Getting a response in today’s overloaded with data world is quite a challenge. It takes patience and mastery from a marketer to encourage a customer to open the email and read its content. However, some techniques might come in handy when you need to get a response from a customer, who ignores you. And one of these is called a Follow-up email.
What is a Follow-up email?
First, let’s clarify what a follow-up email is. Follow-up email is a series of emails content of which depends on the actions made by your customer. Creating a successful follow-up email is a task that requires both skills and knowledge as well as understanding of how people open their emails, view its content, what they like and what they don’t.
In our article, you will find the secrets of an outstanding follow-up email. So, keep on reading to find them out.
Why Write Follow-up Emails
There are multiple benefits you can get by adding follow-up emails to your email marketing campaign. Some of them are:
- Improved Conversions
Some obstacles might come in a way between a customer and your email. Namely, they might be busy, or they got too many emails to scroll through and don’t want to waste their time. A follow-up email is an excellent option in this case as they add value through assistance. Besides, a new email will always be on top of the list, and it’s exactly what we need.
- Increased Trust
Follow-up emails are used in building trustworthy relationships with your customers as they show the customer-centric approach of your company and help outline your goals.
- Customer Filtering
Follow-up emails help understand which customers care about your brand and want to join the conversation with you and those who don’t.
- Marketing Automation
It becomes easier for you to send marketing promotions and automate this process when you know your audience. In turn, this will help you increase sales and free your time for more important tasks. You can also save time using a bulk follow-up email sender for Zendesk like Proactive Campaigns.
Do’s and Don’ts When Writing a Follow-up Email
There are some rules that you have to follow when writing follow-up emails. They include:
- Don’t send follow-ups on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays
Okay, it’s clear why not write on weekends, but why Mondays? Most people start their business week on Mondays, and the first thing they will do is scan their mailbox and delete the emails they think are irrelevant (who sends urgent emails on weekends, after all).
- Friday’s evenings are not an option, too
The last day of the busy working week, especially the evening, won’t work for you either as most people start making plans for the weekends. They simply do not want to deal with something else and might even be annoyed to receive your email. If no other day works for you, try sending your email in the morning instead.
- Midweek is an optimal option
Midweek, 2 PM is a perfect time to send your follow-up email as most workers return from their lunch break and are ready to continue with their tasks. They will most possibly check their mailbox, and voila! — will notice your message.
- Analyze your data first
Surely, there might be people for whom midweek will not work because many companies know this trick and send their emails at the exact time so that your email might get lost. In this case, you should carefully study your Click Through Rate (or simply CTR) to find out the pattern of your prospects’ responses.
If you use Zendesk, you can try the Email Tracking app to understand what happens when you hit the send button. It will present you with important information, such as the time when the email was opened and how many times. It will also help you determine the general time to send a reply with the help of the app’s statistics.
How to Write an Outstanding Follow-up Email
Now when you know some basics, it is time to uncover the main secret — the structure of a good follow-up email. The follow-up email typically consists of a subject line, the body of the email, and the closure. You should start writing your follow-up email, keeping in mind the following points:
- The purpose of your email
This is the most time- and effort-consuming step unless you already have a good sales funnel at hand. At this point, you have to know for sure the main purpose of your email; otherwise, you will only waste your time. You should spark your customer’s interest with your email, and make them want to interact with your company.
- Proper subject of your email
Generic email subjects don’t work. You have to remember that the subject line is your strongest asset that can either make your customer open an email or not. There are four main types of subject lines you can use for an impeccable follow-up strategy.
1.Catered: this type of subject line is perfect if you know your audience, especially their demographic, type of email client, and device they use. Based on this data, you can find out what to write.
2.Short: sometimes, it’s better not to go into details. The golden standard of a subject line is 7 words or 41 characters.
3.Detailed: this type of subject line should be understandable by a customer so that they open the email.
4.Engaging: don’t go overboard because your email might get into a spam box, but make your subject line engaging.
- Add a strong call-to-action (CTA)
Don’t forget about adding a CTA to your follow-up email. Ideally, it should make the receiver get back to you and help you accomplish an email’s goal (leave feedback, make a purchase, upgrade to a higher pricing plan, register to an event, etc.).
- Your next move
You should always plan your next move, no matter if your email was opened or not. Try to come up with an organic way to write the next email.
Wrapping Up
Creating an outstanding follow-up email is not the easiest task, it takes time and effort. However, it can do wonders with your email marketing campaign. If you still haven’t implemented follow-up into your email marketing campaign, now is the time.
