No Response To Your Email? Learn How To Write Follow-Up Emails That Work

Great communication with customers improves customer engagement. The more customers engage with your brand, the more you learn to keep them happy and retain them.

However, this is easier said than done. Through all efforts to communicate with customers, sending emails can be challenging, especially sending a follow-up email.

When it comes to writing follow-up emails, a lot of questions can come to your mind. You may wonder:

• How many follow-up emails should you send?
• How you can keep track of your follow-up email sequence
• The best tactics to apply to increase response rates

In this article, we throw light on these questions and more. We’ll highlight the ideal number of follow-up emails to send and how you can write follow-up emails that increase response rates.

Table of contents

1. Why send a follow-up email after no response?
2. How many follow-up emails should you send?
3. Automate your follow-up email sequence
4. How to write a follow-up email after no response
5. Wrapping it up

Why send a follow-up email after no response?

Customers on your contact list won’t always reply to the emails you send but that doesn’t mean that you should stop. People receive an average of 1oo emails per day, so it's easy for emails to get lost in your customer’s inbox.

Apart from dealing with a large influx of emails, customers and prospects also have to deal with work activities and reply to colleagues and clients. Considering all these factors, settling for a single email will not help communicate your message.

With a follow-up email sequence, you have the chance to remind prospects and customers of your previous emails in case they missed them or forgot to respond.

However, follow-up emails aren’t just about reminding customers about previous emails, there’s more to it like—providing value, the number of emails to send, and the best time to send them.

You’ll learn more about these points as you read further.

How many follow-up emails should you send?

The number of follow-ups to send can be tricky. Send more than one and you risk annoying your customers. Don’t send any, you could miss out on getting a response from them.

When it comes to the number of follow-up emails to send, you need to consider the reason for the email in the first place. If you want to send four follow-up emails but you have a reason for only one then it's best that you send only one.

The key to the ideal number of follow-up emails is to find the right balance by testing different numbers of follow-ups and sticking to the one that works for you.

Nonetheless, studies have revealed that it's good practice to limit your emails to 2-3 follow-ups. Too many emails may annoy your customer and make them mark you as spam.

Automate your follow-up email sequence

It can be challenging to keep track of follow-ups if you’re sending a lot of emails. This is why you need automation to make the process more efficient. Rather than sending your follow-up emails manually, you can use an email automation tool that lets you set the right workflows and schedule personalized follow-up emails.

With Engage, you can save time and set automated workflows for your follow-up emails. This way, you don’t have to worry about sending a follow-up email because it’ll be sent automatically.

How to write a follow-up email after no response

There are important factors to bear in mind while you send a follow-up email sequence. They include:

• The subject line
• The opening line
• Body of email text
• Call-to-action

In this section, we’ll highlight the best tactics to apply when writing on each of these factors.

1. Apply personalization

Personalization is the foundation for sending a follow-up email after no response. This is because a personalized subject line + opening line increases the chances of a response.

When it comes to personalization, you need to make your email about your customers. Though this can be challenging. There's pressure to make every email 100% unique to the needs of each customer. This can be more challenging when you have a large customer base to send emails to. This is where the importance of customer research comes in.

The key is to make key parts of your emails like subject lines, opening lines, the body of text, and CTA personalized in the right balance.

While sending emails to different customers with unique needs and preferences can be challenging, you need to understand what personalization means for each customer. With accurate customer data, you can create customer segments and define each personalized trait for each customer segment.

For example, Engage lets you track customer data and use it to create customer segments for your emails.

2. The subject line

Studies have shown that 69% of people will report an email as spam based on the subject line alone. Your subject line indicates to your customers if your email is worth reading or not. A lousy subject line automatically reduces the chances of getting your customers to open your message. If your customers don’t get to open your emails, they can’t read them and perform your call-to-action.

Two ways you can capture your customers’ attention are by:

• Personalizing your subject line—subject lines like “just checking in” or “hoping for a response” lack personalization nor show value to your customers and prospects. This might even make them ignore you more. Instead, highlight key information about your customer or a benefit they can derive from your email.
• Keep your subject lines short—an ideal subject line contains 1-3 words.

3. Provide context in each opening line

Before your customers go through your email, they see the subject line and the opening line. When written well, they can spark curiosity and make customers open your emails. One way to accomplish this is by pointing out that they’ve heard from you before.

The idea is that you try to jog your customer’s memory by starting your email with a reference to the previous email you sent, just like this follow-up email example:

Source

Even if your customer is hesitant to engage with your email, they’ll be more likely to do so and even respond if they feel like you’ve reached out before. Here are some examples of opening lines you can try:

• I sent an email a while ago about {insert reason for sending email}
• I just wanted to keep you updated regarding {insert reason for sending the previous email}

4. Explain why you’re emailing in a few words

One way you can annoy your customers is by sending a follow-up email that is not clear and wastes their time. Don’t just state that you’re writing to know if they got your last email. Customers have jobs and other activities to do so they may have forgotten that you sent a message earlier. Instead, go straight to the point and tell them what you want. Here is a way that you can do this:

• Provide value—spark your customer’s interest with something relevant by highlighting a key benefit for them. For example, if you’re sending a follow-up email after a demo, you can state how your product helped company XYZ solve a similar problem your prospect is dealing with.  This type of message can provide a prospect with a compelling reason to respond.

Source

5. Include a persuasive call-to-action

When sending a follow-up email after no response, you must think about your call-to-action. What do you want customers to do after reading your message? You need to think carefully about this and figure out the best way to persuade customers to take your call to action.  

Don’t beat around the bush, provide your CTA clearly and persuasively that will lead customers to respond.

Source

You can ask an open-ended question or lead your call-to-action with customer interest. Here are some examples:

• Would you be interested to learn more about {insert reason for sending email}?
• Let me know what you think!

After a persuasive call-to-action, end your email with a polite and professional email sign-off.

Wrapping it up

Writing a follow-up email is not an easy task. However, with the right strategies, you can write follow-up emails that get customers to respond.

Remember, the key is to lay a solid foundation by understanding your customers, creating accurate customer segments, and personalizing your emails.

It is when you understand your customers that you will be able to add value to your messages and persuade them to respond.

The next time you want to write a follow-up email after no response,  turn to the tactics we’ve highlighted in this article to guide you through the entire process.

At Engage, we have simplified your follow-up email process by helping you easily integrate your customer data and craft powerful automation workflows.

Sign up for free today.