



Finding leads but not customers? This post is going to cover the following points on what you can do to turn this around:
  • Why should you send follow-up emails?
  • Mistakes to avoid while sending follow-up emails
                     - Without value
                      - Too long
                    - No call-to-action
  • Follow-up email scenario templates and tips
                  - Scenario: 1 Following up with a prospect who signed up for a product/ newsletter
                  - Scenario: 2 Following up to convert a prospect from freemium to premium
                  - Scenario: 3  Following up with a prospect who didn't respond to the previous email
                  - Scenario: 4  Following up with referrals
                  - Scenario: 5  Last follow-up email (breakup email)

Why should you send follow-up emails?

98% of the marketers never send follow-up emails after their initial email conversation. Follow-up mailers are sequential emails in response to your prospects action, say arranging a meeting, closing a sale, or for getting more information for converting a lead to customer.  A study conducted by Iko systems states that following up with your audience creates 1.5 times of increased response rate over the initial email. 

Mistakes to avoid while sending follow-up emails

Follow-up emails don't make a difference if 
      - it doesn't add any value
      - it is not to the point
      - it has no call to action (CTA)
 
Now let's analyze each metric briefly and see how it impacts your open rate.


Serves no value

Would you respond to an email that directs you to a product signup without first being of any value? No! And this applies to your audience as well. Ensure your initial conversation isn't pushy and talks plain value. In the follow-up email, suggest additional relevant information to provoke and intrigue your audience. 


Too long 
​

 More often than not, customers get dumped with too much information which sounds pushy  or makes it clear that  you are here to sell. After sending a welcome email, it's best to look at what the user needs, understand this and work towards it. For example, a new user might need a helpful webinar/tutorial to get started rather than repeated calls on other services, when they  haven't implemented the ones they have already! Don't repeat what you do and what your core values are in the follow-up email. If you want to reiterate, link to the previous email you sent. Short, concise, and to the point emails will increase your overall response rate. 






Lacking call-to-action


The points discussed above will be ineffective if there is no call-to-action. The action you want them to perform decides the ROI of the follow-up emails. Say, suggesting they attend a webinar, sign up for a newsletter, or upgrade their service, it all boils down to the proper call-to-action present in the email. Directing them to your desired action serves the purpose of your follow-up email.  


Follow-up email scenario templates and tips

We will see some of the frequent scenarios where a marketer needs to send a contextually relevant follow-up email along with some quick tips to help them send more personalised follow-up emails:

Scenario: 1 Following up with a prospect who signed up for a product/newsletter


 


Tips: 
  • Adding stats (charts, graphs, or basically any visually pleasing variant of that easily conveys numbers)to your email content is one of the smart ways to capture your audience's attention. 
  • When a prospect signs-up for the product, instead of explaining the pro-features, give them enough time and resources to explore the product. 

Scernario 2: Following up to convert a prospect from freemium to premium

 


Tips: 
  • Always make sure your the CTA is visible and eye-catching. Here, the upgrade to premium button is prominent with a bold color that stands out. 

Scenario: 3 Following up with a lead who didn't respond to the previous email



Tips:
  • For following up with user for the second time, don't copy-paste the same content that you initially sent. 
  • Be direct and convey what you want from your audience. 
  • Also, take enough time before sending the second email. Don't bombard your prospects with emails expecting immediate responses. Patience and persistence are the keys. 

Scenario: 4 Following up with referrals



Tips: 
  • While drafting the referral mail, ensure that you mention the referral name (the person who referred the contact). It lends credibility to your email and helps the prospect consider your solution. 
  • Also, drop a few titbits of what you do briefly, to provide value. 
  • As mentioned earlier, the CTA should be visible in order for easy navigation. 

