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.



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • 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

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Client Portal ZOHO ONE

                                    Dear Zoho one is fantastic option for companies but it seems to me that it is still an aggregation of aps let me explain I have zoho books with client portal so client access their invoice then I have zoho project with client portal so they can access their project but not their invoice without another URL another LOGIN Are you planning in creating a beautiful UI portal for client so we can control access to client in one location to multiple aps at least unify project and invoice aps that would
                                  • Email Insights included in Bigin emals are marked as SPAM everywhere

                                    Today I noticed that email recipients who use Office 365 never receive emails sent from Bigin. Further examination showed that all Email Insights links in email headers are marked as spam/phishing by Office 365. Example screen included. The problem is
                                  • Data Import | Zoho Analytics Custom Query Window Size

                                    Please increase the window size for the Custom Query Data Import. It's impossible to work with such a small query window.
                                  • Name changed in settings for mailbox but still not changed when typed in To field

                                    In the email account secretary@ i have updaetd the new staff members details but the old members name still appears when I type secretary@ in the To field. I cant work out where Zoho is finding the old name from. I have deleted the browser cache. If I
                                  • Cannot add my name to my domain name

                                    I want to have My name@mydomain.com and it says my name is linked to another account already. Please fix it since I do not have another account.
                                  • Invoice status on write-off is "Paid" - how do I change this to "Written off"

                                    HI guys, I want to write off a couple of outstanding invoices, but when I do this, the status of the invoices shows as "Paid". Clearly this is not the case and I need to be able to see that they are written off in the customer's history. Is there a way
                                  • Establishing new Zoho email account on laptop

                                    Good Morning: I am very long time Outlook business user and decided to try your email service last night and had established an account. I am trying to verify my account; how do I establish my Zoho email account on my laptop? I opened the account with
                                  • unable to send message reason 550 5.4.6 unusual sending activity

                                    My email account can't send message. It shows unable to send message reason 550 5.4.6 unusual sending activity detected
                                  • how to add email to existing organization i w

                                    I am already registered my organization and i have an email id. I need one more email id but i can't find anywhere .i want the cheapest email id . how to add ?
                                  • e-mail bloqueado

                                    Estou com meu e-mail lucas@peplus.me bloqueado, preciso desbloquear para retorno de usos em minhas atividades.
                                  • zoho labels api not working

                                    We're using n8n to automte email reply using zoho api. I'm facing issue with label api. I added the required scopes but its not working. i followed zoho api documentation but didn't work. also, where do i find/how do i create zoho oauth token mentioneeed
                                  • Desk DMARC forwarding failure for some senders

                                    I am not receiving important emails into Desk, because of DMARC errors. Here's what's happening: 1. email is sent from customer e.g. john@doe.com, to my email address, e.g info@acme.com 2. email is delivered successfully to info@acme.com (a shared inbox
                                  • Streams/Shared email doesn't show up in windows trident app. It works fine on MAC. Is there any difference between 2 install ?

                                    I can see streams/share email boxs on my MAC version of trident app but i can't see them in windows version of trident app. Is there any difference between 2 install? I try to find setting but not able to see any setting to add stream/share email boxes.
                                  • add zoho account

                                    How to add a zoho mail to previous zoho account? I have two
                                  • Zoho Desk Mobile App Year-End Roundup - 2025

                                    Dear Zoho Desk users, Greetings! As you gear up for the festive season, we are excited to share a quick journey into all that is released in 2025! Zia's generative AI capabilities Zia insights can be highly beneficial in helping agents manage daily support
                                  • Narrative 17: The role of Zia AI in customer support

                                    Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 17: The role of Zia AI in customer support Overview Zia in Zoho Desk is a layered AI assistant that combines generative AI, prediction, and automation to support agents, automate
                                  • Domain Transaction

                                    I have purchased a domain name called trainedworkforce.co.in I made the payment got the receipt but the domain is still not purchased after successful transaction .
                                  • Ability to Set a Unified Tab Order/View for All Users in Zoho Projects

                                    Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request regarding tab/menu organization in Zoho Projects. Current Behavior: The tab (module) order in Zoho Projects is user-specific. Each user (internal or external)
                                  • Zohomail - The "All Messages" vs "In Box"

                                    Why do some new email message appear under the all messages view but not in my inbox? That's really annoying but to be fair I've experienced the same with gmail.
                                  • error while listing mails

                                    I can't access email in any of my folders: Oops, an error occurred - retry produces the second error response: error while listing mails (cannot parse null string). I've signed in and out of Zoho, restarted my iMac.
                                  • Introducing the Zoho Projects Learning Space

                                    Every product has its learning curve, and sometimes having a guided path makes the learning experience smoother. With that goal, we introduce a dedicated learning space for Zoho Projects, a platform where you can explore lessons, learn at your own pace,
                                  • Where to show Customization Field ?

