You’ve probably seen or written one of these follow-up emails before:

Although a bland follow-up like this can generate responses from time to time, it doesn’t actually add any value; thus, it is ineffective at generating responses at a high rate. 

Ultimately, poor follow-up will ruin your chances of sending effective emails.

You may think: why should I even care?

After analyzing 65 million email messages, we found out that 55% of cold email campaign replies come from a follow-up. And the ideal number of follow-up emails is three, so you shouldn’t even stop after the first one.

Thus, it's crucial to master the art of writing effective follow-ups if you want to succeed with cold email outreach.

As a way to help you, I’m going to teach you how to craft an effective follow-up email that will ensure your prospects respond. I will go over the structure of highly effective follow-up emails, as well as templates, and sample emails for sending out your own.

Let’s start by looking into the things you should take into account when writing a follow up email.

How To Write a Follow Up Email

While different follow-ups work for different situations, the same principles apply most of the time. 

Keep the following things in mind when writing your follow-up emails.

1. Use Follow-Up Email Format

Your follow-up email format should consist of different parts, which are:

  1. Subject line
  2. Greeting
  3. Opening line
  4. Body text
  5. Call to action (CTA)

Let’s go through each one and what they should consist of.

Follow Up Email Subject Line

The best practice is to keep your emails under the same thread as your previous emails, meaning you don’t need to switch up the subject line. This way, your prospects don’t have to guess who you are and can easily recognize your original emails.

Make sure your initial subject line is catchy to get a high open rate for your follow up email. If you need help with crafting one, check out our article on the best cold email subject line examples.

Follow Up Email Greeting

You shouldn’t overcomplicate the greeting line on your follow up email.

Here are a few simple greeting examples that work: 

  • Hey {{first.name}},
  • {{first.name}}, 
  • Hopefully you’re doing well {{first.name}}!

You'll be fine as long as the greeting line is not too pushy and spammy

Follow Up Email Opening Line

Opening line is the first sentence after your greeting line. If you’ve had a previous conversation with the recipient, this is a good place to remind them of what you talked about. 

This could mean adding a following line:

  • Thanks for attending the {{webinar.name}} webinar yesterday!
  • It was nice talking with you at the {{conference.name}} last week.

Anything that brings familiarity to the recipient is good. For example, if the person reading your email is a potential employer, you should remind him of the previous job interview.

If you haven't had any previous conversations with the recipient, it's harder. In that case, you can use platforms like LinkedIn to find personalization points to the opening line.

A personalized open line to cold prospects could look like this:

  • I saw your LinkedIn post about hiring two new sales reps. Congratulations!
  • Wanted to check if you've filled the {{job title}} you're hiring for?
  • I saw your talk at {{event}} and found your points on {{subject}} particularly interesting.

As a thumb rule, don’t make your opening line the same as the subject line. For a prospect looking at their inbox, the same opening line and subject line look like this:

As you can see, it’s a wasted real estate that could be used better.

Follow Up Email Body text

This is the body of your email, where you get to share more information about your product or service.  

You will want to provide details on how it works and why the reader should be interested in making a purchase. Make sure to keep it concise and to the point so that it’s not overwhelming for the reader.

We have some great examples of the email body down below in the templates section, so if you need inspiration, keep reading.

Follow Up Email Call To Action (CTA)

Usually at the end of the email, having a powerful call to action (CTA) is crucial. Some good examples of CTAs are the following:

  • Is this something you are qualified to discuss? If not, who should I contact?
  • Would you be available on Friday to discuss {{main.benefit}}?
  • Should I check back in a few months?
  • Would you like a free audit for this?
  • Interested?

As you can see, it can take many forms and it depends on your goals with the email.

A good CTA is what motivates people to take action and respond to your follow-up email.

2. Establish Goals For Your Follow Up Email

Without a clear objective of what you want to achieve with your follow up email, it can come across as confusing to the person reading it.

This is what I mean by a confusing email:

While the goal here is clear: to get a call, it is not delivered well enough for the recipient. It's confusing instead.

To make sure your email comes as clear for the person who reads it, make sure:

  • The email body communicates what you want
  • A clear call to action (CTA) is included
  • You don’t have typos in your text

No matter if you're a job seeker doing a job application email or a sales rep working on sales emails, you should keep these points in mind.

3. Give The Prospect a Reason To Respond

Why should a prospect bother to respond to your follow up message?

If there is nothing for him, it’s highly likely that you will not get a response. For that reason, you have to focus on providing something for him with the follow-up email.

Here are four ways to do that:

1. Show the benefit. Come up with a benefit of why the reader should respond to you. Here are sentences you could use to show the benefit:

  • “I have an idea that could provide {{company.name}} with its 50 next customers. Up for a quick 15-minute chat?”
  • “Our team helps {{company.name}} increase bookings through Google Ads. A client of ours saw a 5x increase in conversions after we updated their campaigns.
  • “Since we only get paid if we deliver results, there really isn't anything to lose!