Scenario: 5 Last follow-up email (breakup email)



Tips: 
  • When you want to end the follow-up email with a prospect, sending a break-up email can increase the chances of conversion due to loss aversion.
  • Loss aversion influences the receiver and creates an urgency to act upon the email as this will be their final chance.
  • Also, give them the option to express their standpoint.
Pro tip: You can also go about using a personalised break-up subject line which can increase the possibilities of opening the email. They are:
  • Goodbye from XYZ
  • Should I stay or should I go now? 
  • Thank you from XYZ
  • It is time to part
  • We are going to miss you.

Email marketing is one of the best channels to generate a highest ROI. Sending follow-up emails is the first step in lead nurturing that makes an overall difference in your email marketing strategy. Personalized and relevant follow-up emails take you a step ahead in providing credibility and, evokes the user's interest in responding. Creating a compelling follow-up email is hard, but all it takes is the first step -  keep fine-tuning it for better reach, every time. Do check out our previous post on 3 simple strategies to create an effective email marketing campaign. Drop us your thoughts in the comments on how  you follow-up with your clients, and what worked best for you.


    • Sticky Posts

    • 10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales

      Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.

    • Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!

      Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverage

    • Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

      According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,

    • How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!

      Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is the

    • The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

      Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell?  Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho sign changed Indexing of signing_order

      Because I missed this Announcement (is there even one?): when you work with the indexes of actions > signing_order. Previous those started with 0 now starts with 1. Changed somewhere between 15.07 and 23.07

    • How to Invoice Based on Timesheet Hours Logged on a Zoho FSM Work Order

      Hi everyone, We’re working on optimizing our invoicing process in Zoho FSM, and we’ve run into a bit of a roadblock. Here’s our goal: We want to invoice based on the actual number of hours logged by our technicians on a job, specifically using the timesheets

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - June 2025 | Part 2

      Welcome back to the Zoho CRM Community Digest! We’re wrapping up June with more fresh updates, smart discussions, and clever workarounds shared by the community. Product Updates: Struggling to keep track of scattered customer interactions? Zoho CRM's

    • Allow Variable Insertion in Prebuilt "Update Record" Action in Schedules

      Hi Zoho Creator Team, Hope you're doing well. We’d like to submit a feature request based on our experience using Zoho Creator schedules to manage workflows integrated with Zoho Desk. We currently have an app where Zoho Desk tickets create records in

    • Rich Text Field Editor in Form Builder is Too Small and Not Resizable

      Hello, I am experiencing a significant usability issue with the rich text field in the Zoho Forms builder. The editor window for this field is fixed-size and extremely small. It does not adapt to the screen size, which makes it very difficult to manage

    • Publicar Formulário

      Obs. Não consigo publicar meus formulários, pesquisei alguns artigos, mas me deixou perdido, fala de campo sensível, não consigo entender o que significa. Segue Imagem do problema. Todo formulário que faço sempre termina assim sem o botão de publicar..

    • Anyone else unable to login to ZMA this weekend?

      Hey Is anyone else unable to log into Zoho Marketing Automation at all this weekend? I've been trying on multiple devices - despot and mobile - and multiple browser. I've reset browsing data, gone incognito. Nothing - since Friday I've been unable to

    • Custom Action for Subform row

      Dears, As for now, we only have 2 actions for each subform row: Edit and Delete. I would suggest to have custom action here, instead of create a button with Fx field within the subform. For example, I would create Duplicate button, which duplicates the

    • Urgent: Unable to Receive OTP Email for Portal User Registration in Zoho Creator

      I paid to enable the Portal User feature on 2/25, and followed the official instructions (Youtube video: Customer Portals | Zoho Creator) to set up the Portal User using my Gmail account. However, I am not receiving the OTP email and am unable to successfully

    • Sole Trader - Financial Advisor (Appointed Representative) - Paid via Capital Account but no Invoicing...

