I’m a dong about the importance of making sure your follow-up emails add value to the conversation (‘Value-Added Follow-Up’) and don’t simply ask “Did you get that thing I sent you?”
If you send an email, it’s important to send a follow-up email, as I advocate in http://OutreachBlueprint.com and http://podcastoutreach.com.
But simply sending a follow-up email alone is not enough. No, rather, you need to be focused on Value-Added Follow-Up.
Value-Added Follow-Up: Making sure that your follow-up emails add more to the conversation. More relevance for the other party. More value for the person you’re emailing. More social proof that you’re a Trustworthy Individual.
Value. Added. Follow. Up.
Which is why when I got a follow-up email in my inbox this morning for a cold pitch to guest post on KaiDavis.com, I was inspired to write this email. Let’s take a look at the follow-up emails in reverse order:
Hello,
I haven’t heard back from you so I just wanted to follow up one last time and make sure you saw my last couple of emails (included below). I hope to hear from you soon!
Thank you.
As the recipient of this follow-up email, why would I be inspired to respond? Breaking the email down, it tells me:
- They haven’t heard back from me
- They want to make sure I’ve seen their last couple of emails
- They hope to hear from me soon
There is no information in this email that makes it more convincing, more valuable, or more persuasive to the recipient. It is the equivalent of Peter Potamus asking “Did you get that thing I sent you?” (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTpxeNQfDo4)
That was follow-up email #2. Let’s go back to follow-up email #1:
Hello Kai
I just wanted to make sure you saw my last email and if you had any interest?
🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
I don’t want to just poke fun at someone doing outreach on the internet. By sending these follow-up emails, they’re doing more than 99% of the people I meet who want to build more relationships through outreach marketing, but freeze up at the follow-up stage.
But — oy! — there is so much room for improvement. I joke that outreach marketing is artisanal, hand-crafted spam. And there’s some truth in that.
- “Artisanal” and “hand-crafted” because, ideally, in an outreach campaign, you’re investing time in researching and qualifying your prospects and then personalizing your emails to match their business
- “Spam” because we’re sending email to strangers who we don’t have a relationship with yet. (And because I like the high/low pairing between ‘Artisanal’ and ‘Spam’)
But, man, try harder.
Use your follow-up emails to:
- Restate the pitch
- Ask for objections
- Include social proof
- Make a secondary, smaller ask
- Encourage a reply, even a ‘no’ as a reply
Anything that gets your qualified prospect replying to your email.
How could this person have written a better follow-up email? Let’s mix in the 5 elements listed above and see what the follow-up email looks like:
Hello Kai
Are you looking for guest authors for KaiDavis.com right now? It’s fine if you’re not, just hit reply and let me know.
If you are, I’m happy to answer any questions that you have. I’m happy to share links to other guest articles I’ve written (like LINK or LINK).
If a guest article isn’t a fit right now, that’s fine. Just hit reply and let me know if it isn’t a good fit now or if you aren’t accepting guest posts for the foreseeable future (If so, I won’t follow-up anymore).
Thanks,
NAME
It’s longer, yes, but 106 words. Not too bad. With some refinement we could probably get it under 90 or 80 words.
Your follow-up emails need to provide value to the recipient. It simply isn’t enough to repeatedly ask “Did you get that thing I sent you?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTpxeNQfDo4).
No.
No it is not.
Your follow-up emails need to add more value to the conversation.
Want to learn how? In The Outreach Blueprint (http://outreachblueprint.com) you’ll learn how to write follow-up emails that people want to reply to and that build a relationship with the person you’re emailing.
Want to avoid making the same mistakes in your outreach (and follow-up) emails that we saw in today’s teardown? Run (don’t walk) and order your copy of The Outreach Blueprint today at http://outreachblueprint.com.
Excelsior!
Kai
