How to follow up on cold email replies

IF YOU RESPOND TO A LEAD IN LESS THAN 5 MINUTES YOU ARE 391% LESS LIKELY TO GET A RESPONSE

- Havard Business School

One of the biggest impacts of how successful your email campaign is will be your follow-up process for email replies. Here is a step-by-step methodology to follow:

Day and time

• If they ask for a call this is as easy as it gets, simply respond with:

"Hi <Client name>,

Sure, sounds good

I have space <x time> or <x time> on <x day> or <x time> or <x time> on <x day>, which works best for you?

Look forward to speaking with you soon,

Best wishes,

<name>"

• If they give you a time and day, simply send a calendar and notify them with:

"Super, sent you the invite now

Look forward to speaking with you then!"

Can you send me more information?

Lead with value. Is a framework to follow:

1. Agree/ Acknowledge

2. Answer a question

3. Provide valuable personal insight

4. Ask a question

Sure, feel free to check out our page here <x website link>

Quick question, <add an industry-specific client specific question> eg:

Example 1 "Looking at your site I can see you are ranking 6th for XYZ keyword, adding an additional keyword-rich page could get you to first position, are you currently focusing on that keyword?"

Example 2 "Checking out your site, I can see it is built with Shopify, might be worth adding a discount call to action, have you already got a mailing list set up?"

Example 3 "Checking out your Google Ad, I can see you are competing with XYZ company, have you tried using X to beat them?"

• Anything that is a question that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise, whilst personalising it to them will be a winner

• If they respond with a long answer (3 lines of text or more), say:

"All good, you're not alone! Lots of people say the same!

It would be good to dive in a little deeper about the persona you want to target and then I can look at what the best strategy would be.​

Might be easier on a quick 10 min Zoom, I've got space Tuesday 11am or Wednesday 2pm, if that works??"

• If they respond with a short answer, ask another question

• Keep asking industry-specific personalised questions until the answer is more than 3 lines of text then close as above

If they do not respond within 1 day say:

"Just wanted to make sure you saw the below?"

• If they don't respond again, CALL THEM - don't be afraid to call and say this:

"Hi <name>, it's <name> from <company name> we were speaking on email about <xyz> if you recall? I just wanted to make sure you got the email I sent across? I was just asking XYZ question"

• Likelihood, they will then give you an answer, now you can start to discuss further, or they will say they are busy, at which point book a call:

"No worries at all does x time and day work? Super'll ping over an invite in a sec, will be easier on video too as I can show you live what we can do - look forward to speaking then "

Biggest mistakes people make:

• Give everything over email all at once, send lengthy page-long emails or pdf's and brochures - keep it brief, and get more from them first before you give a lot

• Always answer questions, but equally only answer what you can to the very best of your knowledge with the information you have

• Normally you will be enormously limited in what you can suggest from a consultancy basis without asking more questions - this is where you can then follow the same process as above - asking questions until you have 3 lines or more of text and close with an appointment - or just simply call them as suggested above

How to reply to a thread:

• You will need to copy the email from the body of the thread and paste it into the email send box
  

• Otherwise, you will actually just end up emailing yourself or us!
  

• The thread will be forwarded from your email address set up via the email software, meaning if you just hit reply you will only be replying to yourself not to the client