                                    Dear Sir, I have made some New Field in Item Field Customisation. Now I don't require that field in Estimate, Sales Orders etc. I just wants that field in Sales Invoice to Show/Hide... Is that possible ?
                                  • Zoho Desk 2025 round-up: Key highlights on feature releases

                                    Hello everyone, As we gear up for 2026, here is a detailed round-up of all feature releases in Zoho Desk web throughout the year. For consolidated information on releases check out the What’s New page You can also watch these webinars. Zia in web Zia
                                  • Print Sales Orders, Purchase Orders or Invoices from API

                                    Hello, Is it possible to use the print option that is available in Sales Orders Purchase Orders and Invoices with the API?. I don't see any information in the docs about this. Thanks
                                  • How to show a hided report??

                                    in CRM Report , I clicked Hide incidently , how to show the floder again? Nowhere I can find the hided report floder...
                                  • Converting Customer Invoice to Purchase Bill

                                    Hi, In my service-based business, I sometimes create the customer invoice first, and later I receive the purchase bill from the vendor for the same job. Is there any option in Zoho Books to: Convert a customer invoice into a purchase bill, or Link/associate
                                  • Email tracking inquiry

                                    I am trying to track when my emails are opened and clicked like I previously did in HubSpot. HubSpot pretty much did the entire process automatically. After digging through, I finally found in settings --> emails --> BCC Dropbox there is an email I can
                                  • Mass Update of Lookup Fields not possible

                                    Hello List I've created a custom field for Leads and Contacts 'Current Campaign'. This is very Handy as I can filter leads and then related them to a campaign. Everything ready, but then I realized that mass update doesn't work for lookup fields... a
                                  • Collapsible Sections & Section Navigation Needed

                                    The flexibility of Zoho CRM has expanded greatly in the last few years, to the point that a leads module is now permissible to contain up to 350 fields. We don't use that many, but we are using 168 fields which are broken apart into 18 different sections.
                                  • Quick Create needs Client Script support

                                    As per the title. We need client scripts to apply at a Quick Create level. We enforce logic on the form to ensure data quality, automate field values, etc. However, all this is lost when a user attempts a "Quick Create". It is disappointing because, from
                                  • Download Attached Files

                                    Hi everyone, Brand new to Zoho Creator.  I have a form with a subform. The subform has a field for "File Upload"   I have this in a subform to allow multiple files to be uploaded to the parent form. Once the files are uploaded, how can i download or view them?   Is this a setting I am just not seeing? If there isn't a way to download them, could i create another form field that dynamically creates the file's URL?  That way a user can click the URL to get to the file? Any help with this would be greatly
                                  • Ticket layout based on field or contact

                                    Hi! I want to support the following use-case: we are delivering custom IT solutions to different accounts we have, thus our ticket layouts, fields and languages (priority, status field values should be Hungarian) will be different. How should I setup
                                  • No funcionan correctamente el calculo de las horas laborales para informe de tickets

                                    Hola, estoy intentando sacar estadísticas de tiempo de primera respuesta y resolución en horario laboral de mis tickets, pero el calculo de horas en horario laboral no funciona correctamente cree los horarios con los feriados : Ajusté los acuerdos de
                                  • Zoho Mail Android app update: Set out of office response exclusively for organization members and external users, response interval

                                    Hello everyone! We have now introduced an option to configure out of office messages exclusively for organization members and external users within the Zoho Mail app. Additionally, now you can also customize response intervals for the Out of office messages.
                                  • Feature Request: Detailed View - Related Block Links!

                                    Desperately need a view record link option on records displaying in the related blocks on a Detail View. For the love of god, please add this feature. Thank you!
                                  • Sub-Form Padding in CSV Export

                                    Hi, When you use the Sub-Form, and for example you have a Date Field on the Main Page, then Option 1 and Option 2 fields on the Subform, when you export this to CSV the Date column will only have the Date in 1 row, the first row, it would be nice to pad
                                  • Dependent / Dynamic DropDown in ZohoSheets

                                    Has anyone figured out a way to create a Dropdown, the values of which is dependent on Values entered in the other cell ?
                                  • How do I change the order of fields in the new Task screen?

                                    I have gone into the Task module layout, and moving the fields around does not seem to move them in the Create Task screen. Screenshot below. I have a field (Description) that we want to use frequently, but it is inconveniently placed within the More
                                  • Zoho → ShipStation Integration – Sales Order–Driven Fulfilment Workflow

                                    Hello All, I’m reaching out to explore the best way to integrate a shipping tool into our inventory which will speed our process up. We are looking to integrate ShipStation into our existing order-to-fulfilment workflow, as we’re keen to standardise on
                                  • IA ou je peux trouver comment utiliser IA

                                    Je voudrais utiliser IA dans l'interface zoho pour m'aider quand j'ai des questions de rôle partage ou autre configuration d'automatisation, j'utiliser ChatGPT externe mais il ne connait pas toujours l'interface zoho et les réponses sont parfois longue
                                  • Next Page