      Hi. I'm about to venture into a new business after 12 months of intensive learning/exams. A little chuffed if I may say so especially at 52! I really like the look of ZoHo Books for my modest enterprise but I'm in need of some guidance, please. My services

    • Display multiple fields in lookup dropdown

      I have a module called Technicians and a related module called submissions that registers technicians for different assignments. The lookup in Submissions to Technicians is the Technician ID (auto generated unique number). How do I display in the dropdown

    • Integrate with Power BI

      Hi, How to connect Zoho CRM dashboards & reports with POWER BI ?

    • No "Import Users" option in Zoho FSM

      I recently noticed that there is no option to import Users into Zoho FSM, and this has become a serious challenge for us. When migrating data, especially technicians or other user profiles, we often have hundreds of users to bring into the system. Currently,

    • Finding "like" projects

      Hi Everyone! My team is running into several duplicating deals. I've been trying to get them all to name things the same way ex. State is 2 letters not spelled out. Things like that. What I am wondering if there is anything I can do as the superadmin

    • Não consigo localizar o Botão de Publicar Formulário no meu app

      Depois que finalizar meus formulários, não consigo localizar o botão de publicar para concluir meu aplicativo

    • DATEV-Export Erfahrungen?

      Wir würden gern den DATEV-Export in Books nutzen, jedoch ist dieser nicht wirklich nutzbar. Gibt es positive Erfahrungen von Alternativ-Lösungen?

    • Kaizen #191: Implementing "Login with Zoho" using Python SDK

      Welcome back to another week of Kaizen!! This week, we are diving into how to implement secure user authentication using Login with Zoho and integrate it with Zoho CRM through our Python SDK. To ground this in a real-world scenario, we will look at how

    • WhatsApp Business Calling API

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, I would like to request a feature that allows users to call WhatsApp numbers directly via Zoho SalesIQ. This integration would enable sending and receiving calls to and from WhatsApp numbers over the internet, without the need

    • Custom modules not showing in developer console

      I'm trying to create a custom summing function for a custom module I made in my CRM. When I go to create the function, my module isnt showing up. Do I need to share the custom moldule with my developer console or something of the like?

    • Following retainer invoice for partial payment of a sales order

      HI, We issue sales orders when a client buy a product from us. We also issue multiple retainer invoices for partial payment (2 to 4 depending of the client). Team wants to follow payment of these retainer invoices for this Sales Order. If they are paid

    • Zoho CommunitySpacesとzoho CRM連携について

      お世話になっております。 いつもご質問に丁寧に回答いただき大変助かっております。 今、当団体ではZoho CommunitySpacesを利用しており、利用ユーザ一覧をzoho CRMに自動登録（連携）したいと考えております。 そもそも可能なのか、もしあれば具体的な手順や方法はあるのかをご教授いただきたいです。 上記がないのなら、ユーザ一覧のエクスポート方法（メールアドレスと姓を含む）でもよいです。 お手数となりますが、お願いいたします。

    • Zoho Wiki or new Zoho Learn

      We are currently evaluating if we should move off confluence. At present in Confluence we have multiple levels within our documentation but with learn it looks like you can only have Space       - Manual             - Chapter Is it possible to have levels below Chapter? Also the same question for the existing wiki, can I have more sub-levels?

    • New user After moving over from QBO

      New user observations/suggestions. QBO took away a lot of features I was used to with the desktop version. Chaos ensued. Zoho Books has a lot of what I was used to and a bit more. Good deal Some things I have run into and suggest some upgrades. 1: The

    • Sales without an invoice

      Sales without an invoice is not included on the “payments received” report. Also, sales without an invoice is not listed in the transactions under the customer’s profile, also making it easy to do a double entry. Is there a way for me to see my sales

    • Zoho Sign API - Create a document from template.

      1. I would like to create a document from a template and send the document to the customer for signing. Is this possible using the Zoho Sign API? If so, please share the api reference link. 2. Is there sand box for Zoho Sign to test the APIs without using

    • Zoho Sign embedded iframe

      Hello, we are looking for any of these options: a) some iframe that we can paste into our website for every signer, for onpage signing document. b) or get direct link for signers from Zoho sign API which we can redirect manually. Is any of these options

    • Goods in transit

      When creating a purchase order in Zoho Books, how can I properly reflect the inventory as "Goods in Transit" until it reaches its final destination?