2. Describe the pain point. What’s your potential customer struggling with? Combine their pain point with your solution, and they'll be eager to respond. Here are a few examples of that in use: 

  • “In our previous talk, you mentioned that you’ve had struggles with making your paid ads profitable. We helped {{company.name}} in the same niche to get {{x.results}} with a minimal budget. Would you like to discuss how we could do it for you?”
  • “Saw that you’re using {{[your.competitor}} on your website for customer support. Our customers who migrated from [[your.competitor]] have cut their support tickets in half thanks to our smart automations.

3. Ease the sales objections. Sales objections (the hesitations your prospect has about your product) act as a barrier to purchase. It is, therefore important to ease them. In a follow-up email, you can do it with sentences like this:

  • “On top of the previous information you requested, I have attached some estimations based on our past performance. We estimate that you are likely to gain {{x-times}} better results within a few months time.”
  • I just reviewed your website and wanted to share some suggestions that might help improve conversion rates (we've tested these with clients and in some cases saw conversion rates double). 

4. Add social proof. Adding social proof to your follow-up could be the nudge you need to get a response. Depending on the purpose of your email, here are a few sentences for adding social proof:

  • “Forgot to include some of the previous articles we’ve done for other companies. I attached them to this email.”
  • We recently worked with {{company.name}}, and they saw a 3x ROI increase in under a month.
  • I forgot to share my CV and contact details for my job interview. It's included in this follow up email now, so you can see my previous work.

You don't have to include all this information in one follow-up email. Instead, do A/B testing of different versions and see what works best for your campaign.

4. Keep Follow Up Emails Under The Same Thread

When sending a follow-up email, in most cases, you should keep the email under the same email thread as your initial email and send it from the same email address.

This way, the respondent doesn’t have to go back and try to find your first email from another email thread if they don’t know what the follow-up is about.

On ESPs like Gmail, you can do this by directly replying inside the initial thread.

If you use a cold email solution like QuickMail, you can make this automatic by creating an email sequence inside our dashboard. When a prospect doesn’t reply to your email, you can add a follow-up step to send a reply automatically.

P.S. You can create automatic follow-up emails with QuickMail. Get started with a free 14-day trial.

9 Follow Up Email Templates & Examples To Use Today

Next, let’s jump into the best follow up templates and email examples for different scenarios. 

We have divided all the sample email templates into their own categories. No matter which type of email you want to send, you can easily find a suitable one.

1. Polite Follow Up Email Template

If a prospect showed interest initially, but you haven’t heard back from them afterward, you can send them a polite follow-up email.

Here is a polite follow up email sample to use:

Template

Subject line: Quick follow-up on our last discussion

{{prospect.first_name}},

I know you’re busy, and there is a chance my last email got lost. 

Just wanted to check in on the conversation we had regarding {{prospect’s company}} and the {{prospect’s pain points}} you’ve faced. 

How does your calendar look? Would you have time for a quick 15-minute call Friday morning since I think I’ve got a solution?

Best,

{{inbox name}}

When you bring up the pain points of your prospect as well as a possible solution, it’s hard for them to ignore the email.

Example

Here is an example of the polite follow-up email template in use:

 

2. Client Follow Up Email Template

Whether we want it or not, following up with clients is necessary.

Some may be potential clients, some may be unresponsive clients who need warming up.

Check out these templates for help.

Template (Unresponsive Client)

If your client is not responding, here is a template to use:

Subject line: Still want to work together?

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I know you have a lot of work on your plate. Hopefully, that's the result of our work together in Q1! 

Are you planning to continue your lead generation campaigns next quarter? If so, we will start planning your campaigns. If not, we'll pause your campaigns, and you can restart them whenever you're ready. 

What do you prefer?

Best,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

Here is an example of the above template in use:

 

Template (Potential Client)

While the above template was for an unresponsive client, this works for a potential client:

Subject line: Question about {{company.name}}

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I thought you’d be interested in seeing this case study of how we helped a software company just like {{company.name}} redesign their key landing pages and increase their conversion rate by 20%. 

Do you have time for a quick chat to see if we can help {{company.name}} in a similar way? 

Best,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

This is how you could use the template for getting a potential client:

3. Meeting Follow Up Email Template

If you’ve met someone at a conference or a seminar and heard about a challenge they’re facing or just want to stay in touch, a meeting follow up email is a good idea.

To bring familiarity, the email should start with a gentle reminder of where you’ve met and what the discussion was about.

Template

Here is an example template of that in action:

Subject line: We met at {{first meeting location}}

Hey {{prospect.first_name}}

I enjoyed talking to you at {{prospect.custom.Meeting_Location}} over {{prospect.custom.Conversation_Topic}}! 

