How to Write a Follow-Up Email in 2024?

The process of writing a follow-up email is quite different from writing an initial cold email. 

The goal of initial cold emails is to get your foot in the door, deliver your initial pitch, and lay the groundwork for establishing a relationship with your prospects.

Follow-up emails, on the other hand, are sent to re-engage your non-responsive leads, strengthen the relationship, and move the opportunity toward the end goal.

Unfortunately, most people struggle with getting prospects to respond even after sending a few follow-up emails.

When this happens with too many prospects, you begin to wonder why.

• Was it something you said? 
• Are your prospects just too busy to respond? 
• Should you try contacting them again?

The answer to your last question is YES! 

But this time, with the right approach.

In this post, we’ll teach you how to write a follow-up email that generates responses and moves deals forward. 

In addition, we will also share plenty of follow-up email templates for different purposes (with examples) you can steal to ace your cold emailing game.

How to write a follow-up email in 7 simple steps?

Follow-up emails are a gentle reminder to re-engage the prospect, provide additional information, or request updates. 

However, it is essential to write each follow-up email strategically and without being perceived as pushy, aggressive, or overly sales-y.

Here are the 7 simple steps you can follow to write follow-up emails that generate responses.

Personalized Greeting
Hint About Last Interaction
Restate Your Purpose
Add More Value
Provide Clear Call to Action
Show Gratitude
Proofread and Preview

1. Personalized Greeting

When you’re sending a follow-up email to a prospect, it’s always a good idea to open your email message with a personalized greeting. It helps to establish a friendly tone. 

So, the next time you write a follow-up email, begin with something like “Hey David” instead of launching right into the ask.

If you want to sound a bit more formal, you can also say “Dear [name]” or “Hi [name].” Just make sure to add your prospect’s name as it will help to grab their attention.

Pro Tip: Follow best practices to personalize your email. Personalize subject lines, opening lines, and more using spintax and merge tags.

2. Hint About Last Interaction

After the personalized greeting, it’s a best practice to give some context by mentioning when you last spoke such as “I really enjoyed our phone call last week discussing [topic]”. 

Or if it was an email exchange, then you could say “Just following up on the emails we exchanged last month about [topic]”.

The idea is to briefly recap what you talked about in 1-2 sentences. It will help to remind them who you are and why you’re reaching out to them again. 

Don’t simply assume they’ll remember every detail or interaction they had with you previously.

3. Restate Your Purpose

After giving the context, it’s time to get to the point – the reason or purpose for reaching out. Simply put, you need to tell specifically why you want to connect again.

Here are some examples:

• “I wanted to check in and see if you had a chance to review that proposal I sent over?”
• “Just circling back to see if you were able to confirm our meeting for next Tuesday at 2 PM?”
• “Have you heard any updates regarding my job application? I’m very interested in the role and wanted to check in.”

Following up with such quick context and a specific ask will make it easy for them to respond positively. So, make sure to state your purpose clearly and directly to let your prospects know how they can help or respond.

4. Add More Value

In addition to stating your purpose for reaching out again, you should also consider either adding new information or re-highlighting important details that you think are still relevant to the conversation.

This will show the prospects why they should re-engage in the conversation with you. 

Here are some options you can include:

• Request a meeting to demo your product
• Seeking feedback on a proposal or pricing quote
• Ask for a call to further discuss their needs
• Asking them to share the contact info of decision-makers

Doing so will bring your value proposition back to the forefront and increase the chances of getting a response.

5. Provide Clear Call to Action

This step is crucial in every follow-up email. So, make sure to clearly convey any requested actions or next steps that you’d like the prospect to take.

This will give them a clear call to action and move the conversation going.

For example: “I’d love to schedule a quick phone call to give a demo of our platform and discuss further how we can meet your needs.”

Being direct about the next steps you want creates momentum and keeps things progressing.

6. Show Gratitude

No matter the reason for your follow-up, you must always take a moment to thank your prospects for their time and consideration. 

You may believe it or not but a simple “Thank you for your time” or “I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this further” can significantly contribute to maintaining goodwill.

Here are some examples to end your follow-up emails with appreciation:

• I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting further.
• Thank you again for your consideration. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything else.
• I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

7. Proofread and Preview

Finally, give your follow-up email message a final read-through before hitting the send button. 

Proofreading will give you a chance to catch any typos, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing.

We recommend reading out loud your email message. Once you’re satisfied with the content, don’t forget to review the recipient’s name, subject line, and email address to ensure everything is accurate.

It’s not just important but also extremely helpful to take an extra 5 minutes to thoroughly proofread your email message.

When to send a follow-up email?

Most experts recommend waiting at least two or three days before you send out your first follow-up email.

If you’re planning to send multiple follow-up emails, your waiting period between each follow-up email should gradually increase depending on the number of follow-ups you plan on sending. 

Below is a chart that depicts the ideal follow-up sequence for 6 follow-up emails (ideally 6 touchpoints, including the first one is a good number to follow).

Follow-Up Email Sequence Timeline:

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