    • how to coming soon, holding site, or "under construction"

      Hi! I was wandering if was possible to create a website with the simple sign of "Under construction or coming soon" while i work on the site. if possible, how? Cheers

    • Announcing Agentic AI - Ask Zia!

      We are delighted to roll out the new agentic AI capabilities in Ask Zia, where every stage of the BI workflow is assisted by AI. With a human-in-the-loop approach, Ask Zia ensures that you’re in command of the decision, while AI handles the complexity.

    • Zoho People LMS VS Zoho Connect Manuals VS Zoho Learn

      in the past I came accross Zoho WIKI but did not like the platform because it could use a lot of upgrade. Over the time I have noticed Zoho People come out with a LMS module which allows us to created a shared knowledge for our internal team I also came across Zoho Connect which as a knowledge-based for internal team referred to as Manual Now I am seeing Zoho Learn which is a new and fine-tuned version of Zoho Wiki. All of these platforms are very similar but I am wondering what are the differences

    • Marketing Automation Activities in Zoho CRM

      Hello, I've connected Zoho CRM and Marketing Automation, sent a campaign, but no data are displayed in CRM, neither in "campaigns" section inside contact profile. It is possible to display Marketing Automation activities in CRM? Also in CRM Timelines?

    • How do we get a follow up to Experts 22: Scale up your customer support with integrations & extensibility

      Hi, How do we get a followup and answers to the questions we have asked during 'Experts 22: Scale up your customer support with integrations & extensibility'. I have repsonded to the answers but have no way of following up. Thanks Brett

    • Frustrating Email Duplication and Timeline Issues Between Zoho Mail and CRM

      Hi Zoho team, Can someone please help clarify what’s going on here? Here’s what’s happening: I initiate an email to a lead using Zoho Mail. The lead is created in Zoho CRM via the integration, and the email is correctly associated with that lead. Sometimes,

    • Best Strategy to import contacts and when to create leads

      Hi, I'm new to Bigin and looking for a "best" strategy. I had and have the following idea for an use case: 1. Search for websites which I want to contact 2. Create a contact in Bigin with all the required information based on this website (via API if

    • Better implementation of Item Category on Invoices and Estimates

      1) I have added Item Category as a custom field. Honestly, this should be a native part of the item itself, and either required, optional, or not used.  2) When entering an item on an invoice, you have to enter the first character(s) of the item, otherwise

    • Bulk Update (via the 'Accountant' menu)

      Why can't we bulk update Expenses to Owner's Drawings? It always ends in failure with the error "Involved account types are not applicable". If such conversion isn't possible, why make the option available? Better to allow it though.

    • Set Reply_to parameter for "Email an Invoice" API Endpoint

      Is there a way to set "Reply To" email address when using the Email an invoice API endpoint? It doesn't seem to be in documentation, but sometimes there are undocumented parameters. If it doesn't exist, please consider adding it as parameter since all

    • Zoho Books adaptado a la legislación española. ¿Sustitutos?

      Buenas a tod@s No tenemos información sobre la adaptación de Zoho Books a la nueva ley de facturación en España. Me preguntan usuarios de zoho que deberían hacer. Propongo una lista de alternativas, si al final se opta por no desarrollar la funcionalidad

    • A Question about Email Handling (Sending and Receiving)

      Hello! I was looking into setting up Email Aliases for my domain that I purchased a while ago through Zoho Mail. I set up a singular alias already and have it linked with Gmail, and it seems to be working out well. However, I set up another alias today,

    • Kaizen #201 - Answering Your Questions | Webhooks, Functions, and Schedules

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! We are incredibly grateful for all the feedback we received, and as promised, we will answer all the queries in this Kaizen series. Last week, in our 200th post, we addressed one of the

    • Next Page