Field Guides / Sales

How to write a follow-up email that gets a reply

A follow-up gets a reply when it adds one useful thing and its last line states the next step: what you'll do, and when. Put every lead on a cadence, with the first nudge two to three business days after the quote or the call, and keep following up until they buy or tell you no.

Why do follow-up emails get ignored?

Follow-up emails get ignored for two reasons: the last line asks the client to decide whether you're worth engaging, and the follow-up stops too soon.

The closing line is the most consistent writing problem in the threads I've reviewed. One outreach email ended "does that sound good to you?". A line like that asks the client to decide whether you're worth engaging.

The second reason is persistence. Most lost deals don't go to a competitor, they go to "do nothing": the prospect stalls, gets distracted or loses urgency, and nobody brings it back up.

It helps to know who's on your list. A widely used sales rule of thumb, and one I've used in workshops for years, says that out of every hundred people in your market about three are ready to buy now, seven are open to buying, thirty are interested but not right now, and the rest aren't interested. Most of the people you follow up are in the thirty.

How to write a follow-up that gets a reply: the method, step by step

A follow-up that gets a reply reminds them where you left off, adds one thing they didn't have, and ends on the next step. Five steps, the same for every email.

1. Open with where you left off, in one line. The call, the quote, the date you sent it. No apology for following up.
2. Add one thing they didn't have before. A case study from a similar job, an answer to the question that usually comes up at this stage (cost, timing, priority), or an article tied to something they told you.
3. Lower the friction if they've gone quiet. If a big question got no answer, swap it for an easier one tied to their problem: "Tell me the one thing that frustrates you most about [their problem]."
4. End on the next step, with what you'll do and when. "I'll send through a short plan on Thursday and we can lock a shoot date." If you want a reply to a question, make it an easy one about something you've offered ("Do you want to see it?"). Leave out any line that asks them to judge whether you're worth their time, such as "Would that be okay?".
5. Diary the next touch before you hit send. Use the cadence further down. Done looks like: every open lead and every open quote has a date against it.

What should a follow-up say after a quote, a first conversation or a long silence?

A follow-up after a first conversation plays back what you heard, after a quote it confirms the date and adds something, and after a long silence it offers something useful. Here are all three, ready to edit.

The long-silence email is deliberately short. It follows the message that restarted the thread in the worked example below. If they say yes, send the link that day.

How many times should you follow up, and how often?

Follow up more times than feels comfortable, spaced out on a cadence, with something useful in each touch. The cadence below gives you the dates.

There are two ways to approach it. Hunters rely on paid advertising to reach as many people as possible and count on a percentage closing, which makes it a numbers game. Farmers know their market, plant seeds and nurture them until they're ready to harvest, and there can be a long time between planting and harvest. I prefer farming, and the cadence below is built for it.

The contact ladder from my old course shows what the later contacts do:

• Contact five. You've become a factor in the lead's mind.
• Contact six. Nurturing slowly, your lead gets to know you.
• Contact seven. You're earning top-of-mind awareness.
• Contact eight. You're probably the only person to have made eight contacts with them.
• Contact nine. When they're ready to buy, you're in the best position to be the one they call.

Not every touch has to be an email. The more often someone is exposed to you, the more familiar you become. My own list has included a printed newsletter posted every month, handwritten notes, direct mail (a toy koala and boomerang posted ahead of a London event), podcasts and email sequences. The car salesman Joe Girard sent every customer a card each month with no sales message in it, and his best source of business was referrals.

A worked example

Here's a real thread, anonymised: one member's first contact with me ran 117 days and nine or ten contacts before they asked for a call, and the first five contacts were conversation.

• Day one. A LinkedIn connection request with a personal note saying we were building a community of people who run small production businesses and I'd love to know more about them. We chatted back and forth that day. No offer, no link. Then the thread went quiet.
• Six weeks later, contact six. A short "random reach out" saying we'd seen a pick-up with clients in their market, and offering a case study we'd just finished: "Do you want to see it?" Same-day reply: yes please, and sorry for going quiet, they'd been busy.
• The same day. I sent a 20-minute client interview, linked off the platform, and asked what they thought once they'd watched it.
• About two months of silence. Then a short nudge: did you get a chance to look at that video? They'd watch it that day, they said.
• Day 117. They wrote asking to set up a call, because things had been quieter than usual.

By the time we spoke, they'd done the research and knew who I was and what we did.

The mistakes that undo it

Four mistakes undo a follow-up even when the email itself is well written.

• Writing "just checking in". It adds nothing. If you've got nothing to add, wait until you have.
• Nudging too soon. Especially after a reflective question, they need time to think and to talk to their partner, and a fast nudge trains them that you chase. The nudge should signal patience, not need.
• Reading silence as a no. Silence is often a busy client, as the worked example shows. Stay on the cadence.
• Pitching in every message. Most touches should give something and ask for nothing back.

The rule of thumb for following up

Every follow-up adds one thing and ends on the next step, and the date of the next touch goes in the diary before you send it.

The benchmark: plan for nine contacts. On the cadence above, the ninth lands about six months after the first.

Hold yourself accountable

Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?

• Your last three follow-ups end with what happens next and when.
• "Just checking in" is gone from your sent folder.
• Every open quote and warm lead has its next follow-up date in your diary or CRM.
• You've sent a case study to a lead who went quiet more than six weeks ago.

Your one move this week

What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.

Open your sent folder and list every quote or first conversation from the last 90 days that went quiet. Send the long-silence email to the ones that have been quiet six weeks or more, and put the rest on the cadence at the day they've reached.

One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.

Related tools and guides. How to qualify a video lead before you pitch, How to get more from referrals and networking, What to say when a prospect asks for a ballpark price, Drop the scope, not the price, How to push back on a client without losing them.