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In a perfect world, potential customers would say “Yes” the moment you ask them, “Want to take your dream car on a test drive?” or “Ready to schedule that tour of the gym?” But the world isn’t perfect. So you have to send a sales follow-up email to nudge potential customers toward action. They need to be hyper-relevant and personal, without being pushy. It’s an email marketing strategy you can’t ignore.
In fact, follow-up emails are a must-have in your email marketing toolkit if you work in industries such as luxury retail, higher education, real estate, or automotive sales. That’s how and where interest turns into action.
Anyhow, this blog post breaks down everything you need to know about follow-up emails for sales — what they are, what makes a good sales follow-up email, examples, and best practices to follow. Let’s dig in!
What is a Sales Follow-Up Email?
A sales follow-up email is a strategic message sent to a potential customer in response to a certain action they’ve taken, like touring a property, test-driving a car, visiting your website, or downloading a resource. Its goal is to re-engage them, build trust, and move them closer toward making a purchase decision.
Follow-up emails for sales especially matter in B2C industries like med spas, real estate, gyms, higher education, and automotive sales because they help keep your brand top of mind.
More importantly, they show potential customers that you genuinely want to help them solve their problems, whether it’s finding their dream home, achieving their fitness goals, or upgrading their lifestyle.
Why Follow-Up Emails are So Important in Sales
Think of it like this: your initial interaction with the potential customer might’ve put your foot in the door. But how do you make sure that door stays open for conversation? By following up.
Without follow-up sales emails, potential customers might lose interest or forget about your brand altogether. You can’t afford to let them slip through your fingers.
And if you think contacting them once is enough for them to make up their minds, you can think again. In fact, research shows that it typically takes 5 follow-up attempts to close sales. Why? Because follow-up emails let you:
- Nurture potential customers’ interest in your product or service
- Provide value through resources tailored to potential customers’ needs
- Show potential customers that you care about their success
- Adjust your messaging in each follow-up to answer new questions or objections
It’s how you move potential customers closer to a purchase decision. So, instead of skipping a follow-up or convincing yourself that it won’t help, write and send the emails.
The question is, how?
How to Write and Send Follow-Up Sales Emails
Writing a follow-up email for sales is an art. But that’s just half the battle. You also need to know how to send a sales follow-up email at the right time, to the right person.
Start with thinking why you want to follow up in the first place. Are you trying to revive a dead lead? Or move closer to the end of the customer’s purchase journey? No matter what your goal is, how should you structure your sales follow-up email?
Here’s a step-by-step guide to crafting and sending follow-up emails that work.
Let’s jump in!
1. Map Out the Sales Follow-Up Email Sequence
You’ve written the first sales follow-up email and it’s been sent to the potential customers. You’re waiting for a reply. And waiting. What, it’s been two weeks already?
There, there, don’t take it personally. Potential customers are human, after all. They’re busy, and their inbox is like a messy wardrobe. The trick is to follow up within a reasonable time after sending the first follow-up email. But what is a reasonable time?
That’s why you should map out every step of your follow-up sequence, from start to finish. Plan exactly what to send, when to send it, and why.
Here’s a sample sales follow-up email sequence:
- First follow-up email: 3 days after the initial email, offering a gentle reminder of your first email
- Second follow-up email: 5-7 days after the first follow-up, with a resource (case study, checklist, or blog post) or another topic to add value to your customer relationship email
- Third follow-up email: 7-10 days after the second follow-up, keeping it casual yet focused to ask them directly to schedule a call
- Final follow-up sales email: 2-3 weeks after the third follow-up, indicating that it’s your last outreach attempt, but leaving the door open for future interactions
Worried about remembering these intervals? You can automate your sales follow-up email workflows with email marketing platforms like MoEngage (more on that below).
2. Set Up a Follow-Up Sales Email Campaign
For this step, you need to use a platform that allows email marketing automation for your campaigns. If you’re using MoEngage, for example, here’s how to set up an email campaign and create the follow-up sequence:
- Log in to the MoEngage dashboard.
- Go to Create new > Campaign > Email > Periodic.
- Enter your campaign’s name and define the target audience. Select the primary trigger event as ‘Has Executed – Email Delivered’, meaning that the follow-up campaign would be triggered once the potential customer receives the first email.
- Select the trigger message’s delay time. For instance, the first follow-up email is to be sent 3 days after the first email is received. Click ‘Next’.
- Choose any email template and drag-and-drop elements in the email editor. Add, edit or remove text, images, buttons, lists, dynamic content — you name it.
- Select the start date and time of the follow-up email campaign, and click ‘Publish’.
3. Draft Follow-Up Sales Emails They Can’t Say ‘No’ To
The next step is to write all the follow-up emails in your sequence. But how do you know what to say in a follow-up sales email?
