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.
- Adding a call to action button instead of a text hyperlink increases the click-through rate by 2 folds.
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.
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