I wanted to ask how things are going with {{company.name}}? I'd like to know more about how you're handling this {{challenge}}?

I'm happy to share our playbook with you as well! 

Would you have a time for a quick call this week or next?

Greetings,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

This is what it could look like when put into action:

 

This template could be easily switched up a bit and used in a job search or hiring process. Instead of talking about a challenge company is facing, refer to the previous job interview.

4. Phone Call Follow Up Email Template

Every time you have a call, send an email to summarize what you discussed and add any additional information you promised. 

Here is a follow-up email you can use for that situation.

Template

Subject line: Follow up - {{prospect.first_name}} & {{your company name}} 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

It was great to learn about {{company.name}} and your upcoming plans on our call. The potential for you to scale your acquisitions with Facebook Ads is huge, and we'd love to help.

As agreed, I’ve attached a quotation with a breakdown of the cost structure and total price for a 3-month engagement.

Let me know if you have any questions after reviewing it. As soon as you are ready to move forward, I will send you our contract. 

Looking forward to your reply,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

This is what it looks like when sending the actual email:

5. Networking Follow Up Email Tempalte

If you’ve started a business or just want to network with another business, you could send them a networking email. Here is a template you can use if you do not get a response to your initial networking email.

Template

Subject line: Collab between [prospect’s company] and [your company] 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}}, 

I sent you an email last week about the potential collab between [your company] and [prospect’s company]. 

I’m in the early stages of building up my {{business type}} business, and after some research, {{company.name}} caught my eye.

Would you be open for a 30-minute chat sometime? I feel like it would be valuable to discuss some of the common problems we face in the {{business.type}} industry.

Best,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

Here is what the networking email template looks like in use:

6. Quota Follow Up Email Template

If you’ve sent a quota to a potential customer and there is no response, you can follow up to them with the following template.

Template

Subject line: Any questions about the quote sent on {{day}}?

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

Did you review the quote for your upcoming design project at {{company.name}}? It covers everything from updating your logo to refreshing your email templates.

Do you have any questions on it that I can help answer?

Best,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

Here is the above template in use:

7. Finding The Right Person Follow Up Email Template

If you use LinkedIn to find emails, you send an email but there is no reply, you can use the finding the right person follow-up. The goal is to find the right person, so it should be short and simple.

Template

Subject line: Are you the right person to talk to at {{company.name}}?

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

Are you the right person at {{company.name}} to talk to about this? If not, would you be able to put me in touch with the right person to discuss this with?

Best,

{{inbox.name}}

Example

This is the above template in action:

8. Webinar Follow Up Email Template

If you want more attendees to your webinars or if you want to sell your services afterward, webinar follow up emails are useful.

Template (Before Webinar)

To increase the sign-up conversions for your webinar, use this template:

Subject line: Reminder of {{webinar.name}} webinar

Hey {{first.name}}, 

You can still save your seat for tomorrow’s {{webinar name}} webinar.

The webinar features an industry expert [name] who is sharing 

Plus, you get a free [product/service] as part of the webinar.

Reserve your seat from here: {{link}}

Example

This is how it could look in action:

Template (After Webinar)

After you’ve held the webinar, you should send a follow up to sell additional services or products. 

Here is a template for it: 

Subject line: Thanks for attending {{webinar.name}}

Hey {{first name}}, 

I hope you got some ideas on how to deal with your {{prospects.pain_point}} from yesterday’s webinar. 

Would you be open to having a 20-minute chat on Friday morning to see how we could implement these ideas directly into {{company_name}}?

Best,

{{inbox_name}}

Example

And, this is how to use it:

If you edit this template a bit, it could be used as a sales follow up email template too.

9. The Break Up Email (Last Follow Up)

 The “break up” email acts as the last email in your email sequence. You should send it to prospects who haven’t replied to your previous emails.

As the prospect hasn’t responded at this point, there is a high chance they aren’t even the right person. 

For this reason, we like to keep it simple:

Template

Subject line: Final email

{{first name}},

Who is the best person on your team to coordinate a [your reason for contacting] for {{company.name}}? 

Best,

{{ınbox.name}}

Example

You can use the breakup email as follows:

Best Way To Send Follow up Emails

The question “how to write a follow up email” changes depending on the subject matter of your initial email, but good follow ups always include same principles. This applies even if you're sales rep looking to get more sales from email replies, or a person in a job interview process.

To send the actual follow-up message, you can do it through popular email service providers like Gmail or Outlook.

The only problem is that you have to manually send the follow ups using these services.

If you want to set up automatic email sequences for potential clients, consider QuickMail.

With QuickMail, you can follow up with clients automatically by creating varying email sequences. These can be timed to be sent out whenever you want.

Get started with a free 14-day trial.