Here’s a simple format to make it easy for you.
Use an Enticing Subject Line
Subject lines are everything. They’re like movie trailers. If the trailer doesn’t make you sit on the edge of your seat, do you get excited enough to buy tickets to the theater? Nope.
In the same way, if your potential customers don’t find the subject line intriguing enough, they won’t open your follow-up email.
The good news is, you don’t need to be Hemingway to write the best email subject lines to boost your open rates. You can simply borrow from this list of subject lines for your sales follow-up emails:
General Sales Follow-Ups
- Quick question, [First Name]
- [First Name], how about a 5-minute call?
- Following up on our talks on [topic]
- Got a chance to look at our ?
- [First Name], any questions on pricing?
- [First Name], thoughts on [solution]?
- Curious what made you step back
- Still interested in our ?
- Any updates for [brand name]?
- Quick reminder about
Sales Follow-Up Emails with Resources
- 5 ways to do [potential customer’s goal]
- This is why [statistic or fact]
- See how [Potential Customer Name] got [Potential Customer’s goal]
- Watch out for this [trend]!
- How we can help you solve [pain point]
Instead of a vague “Can I help you?”, ensure the subject line gives the potential customer a hint of what’s inside — your product/service, or a reminder about a past conversation you’ve already had with them. That’s how you can increase your email open rate.
Start with a Personalized Greeting
When somebody calls you by your name, you’re likely to respond. Why? Because they’re speaking directly to you, you instantly feel a connection with that person.
All the more reason why you should use the potential customer’s name in a follow-up email. It makes them feel like you actually know them; as a result, they’re more likely to buy from you.
But a good sales follow-up email doesn’t stop there. It also has sprinkles of something personal, like something relevant to their purchase behavior or needs, for instance.
Here’s an example:
“Hi [First Name], do you still need help with your [pain point]?”
Provide Context
Nobody remembers every email they’ve received the past week, let alone the past month. So why should your potential customers be any different?
The last thing you want to do is make them work to figure out who you are or why you’re emailing them. Honestly, that’d be frustrating, and who’s got the time to do that anyway? So, make it easy for them by giving them a recap of your previous sales emails.
Something like this would do the trick:
“I just wanted to follow up on our email last week about improving your [specific situation] using our .”
Add Value
Are you checking in with your potential customer just to repeat the same things over and over in every follow-up sales email? Spare them the boredom.
You need to give them something new, fresh, and relevant in each email. Something that would make it worth their time to open and read your follow-up at all. Something that adds value to their daily lives.
Here are a couple of examples to set your mind on the right path:
- A blog post, a checklist, or a how-to guide. “I’ve attached a travel checklist that can help you plan your next trip to Hawaii.”
- A success story. “Here’s how [another potential customer’s name] uses to achieve [goal].”
Finish with a Clear Call to Action
You can create the most wonderful sales follow-up email ever. But if there’s no clear CTA, potential customers would be like, “Okay, the email and everything else inside it look great. But what am I supposed to do next?” It’s like having potential customers who are willing to buy but can’t, just because you forgot to give them the product link.
So, do you want subscribers to click a link? Call you up? Reply to a question? Be specific.
For example, a CTA like “Schedule a test drive that works for your schedule” doesn’t leave room for confusion, unlike a weak CTA like “Thoughts?”.
Sign Off with a Professional and Warm Closing
When it’s time to wrap it up, remember you’re not emailing either your best friend or a jury member. Which means you can’t be too casual or too formal.
Warmth and professionalism need to be balanced in your closing. It shouldn’t feel forced. At the same time, it should make the potential customer feel like you’re leaving room for them to engage with your follow-up sales email.
You can use these examples:
- “Hope to hear back from you”
- “Thanks for your time. I’d be happy to answer any questions.”
- “Let me know if there’s any other way I can help you.”
Next, add sign-offs like:
- “Warm regards”
- “Best”
- “Cheers”
- “Talk soon”
Proofread the Sales Follow-Up Emails
Has a sales follow-up email filled with spelling and grammatical errors ever made you think, “Wow, they’re experts who can solve my problem”?
No, we didn’t think so. Your potential customers don’t think so, either.
Once you’re done writing your follow-up emails, read them out loud. It can help you catch mistakes like repetitive words or awkward phrasing. Check the email for typos. Better yet, run it through tools like Grammarly, which can instantly pinpoint mistakes.
Remember, taking five minutes to polish your follow-up sales email might be the difference between radio silence and a reply.
4. Automate the Follow-Up Sequence
You have to take follow-up emails seriously. That means ensuring they’re sent on time everytime, according to the sequence you’d mapped out earlier.
