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.
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:
Scernario 2: Following up to convert a prospect from freemium to premium
Tips:
Scenario: 3 Following up with a lead who didn't respond to the previous email