How to write an effective follow-up email: A complete guide

Did you know that the initial email only gets an average reply rate of 6%? It may have sparked the prospect’s interest, but a well-crafted follow-up is what keeps the chat going. A balance between time, professionalism, and creativity can boost response rates by 49%. Would you like to know the exact steps to stand out among competitors? If so, then this guide is for you.

We discuss the definitions, types, and approaches to follow-up emails for cold and warm outreach. You will also find overlooked practices and catchy follow-up email examples. Let’s begin!

What’s a follow-up email?

A follow-up email is a message you send to people you already contacted. Whether in the same thread or a separate one, with the original subject line or a new one, a follow-up can strengthen your offer and make it more appealing. 

Based on the level of connection with the prospect, follow-ups vary, so I suggest we define them and discuss the differences:

1. Cold email follow-ups: These emails are sent as part of cold outreach to a person who has yet to express interest.
2. Warm email follow-ups: These messages are sent to a contact who already has engaged with you or expressed interest in your product or service.

The follow-up content depends on the type of outreach involved. Warm messages are highly personalized and targeted at a particular contact. However, cold follow-ups are often sent in bulk and contain generic, one-size-fits-all information.

Why is a follow-up email important?

Do you ever open a follow-up email without seeing the original message? It happened to me when I spotted the second message of a chain due to better timing. This led me to the following point of the article — the importance of putting in effort when you write follow-up emails.

This is where follow-up messages come into play. They increase the chances of a response by reappearing in inboxes and creating a sense of dedication if you respect boundaries.  

How do you straddle the line between persistence and annoyance?

The line between expressing determination and respecting a person’s silence sometimes gets blurred, particularly in cold outreach. Is one polite follow-up email enough? Where do you stop and accept the refusal? 

If you haven’t found the perfect time to send a follow-up email after no response, I have a few key points to share. 

Vary follow-up content

Each professional follow-up email offers new insights on the topic and addresses potential objectives. Think of what could be stopping a person from replying and try to address the pain points. This approach will help you eliminate doubts after the previous message and provide immediate value. 

Here are a few ideas for a follow-up email body:

• create a gentle reminder: The first follow-up can be a simple reminder about the previous email and the key points discussed in case it got lost or forgotten;
• add more value: The second follow-up message can focus on the additional value proposition;
• address objections: The third follow-up can address deal-breakers or further questions;
• last attempt: To maintain professionalism, you may send the final follow-up as a closing pitch. Think of the important details from previous communications and add a note should a person change their mind.

Respect a person opting out

Whether to continue or stop emails is a recipient's right, so it’s vital to start business relationships on respectful grounds.

Different unsubscribing options are available, so let’s review the examples to include:

• opt-out via a link: This option only needs a person’s click to remove them from your mailing list. You may add an unsubscribe link to the footer or header of your follow-up email;

• opt-out via text: Some contacts prefer sending a text response asking to unsubscribe from the follow-ups, so you can include text instructions on how to do so.

Allow time for the decision-making process

An overly aggressive follow-up schedule feels intrusive. Forcing your services onto someone with a busy schedule feels like a bad start to business relationships, doesn’t it? This brings us to the next aspect — step delays.

Step delays between follow-up messages are a must for a prospect to consider the offer and decide. Let’s examine recent findings:

• one day of waiting: It appears that a one-day delay before sending a follow-up reduces response rates by 11%. It gives off a sense of desperation or ignorance, and neither helps establish relationships;
• three days of waiting: Allowing three days before sending a follow-up email can boost reply rates by 31%. This frequency strikes a balance between respect and determination, increasing campaign results;
• five or more days of waiting: Waiting for five or more days is still an effective approach that may increase replies by up to 24%.

How to write a follow-up email

Now that the strategic questions are covered, I suggest we study the steps on how to write a follow-up email. Let’s examine where to begin.

1. Determine the follow-up purpose

The purpose of the follow-up email goes beyond reminding the prospect about the offer. Warm follow-up emails may encourage re-engagement or introduce new features. Cold outreach can shift the focus of the sales follow-up email to add more value or serve as a meeting request.

The point is to be specific about the desired outcome of the follow-up and highlight the goal in the message text.

2. Create a strong subject line

A subject line is the first line of defense in both types of outreach. It’s a preview of what’s inside your follow-up message and sometimes the only thing the prospect judges. Here are some tips for creating a compelling subject line:

• use variables: Variables are an easy way to personalize your follow-up email, whether cold or warm. Utilizing them in your messages can improve your open rate by 20%;
• add punctuation carefully: While question marks are believed to increase open rates, this isn’t the case in the education industry. Surprisingly, subject lines with a question got a 3% decrease in open rate. Always adjust follow-up email content to your sphere;
• keep it short: Long subject lines may be cut off, losing part of the message. Email subject lines that are 25-35 characters perform best, so try to be precise.