Trust email marketing automation platforms like MoEngage with this work. MoEngage Flows can help you map your follow-up sales email step by step. All you need to do is:
- From the MoEngage dashboard, go to Engage > Flows > Create flow. You can either start from scratch or choose a flow template.
- Set the flow name, then on the ‘Users enter the flow’ page, select the ‘At fixed time’ option. Ensure the timings are properly set, then click ‘Next’.
- On the flow canvas, click the ‘add’ icon and select ‘Email’. Edit the ‘email’ bubble. In the ‘Email Campaign’ dialog box, select ‘Import data from another campaign’ or create a follow-up campaign in the dialog box. Search with the campaign name, click ‘Import’, and then ‘Done’. The ‘email’ bubble is now populated with the selected campaign info.
- Set conditions and controls. For example, ‘Send Follow-Up Email 1 if the recipient has not opened the initial email in three days.’
- Add timed delays between the emails, such as ‘If no engagement with Follow-Up Email 2, send Follow-Up Email 3 after ten days.’
This helps you make sure that your potential customers don’t feel bombarded with your sales follow-ups.
5. Preview, Test, and Optimize Your Follow-Up Emails
You can’t afford to make email marketing mistakes like a novice. Just like crew workers always check a plane before it takes off, you’re responsible for checking sales follow-up emails before sending them.
If you don’t preview your emails before hitting ‘send’, how would you know if the formatting looks good across devices?
Next, test the emails to see if the links or CTA buttons work. With A/B testing, you can experiment with different subject lines or CTAs to understand what resonates most with your subscribers.
Lastly, double-check that the flows are properly set up, with the correct delays and triggers for the follow-ups. Ready, set, send!
5 Sales Follow-Up Email Samples and Templates (the Best and the Worst)
Writing follow-up emails for sales can be tricky, no doubt. What matters in the process are tone, relevance, and empathy, and you’re good to go!
Check out these five sales follow-up email examples. You’ll understand what works, what doesn’t, and why. Three of the best follow-ups, and two that are (ahem)… well, why don’t you find out for yourself?
1. Best Follow-Up Email after a Cold Call
Cold calls are the first mode of communication where you can understand if the potential customer is actually a potential customer. Confused?
Well, a cold call at least gives you a glimmer of an idea whether the potential customer is facing the pain points that your product aims to address. Once you’re sure of that, your follow-up sales email can mention a specific product feature. Or a link to a useful resource. Anything that you think can help them achieve their goals.
Here’s an example of a follow-up email after a sales call:
Why this works:
- Personalization: The sales follow-up email subject line and the very first sentence refer to a previous call. This makes the email feel specific and relevant to the potential customer.
- Adding value: Sharing something helpful, like a guide or a downloadable checklist, signals that you want to move the conversation forward by genuinely helping, and not just ‘following up’.
- Clear CTA: The potential customer knows exactly what you want them to do next. In this case, they have to either reply to your email or call you up for answers.
2. Best Follow-Up Sales Email after a Trigger Event
Let’s say you’ve sent an email or a proposal to a potential customer. After some days, you notice that the potential customer had opened that email. Or they might reopen it later. Or they might’ve downloaded a resource you had sent.
These are examples of trigger events, telling you there’s a possibility that the potential customer is interested in buying your product or service. With one foot in the door, you can’t miss this chance of nudging the potential customer to say, “Hey, I’m still here!”
Why this works:
- Showing care: The follow-up email isn’t jumping to consultation or action talks straightaway. It’s indicating that you genuinely care about the potential customer’s pain point, while asking them for feedback on the resource.
- Zero fluff: The email gets to the point immediately — here’s the resource, and if you want to discuss further, reach out. That’s it. Short and sweet.
- Direct CTA: It asks the potential customer to reply to the follow-up email as a direct next step. So, they aren’t confused about how to reach out if they do have questions.
3. Worst Sales Follow-Up Email after an Event
Suppose you’ve met a potential customer at an event, like a car dealership event, a concert, or a career fair. Follow-up emails would be a great way of continuing your conversation from the event with that potential customer.
But are you following up with the assumption that the potential customer remembers you or the event? You’re only kidding yourself, then.
Let’s observe a moment of silence for this email.
Okay, we’re done.
Why this doesn’t work:
- Impersonal and vague: The sales follow-up email subject line doesn’t specify where the potential customer had met the sender. That becomes clear only when the potential customer opens the email. They aren’t addressed by their name, either. So how would they know if the follow-up’s actually meant for them, and not someone else?
- Disconnected feeling: Instead of tying the product or service back to the shared experience at the event, the follow-up starts with a random product pitch.
- No value: Trying to sell your product or service without showing them you care or giving them something valuable (event takeaways or related resources) is a surefire way to break trust before building it.
- No hook: The sender is asking the potential customer for their time without giving them a reason to respond.
