Cold Email Follow-up Guide: Increase Your Conversion Rates

Do you want to learn how to turn your cold leads into warm prospects and loyal customers? Do you want to know how to write engaging and personalized follow-up emails that stand out from the crowd? Do you want to discover how to optimize your follow-up emails for deliverability, timing, and frequency? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this blog post is for you.

In this blog post, you will learn everything important for email follow-up. Let's start with

What is a cold follow-up email?

Email follow-up is a second email that you send to a recipient after the initial contact to build a relationship, provide value, and move them further along the sales funnel.

In easy words, sending a second email to a person is called email follow-up.

Why send cold follow-up emails?

In today's world of email marketing, where every inbox is flooded with a lot of promotional messages, it's easy for your initial email to get lost in this shuffle. That's where email follow-up comes in a powerful way for re-engaging recipients, keeping your brand top of mind, and ultimately driving conversions that is the purpose of email marketing.

According to some studies, email follow-up can increase your response rate by up to 65%, your conversion rate by up to 22%, and your revenue by up to 18%.

But email follow-up also requires a lot of skill and strategy to make it work. You need to know how to write a follow-up email that is relevant, valuable, and engaging to your prospect, and how to optimize it for deliverability, timing, and frequency.

Tips for Writing Cold Email Follow-Ups That Drive More Conversions

Here are some tips for your email follow-up.

How do you craft a compelling and personalized follow-up email?

Personalization is the key to the success of email marketing because everyone is a unique person and needs special treatment. When you go with the personalization techniques, you hit the pain point of the person, which increases the response rates of the email.

By using a clear and catchy subject line and preheader text, you can entice your prospect to open your email. You can use a question, a curiosity gap, a benefit, or a personalization element to make your subject line and preheader text stand out.

For example:

• Subject line: Did you get my last email?
• Preheader text: I have something important to share with you.
• Subject line: How to boost your SEO ranking in 2024
• Preheader text: Learn the latest tips and tricks from the experts.
• Subject line: You've been selected for a special offer.
• Preheader text: Claim your 50% off coupon before it expires.
• Subject line: Hi {name}, I have a question for you.
• Preheader text: It's about your website performance.

According to your case and requirements, you need something special, but you have to apply personalization techniques before you send a follow-up email.

Timing of email follow-up

One of the most important questions is, “What is the good timing of email follow-up? The answer to the question is that the timing of email follow-up depends on various factors, such as the purpose and goal of your email, the urgency and importance of your message, the relationship and expectations of your recipient, and the industry and context of your communication.

There is no definitive answer to the question of when to send a follow-up email, but some general guidelines and best practices can help you decide.

• Follow up within 24 hours after the initial contact, especially if you are sending a cold email or applying for a job. This can help you stay on top of your recipient's mind and show your interest and enthusiasm.
• Follow up within 48 hours after a meeting, a presentation, a demo, or an interview. This can help you express your gratitude, provide feedback, recap the main points, and reinforce your value proposition.
• Follow up within a week after sending a quote, a proposal, an invoice, or a request. This can help you remind your recipient of your offer, provide additional information, address any objections, and nudge them to take action.
• Follow up within two weeks after sending a follow-up email that received no response. This can help you re-engage your recipient, provide more value, and overcome any barriers or challenges.

Follow up with the right frequency and interval, depending on the situation and the recipient. You don't want to follow up too often and annoy your recipient, but you also don't want to follow up too rarely and lose their interest.

A good rule of thumb is to follow up every 3–7 days until you get a response or a resolution, and then adjust your frequency based on the feedback and behavior of your recipient.

How many follow-ups should you send?

How many follow-up emails should you send in email marketing? It depends on your goals, your products or services, your audience, and what you're following up on. But here are some general situations and their solutions to help you decide:

Immediate Confirmation or Thank-You Email

Confirm or thank your subscribers right away after they take action, like buying or signing up.

Single Follow-Up

Follow up once after they download a resource or attend a webinar. Give them more value, resources, or a special offer.

Drip campaigns (multiple follow-ups)

Follow up several times over time with drip campaigns. These are good for educating your subscribers and guiding them through a journey.

Cart Abandonment Series

Follow up multiple times with cart abandoners. Remind them of what they left behind and offer them incentives, testimonials, or more information.

Lead-nurturing sequences

Follow up regularly with lead nurturing sequences. These are good for building relationships and moving your leads through the sales funnel.

Event or webinar follow-ups

Follow up with a series of emails after an event or webinar. Thank them, send them a recording, give them more resources, and ask for feedback.

Abandoned Funnel Follow-Ups

Follow up with multiple emails in complex sales funnels, like in B2B marketing. Use a mix of automated and personalized emails to nurture your leads.

The key is to find the right balance between staying in touch and not annoying your subscribers. Check your email metrics, like open rates and click-through rates, to see how your follow-ups are doing. And always test and optimize your email campaigns based on your audience's feedback and behavior.

A/B Testing

Implement A/B testing techniques to fine-tune your follow-up emails. Test different things and try different ways of writing your subject lines, content, and call to action. See what works best for your audience. After you find it, implement it, and stop doing things that don’t work for you.

Segmentation

Group your subscribers and split your email list into smaller groups based on who they are, what they like, or what they do. Send them follow-up emails that match their needs and interests. It works for you and helps you understand your audience in a second when you are trying to send them an email follow-up.

Social Proof

Show them proof using testimonials, case studies, and positive reviews of how others have benefited from your product or service. This can make them trust you more because most people easily feel comfortable if a group of people are doing the same.

Urgency and scarcity

Make them act fast. Use limited-time offers or deadlines to make them feel like they need to act quickly. This can make them more likely to buy from you.

To sum up, you can become a master of email follow-up if you personalize your emails and make them interesting and relevant to your recipients. Choose the right frequency and timing for your follow-up emails, and avoid spamming or annoying your recipients. Show them social proof and testimonials from happy customers who have used your product or service.