3. Provide value

Once the subject lines are off the list, we can move on to follow-up email content. Whether the message is part of warm or cold outreach, it must have value for the end user. I suggest we compare two cold follow-up emails to compare and contrast:

1. First follow-up email example: At first, this message looks standard, but if we dig deeper, we can see that it’s vague and assumes that the reader remembers the initial email. Apart from that, it misses the clear call to action or content value.

   

2. Second follow-up email example: Even if the initial email has been deleted, this follow-up independently reiterates the offer, has a strong call to action, and is personalized.

   
   The same approach benefits follow-up emails to warm leads. The contact you’re working with has engaged with the brand before, so you have more customer data and, thus, can craft a better-tailored message.

4. Close graciously 

How you end your follow-up emails matters. As someone who has worked with customers, I tried different approaches to get people to talk and noticed that they respond better when the sender takes the initiative. I suggest we examine two variants once again:

1. “If you have any questions or concerns, please email me back. We can hop on the call to discuss this.”
2. “I’d love to hop on a call to answer any questions or concerns you may have.”

While the first follow-up variant suggests that the prospect contact the sender if they have questions, the second variant demonstrates the initiative and willingness to step up. It’s easy to ask questions when the sender expresses their desire to help. Don’t you agree?

5. Add a signature

A signature is your calling card, so your image is what’s at stake. Imagine if the reader makes it to the end of the follow-up message and clicks on the link to the website, but it doesn’t work. This trivial situation can ruin the experience, so creating a signature for the follow-up is a necessary step that shouldn’t take much time or effort.

Stripo has many pre-made signature templates with various designs for you to choose from. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open the template builder.
2. Click on the “Structures & Modules” section.

   

3. Go to the “General Modules” and choose the signature.

   

4. Drag-n-drop the signature into the template.
5. Apply the changes and save your signature as a module.

   

You can save multiple variants and use them for different types of emails. A separate “My Modules” section contains all your modules.

Follow-up practices to keep in mind

With the creation steps covered, we can move on to the best follow-up email practices. I picked the crucial ones that can affect perceptions of the message negatively, even when they’re technically correct.

Use email tracking carefully

Links tracking is a feature that many automation tools offer, and while it can shed light on customers’ actions and interests, you need to be careful. Avoid using direct mentions of your tracking insights in follow-up messages. 

Instead, use the data to adjust your follow-up emails and pick the best wording or call to action. You can also track clicks to find the most effective follow-up variant if you conduct an A/B test on the messages. 

Although it can make a positive impact, links tracking has its downsides. For example, it may influence your deliverability negatively, leading to another follow-up practice.

Keep deliverability in mind

Sending generic follow-ups that add little or no value at all is a bad practice for both cold and warm emailing. Moreover, sending messages too often may result in your emails being marked as spam.

The more people mark your follow-ups as spam, the less likely they are to make it to the inbox in the future. Are there any signs of problems with deliverability? Yes, and I suggest that we examine them:

1. Low or 0% open rate: This often means the messages end up in spam or are blocked by providers. At the very least, this is a sign to change the follow-up strategy.
2. High bounce rate: Your follow-ups may bounce for several reasons, so always check a bounced message from the provider to understand the reason. 

   

Effective follow-up email template examples

It may be hard to memorize all the tips and practices without seeing examples of follow-up email templates, so I found variants for both text and HTML format fans.

HTML webinar recording follow-up

The follow-up email below has a clear call-to-action button, brief key points from the recent discussion, and the right balance between precision and details.

(Source: Stripo template)

HTML “Thank you for the meeting” follow-up

This follow-up message summarizes the agreements and reminds the prospect about the next scheduled call. It delivers immediate value, has a clear CTA button, and is personalized.

(Source: Stripo template)

Cold email follow-up

Subject line: A quick way to solve {Customer pain point}

Hi {Customer name},

I am following up on my earlier email about {Your specific idea or offer, product benefits or results}. We helped {Similar company} reduce {Customer pain point} by 25% in just two months.

Would you be open to a quick 10-minute call to explore if this could work for {Customer's Company}?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Best regards,

{Your Name}

Wrapping up

Properly crafted follow-up emails strike a balance between professionalism and determination and help advance conversations. Equipped with a subject line, value proposition, initiative ending, and signature, these messages encourage conversion and motivate prospects to reply.

I hope this guide has helped you navigate the topic with more confidence and clarity. 

Good luck!