FREE NO RESPONSE EMAIL FOLLOW UP TEMPLATE

With follow-up emails, the golden rule is to leave it for two to three days. Send it earlier, and you appear to be badgering your correspondent. Leave it any later, though, and there’s a chance they will forget your original email. 

Since you’re following up on an email that didn’t generate an immediate reply, it’s important you gear your follow-up email for success. And success means getting a reply. 

To help you do that, start by writing down your goals. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve, beyond a reply from your correspondent will lead to a more cogent and eye-catching email. 

Once you’ve done that, establish how long you’re prepared to spend on follow-up emails and stick to those established rules. Consider:

• How long you want to spend drafting the follow-up email
• How often you want to write a follow-up email
• What you want your message to say
• How many messages you’re prepared to send 

Your email recipient might be too swamped with emails to reply instantly. But the problem is hardly unique to them. 

If you’re following up with multiple email correspondents, then automating your emails is vital. 

Email automation allows you to write multiple follow-up emails while appearing to personalize each of them. 

Good automated software also lets you set:

• Time emails are sent
• Time between follow-up emails 
• When to stop following up

If you’re automating emails, you can experiment with different subject lines and email content to see what gets the most notice. 

But whatever you write and whatever schedule you set, the important thing is that automating follow-up emails lets you reach out to people while freeing up your day for the more time-consuming parts of your job.

Another way to help get the attention of your email correspondent is by reaching out across different platforms. Email is useful, but it’s not the only tool at your disposal. 

If that first email doesn’t get an answer, consider reaching out over:

• Social media platforms
• Telephone
• Video platforms 

Just as it’s true that the more you follow up, the more likely you are to get a response, it’s also true that the more varied your social outreach, the more likely you are to get your recipient's attention.

But before you start automating any emails, make sure you know what you want the other person to take from them. 

What you’re trying to do may change depending on the project or email request you’re following up. For your email to impact your recipient, you need to know what you want them to take from the email and communicate that as clearly as possible.

It’s also important to consider the follow-up email from the recipient’s perspective. Be aware of how often you reach out and whether or not they’ve requested a telephone call or demonstration. 

You may need that email answered, but it’s more likely to happen if the person reading it feels they’re getting the best user experience possible while reading it.

Having established what makes for a good follow-up email, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you write a follow-up email guaranteed to get a reply.

1. Add context

The first step to a successful follow-up email is to remind the reader why you’re following up. Never assume they remember. 

Yours isn’t the only email they get in a day, and people retain demonstrably less of what they read on screen than they do of the printed word. 

2. Add value

You want each email interaction you have with your correspondent to be a meaningful one. Give them an incentive to reply. Offer something meaningful that stands out from the other half-dozen follow-up emails and makes them reply to yours. 

3. Explain why you’re emailing

Once you’ve given them a reason to read on, and hopefully, reply, explain why you’re writing. 

This doesn’t need to take long. Clear, succinct, and to the point prose is the best policy here. 

4. Include a call-to-action

Specificity is good. If you need a specific type of response, prompt the other person to react. You can do this by:

• Offering dates to meet up/talk
• Seek confirmation you’re speaking to the appropriate person

This varies depending on the request, but typically, when you pose a question that demands a response, you’re more likely to get an answer to your follow-up email. 

5. Close your email

Finally, sign off your email. Ideally, you want to sign off in a way that puts the impetus on the reader to reply. 

Consider closings like:

• Speak soon
• Look forward to hearing from you

6. Give a quick complement and add value

Compliments are an excellent way of adding value to follow-up emails. They show you’ve done your research about the person you’re writing to and are aware of their work. It’s also a quick and easy way to personalize an email template.

7. Make replying a one-action task for recipients

Since people can receive hundreds of emails a day, you want to make replying easy. Providing numerical options is a great way to do this. 

For instance, your recipient might press one to express interest in your email or zero to be stricken off the mailing list. 

8. Acknowledge their interest

An acknowledgment of interest is usually in response to someone doing something that puts them on your radar. They clicked an ad or a website link or signed up to an automated list. 

Acknowledging that interest further personalizes the email and demonstrates an awareness of their interests. You can use these to start a more expansive conversation. 

9. Show absolute belief in your product

Sometimes, especially with sales emails, you may find you need to write a follow-up email after a product is rejected. 

In this scenario, the best thing to do is clearly but firmly express your faith in the service or product you’re offering. 

While doing this, don’t forget to stress the benefits available to your reader if they take you up on the offer. 

10. Show expertise

Likewise, with sales emails, anything you can include to demonstrate your expertise in your field is beneficial. Consider including:

• Statistics
• Social proof 

If you use an email template to contact your potential clients, remember that copy-and-pasting never works. People can recognize an automated email easily, and these days, so can spam filters. 

Not only that, but because your email is being read by an individual rather than a robot, what works for one person may not work for someone else. 

However, you’re unlikely to have the time to personalize emails on an individual level. Consequently, it helps to personalize emails in batches.

Look for people and clients with shared experiences and find a way of tailoring your email to them. You’ll have your personal touch, but you’ll have saved time, too. 

Finally, here are some expert tips to help you send that perfect follow-up email. 

Not every subject line works. Experiment with what does to maximize client attention and avoid being listed as spam.

If your follow-up emails aren’t getting an answer, sending a calendar invite can get you that elusive meet-up response. 

Sometimes following up on a follow-up email can be helpful. If you send out an email in the evening, try sending another the following morning with information you forgot to include in the previous message. 

Never apologize for what you’re requesting. Confidence is vital to successfully getting someone’s attention.