Why 83% of Your Meetings Are Missed 📧

“Follow-ups don’t work and annoy people!”

In some cases, yes, this is true. However, if done right, not only do follow-ups work … but many people genuinely appreciate the touch point.

Being “professionally persistent” is the key.

We’ve scheduled thousands of sales meetings through Email Outreach Company and track each one to see how many emails it takes to get a meeting scheduled.

The results: it takes on average 3.5 emails to schedule a meeting.

Only 17% of our meetings happen on the first email — if you don’t follow up you’re missing out on 83% of the meetings you could be getting! (Check out the chart below)

With ~10% of our meetings coming on the 8th follow-up email! You miss out on 83% of the meetings you could be getting if you don’t follow up!

Are you following up? What’s your copy? When are you sending these follow-ups?

Keep reading for tips on copy and timing of follow-ups.

In the meantime, here are some highlights:

• 👥 People are Busy: We may read an email and have interest, but fail to reply – other people will be happy for the professional reminder they did not remember about doing something important.
• ❎ Respect the “No”: If a prospect decides to opt out or simply emails you stating they are not interested in your services anymore, you need to stop sending them emails.
• 🕒 Timing Is Everything in Follow-Ups: Perhaps it is not necessary today, but perhaps tomorrow, in 1 week, or in 1 month – take advantage of timing and follow up.

🚀 Propel Your Sales Forward: Now You Too Can Write Cold Emails That Get You Through The Gatekeeper! Watch the full 52-min video here

Video published: March 15, 2024

Check out my guest appearance on The Sales Podcast by The Sales Whisperer, Wes Schaeffer — where we discussed startups, sales, cold email, and, for today’s topic, follow-up.

Key Takeaways

• 📈 Persistence Pays Off: A systematic follow-up strategy, requiring several touches, significantly increases the chances of converting leads. (34:50)
• 🛠️ Tool Selection Matters: Knowing the difference between cold and warm emailing and picking the right tools for this: for instance, Instantly for cold mailing, will increase reach and success. (20:55)
• 🎯 Quality Over Quantity: The priority is given to the relevance of leads in cold emailing; straightforwardness is preferable to the number of contacts sent. (13:26)

Winning follow-ups:

1. Short & sweet: 2-4 sentences (Hi {NAME}, Just a gentle nudge about {VALUE PROP}. {1 sentence CTA}.
2. Refer back to the original email: the original email is where the majority of your “pitch for a meeting” will come from — the follow-up is intended to act as a gentle nudge to see if there is/isn’t interest.
3. Respect their inbox: by not continuing to follow up if they ask to be removed from the sequence, by not being rude to them for not responding (I’m surprised I even need to say this!), and by making it easy for them to say “yes, let’s talk” or “No, I’m not interested”.

Following up works and is more appreciated than we realize 👇 (real response from a prospect that scheduled a meeting with one of our customers)

Given that there isn’t a universal approach to follow-up emails, consider this suggested timeline for sending your follow-up emails:

• Follow-up #1: +2 days after initial email
• Follow-up #2: +4 days after initial email
• Follow-up #3: +7 days after initial email
• Follow-up #4: +11 days after initial email
• Follow-up #5: +14 days after initial email
• Follow-up #6: +21 days after initial email
• Follow-up #7: +28 days after initial email
• Follow-up #8: +35 days after initial email

My Last $.02

We have an internal Slack channel with Memorable Responses — basically prospects telling us how great our emails are — we also have a Slack channel with Mean/Ugly Responses — basically prospects telling us how much they don’t like our emails.

On more than one occasion, we’ve had a prospect tell us to kick rocks (to keep it PG) and within 5 minutes another prospect tells us our email is the greatest thing since sliced bread — to the SAME follow-up email.

The learning — you can’t please everyone.

We just need to do our best to be professionally persistent while respecting our prospect’s inboxes.

Effective follow-up is both an art and a science. They require a blend of timing, customization, and persistence. By following these strategies, you’ll get more responses, more meetings, and more sales.

Persistence pays off and follow-ups work — I promise.

Until next time, happy emailing!

Adam