How to write a follow up to a cold email

So you wrote your first cold outreach email. You blasted dozens of prospects in one day with relevant, personalized outreach. Now it’s day 2 and you haven’t heard a single thing back yet. You have an open rate in the low 40s, but no responses. What gives? Now you need to send a follow up.

Much like writing the first cold outreach email, writing the follow up can feel vague and daunting. However, it’s essential to nail this to land a deal. Prospects will often overlook or plain ignore your first email. Maybe you caught them at the wrong time, or maybe the subject line wasn’t enough to hook them in.

Either way, you need to write a follow up email.

When to follow up

Needless to say, if your prospect responds to you or schedules a call, you shouldn’t write a follow up email. You also shouldn’t send the follow up email outside of business hours or on a non-business day (such as a holiday or weekend).

Your follow up should be prompt, but not frantic. We recommend writing an email on the first business day three days after your first email.

How to follow up

When you write a follow up email, make sure to follow these 3 guidelines:

1. Clear and simple CTA. The next step should be easy, prompt them to respond to a yes/no question, for example, with a clear value proposition. For example “Can I set up some time with you to discuss how we could save you money?”

2. Personalize the email. Everybody wants to be seen and heard. Do not guess the buyer’s problems, ask them and show you listened by repeating them back. For example “Other sales directors I’ve worked with said a consistent outbound motion was difficult for their team. Is this a problem you also face?”

3. Automate the process. You should be contacting dozens of different prospects per week. Don’t try to manage them all and their timelines yourself, lean on your tools to do this.

When you write the follow up, make sure to write it differently based on how they engaged with the first email. Did they read it? Did they click through? Write and send a different email than if they didn’t read it. Do not call them out for reading your email or clicking a link. Nobody wants to feel like they’re the subject of a stakeout, no matter how relevant your pitch is to their problems.

Here’s an email template for prospects who didn’t open your email:

Subject: Madison, hope I didn’t get lost in your inbox

Hey Madison,

Are you facing [insert relevant problem]?

I won’t waste your time: we’ve helped X other companies companies Y and I think we can do the same for you.

Here are a couple links to [proof points- e.g. testimonials]

Can I set up some time with you to chat about it?

This revisits and supports your previous email, but, importantly, it will show the value prop in the email preview in their inbox. They can feel related to without even reading the email this time.

For somebody who has read your previous email, try this template:

Subject: Oops, forgot something important

Hi Madison,

I sent you an email last week about X problem and that I think we can help you with it.

I forgot to send along a couple links to [proof points].

Feel free to read them, I’m happy to answer any questions.

If you are facing X problem, can I set up some time with you to hear more about it?

This reinforces your previous email (which Madison read) with some more points. It also has a similar CTA as the original email.

In both cases, you’ll notice that the emails are short and the only difference between them is that email #1 reiterates the original cold email, whereas email #2 supports it.

This is because, in the case of email #2, they already read your email #1 and don’t need it repeated.