4. Worst Follow-Up Email when Potential Customer Goes AWOL
When you’ve been waiting for a long time after following up, it can get frustrating. You might start panicking. Or spiraling out of control. Having a hard time dealing with rejection.
A word of advice: don’t give in to your emotions like this email sender did.
Why this doesn’t work:
- Dripping with impatience: No matter what you do, you shouldn’t come across as insecure or desperate. So, when a potential customer isn’t responding within the timeframe you’d hoped for, the last thing you want to do is nag them. Or worse, demand a quick response. If you do, the potential customer might feel like your follow-up is an obligation, not a hopeful connection.
- Zero context: When it’s clear that the potential customer hasn’t engaged with your follow-up for a long time, relax. Now think. Are they likely to remember your previous emails? Chances are, they aren’t. That’s why you should always provide context — why you’re following up, and on what topic.
- No value: In this example, the sender expects the potential customer to review their previous emails and respond. But why should the potential customer care? There’s no incentive for them to respond, and they don’t owe you a response, either. Offer something valuable that makes the email engagement worth their time.
5. Best Sales Follow-Up Email after a Long Time Has Passed
You’ve sent two follow-up sales emails as per your sequence. But there’s been no reply, even after ten days, for instance. That might be due to potential customers’ competing priorities. Or, well, busy schedules. Things they can’t control, and you can do nothing about.
That’s when you send a ‘long time, no talk’ follow-up. Just like this sample sales email follow-up.
Why this works:
- Opening with a reminder: The follow-up sales email directly lays down the context of the conversation. No awkward apologies, no guilt trips.
- New ideas plus value: Not only does the email share fresh solutions to the potential customer’s pain point, but it also shows how much you care. It builds on your past conversations with the potential customer to provide these solutions.
- Soft CTA: The last two sentences of the email signal to the potential customer that there’s no pressure to respond, or to respond straightaway. The sender is clearly encouraging the conversation to move ahead, but the ball is in the potential customer’s court. They can take their own sweet time to decide whether they should continue the conversation.
3 Sales Follow-Up Email Tips, Best Practices, and Strategies
Now you know the difference between a good sales follow-up email and a bad one. To ensure it’s good, there are three best practices you should always follow while crafting follow-up sales emails:
1. Personalize Each Sales Follow-Up Email
Gone are the days when a sales follow-up email starting with ‘Dear Valued Potential Customer’ made the potential customer feel valued.
Email personalization is a non-negotiable now. You shouldn’t just use the potential customer’s name, but their needs, challenges, behavior, and preferences too, in a follow-up. Only then might the subscriber feel special enough to read your follow-up and take the action you want them to.
If doing this at scale feels too daunting, though, don’t sweat. Email marketing software platforms like MoEngage let you easily insert dynamic content, so your follow-up emails feel personalized without manual work.
2. Keep the Follow-Up Email Short
Sadly, humans have an attention span of 8.25 seconds — less than that of a goldfish. As if that weren’t enough, nobody’s got the time to read through walls of text in your follow-up emails to know why you sent them in the first place.
Your initial email is where you tell the story of your brand or your product or service. Sales follow-up emails shouldn’t be more than gentle knocks on your subscribers’ doors. So, make sure they are short, clear, and relevant. Get to the point fast. Remember, you just have 8.25 seconds to capture the subscriber’s interest through your key message in the follow-up email, so make every second count. That’s a way of showing respect for your subscribers’ time.
3. Automate the Follow-Up Process
We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again. Juggling the follow-ups, timing, intervals, and personalization all at once is a Herculean feat. That’s where automation comes in to save the day.
For example, MoEngage is an email marketing automation software that can help you automate the entire process, from dynamically updating messaging based on potential customers’ behavior to A/B testing sales follow-up email subject lines. It brings consistency to the table, so you don’t miss out on opportunities anymore to engage your subscribers efficiently.
Additionally, such platforms provide detailed email dashboards and analytics. This means you can check which sales follow-up emails are performing well in terms of opens, clicks, conversions, and other key email marketing metrics.
How to Create an Engaging Sales Follow-Up Email: Closing Thoughts
A sales follow-up email shouldn’t be an option, but a must-do. That doesn’t mean it should be pushy and aggressive, though.
Always consider whether potential customers are ready to move forward in the sales process. If they are, what do they need to get ready? Taking these factors into account will help you write and send follow-up emails that resonate with potential customers.
All you need is the right platform for automating follow-up sales email workflows. A platform like MoEngage, where you can also build and save follow-up email templates, set up campaigns, analyze results, and optimize emails.
Curious how it can help your team work more efficiently and productively? Take a free demo today.
The post How to Write a B2C Sales Follow-Up Email to Seal the Deal appeared first on MoEngage.
