The Magic of Follow-Up Emails – My Secret Sauce to Increase Bookings

Let’s play a game of WWYD! Pretend that you’ve had an amazing consultation call or someone has filled out your contact form and they feel like they are a perfect fit for your services and what you offer. So you send out your offer to them and hear crickets. What do you do? Are you following up? And if you ARE sending follow-up emails, how many times are you following up before you give up and archive that inquiry? That’s what we’re going to talk about today!

Before we dive in, if you’re new around here, let me extend a heartfelt welcome to my corner of the internet! I’m Colie, your go-to systems fairy godmother. If you have questions or need advice on streamlining your systems and strategies, I’m here to help! Curious to learn more about me? Click right this way.

Why Are Follow-Up Emails so Important?

I love talking about follow up emails. If I could pick one thing to be known for, it would be the follow up. Because the truth is that so many of us have such an innate fear of rejection that it stops us from following up with people that have seemingly ghosted us.

Quick disclaimer before we jump into the good stuff: I’m not saying that follow-up emails are going to help you close each and every lead that comes into your business. You are probably still getting wrong fit leads. Plus, you are going to get some people that you have a consultation call with, and there don’t seem to be any red flags, but then regardless of whether or not you send follow-up emails you never hear from them again. That’s all true (and going to happen).

But here’s the thing: those people ghosting you should not define what you do in your business to follow up with all inquiries. For every single inquiry that comes into your business, you should be following up with them a minimum of three times. Let me say that one more time. If you have someone who has inquired with you and you’ve sent a proposal to, you should be following up with them at least three times.

Follow-Up E-mail Number One

When I say send follow-up emails, they don’t all have to be these big long letters to your potential clients. Sometimes something small, like an automated email 24 to 48 hours after the initial offer that says something like, ‘Hey, I sent over that proposal that we discussed. Just want to make sure that you got it’, is all you need to do.

Worried that will be a lot to keep track of? The good news is that it takes absolutely no effort from you to set that up in your CRM and in most CRM’s you can do it automatically. You can have your CRM watch the proposal after you’ve sent the offer, and if they haven’t committed by filling it out, signing your contract, and paying your deposit, your CRM can automatically send them an email that says, ‘Hey, just making sure that you got the offer. If you didn’t let me know and I’ll send it a different way’. That is the least pressure follow up that you can do.

“But What If I Can See They’ve Opened It”

Beyond just selfishly reminding them to book, I also want to say that by sending that automatic email 24-48 hours after someone has told you they are interested in working with you, you are actually doing them a service. Because first, you don’t know for a fact that the proposal actually landed in their inbox. You have no way of knowing that someone got it, opened it, and just ignored it, or if they never even got it. 

One thing I am not sure everyone is aware of, but email providers like Gmail are now proactively scanning incoming emails looking for viruses. What that does is sometimes it will trick your CRM into thinking that your client actually opened that email. So, if you are using that data in order to determine if your leads are opening your email and deciding not to work with you, that might not even be accurate.

If You’re Nervous, Remember That Your Clients Are Busy People!

A little pep talk coming at you! If you send an offer out and you don’t get an immediate acceptance, I want you to STOP assuming that it means that person doesn’t want to work with you. People are busy. We all have lives. Even people that I am excited to work with, sometimes life just gets in the way and I forget to complete the proposal, to sign up for the course, or to do whatever it is that I intended to do. If that’s happening to me, I know that that’s happening to my leads.

I also want to say that I believe this first follow-up email can be easy. There are some people that would recommend you follow up via text message or give them a call. While that’s not “wrong”, I’m not that kind of person. What feels good to you? Think about what kind of offer you have, or whether or not your audience would prefer a follow up phone call or email. For the majority of my follow-ups, an email feels good. 

What to Include In That First Follow-Up Email

Now that I’ve dragged you kicking and screaming, let’s talk about what this really looks like. 24 hours after someone has received the offer from me (which means they’ve gotten the proposal, it has the contract and invoice attached so that all they have to do is fill it out and they are booked), my system automatically sends them an email that says, ‘Hey, making sure you got the offer. If you have any questions, please let me know’.

I have also started adding, ‘If you have decided not to work with me at this time, please let me know and I will close out your inquiry and make sure that you don’t receive any additional follow-up emails’. The reason I do this is because some people might be afraid to say no. My goal then is to encourage them to respond to that initial automatic email and say, ‘Oh, I have decided to go in another direction, can you close out my inquiry?’ Because you are warning them that if they do not acknowledge that they have decided to work with someone else, you are going to continue to send emails.

Follow-Up E-mail Number Two

We aren’t done yet, right? My second follow-up email occurs 24-48 hours after the first follow-up. This email I do not automate. I will take five minutes and customize an email template that asks them if they have any hesitations, if I can answer any questions, and goes back over the offer that I made to them. In this email, I try to add a little bit where I am reminding them how I can solve their specific problem (for example, what their business will look like on the other side of working with me). That’s different for every single person that comes into my business which is why I am customizing that part of the email, depending on what kind of issues and fears they have shared with me on the consultation call or their contact form.

So again, not automated, but customized, which takes less than five minutes. I don’t start any email from scratch.

Follow-Up E-mail Number Three

The third email is an email that I can’t take credit for, but it’s actually the email that gets you the most closures. It is called a magic email. It actually has an entire website dedicated to it. Basically, it’s a one line email that says something like, ‘I haven’t heard back from you. Your priorities must have changed. No response is necessary.’

I know that sounds rude. I don’t send my magic email exactly like that, but I do think it gets the point across. The goal here is to push someone to give you closure. Most people don’t like to be seen as rude. So when they get that third magic email, they’re going to think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m being so rude. I should just let them know that I am not going to be working with them.’ or ‘Oh my gosh, I’m still interested and I need to let them know!”

What to Expect After Sending the Magic Email

Like I mentioned above, I do soften the above email a tiny bit. I say, ‘I haven’t heard back from you, so maybe you’ve decided to go a different direction. I am going to close out your inquiry so that you do not receive any additional follow-up emails. If you change your mind about working with me in the future, please reach out for updated pricing and availability.’

After I hit send on my version of this email, I’ve basically communicated a couple of things. Firstly, I told them I’m not going to waste any more of my time following up with them. Second, I’ve let them know that if they contact me in the future, I might not have the same availability, and I might not be at the same price point.

That usually gets people to do one of two things. If they’re interested in working with you, but they just haven’t had the time to fill out the proposal or do whatever it takes to commit to the offer, they usually do it right then. Or, if someone hasn’t been ready to say yes, they might respond telling you that they’ve moved on or that they have additional questions.

Wrapping Up: The Magic of Follow-Up Emails

That’s it for today, friends. So, my question now is, have I convinced you of the value of follow-up emails? If you don’t have any of those three emails written, I highly recommend that you put an hour on your calendar, sit down and implement them. You can always use what I send my clients as a starting point for you to craft emails of your own. I share 10 of my favorite emails to template for free right here!

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