Table of contents
- What are automated follow-up emails?
- Why do you need automated follow-up emails?
- How to Automate Follow-Up Emails in 7 Easy Steps
- Step 1: Choose your email automation tool
- Step 2: Create your email templates
- Step 3: Identify your follow-up triggers
- Step 4: Set up your email sequences
- Step 5: Monitor and optimize your campaigns
- Follow-Up Email Examples
- Win at Follow-Up – Follow-Up Email Best Practices
- Final thoughts
Follow-up emails are a crucial part of B2B sales. They help you stay in touch with your prospects, build trust and rapport, and move them along the sales funnel.
But, whether you’re a seasoned sales copywriter or a beginner, coming up with the right follow-up emails is a hassle, and can get frustrating real quick!
Even the most experienced salespeople and growth experts know that in order to succeed nowadays, you need to follow up quickly and often.
In fact, according to a study by Iko Systems, the first email had an 18% response rate, while the sixth email had a whopping 27% response rate.
But what if you could automated the whole process? Why are automated follow-ups crucial to B2B success? And how can you set up your own automated follow-up sequence?
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about automating your follow-up emails, from the basics to strategies and best practices.
What are automated follow-up emails?
We know, it’s not like this is the hardest concept to understand, but it helps to have a clear definition. 🙄
Automated follow-up emails are pre-written email sequences sent out automatically when triggered by a certain action or event. These emails can be sent on any schedule you set up in advance, meaning that you don’t have to manually hit “send” each time.
And best of all, automated follow-up emails allow you to stay top of mind with your prospects without having to invest too much time or energy.
They can be used in a variety of scenarios, from onboarding a new customer to following up with sales leads after attending an event.
Example 🔍
For instance, we, at LaGrowthMachine, send out automated follow-up emails before, and even after our webinars!
- – Before the webinar, we send a confirmation email with the details of the event and a calendar invite. We also send a reminder email one day and one hour before the webinar starts, to make sure our participants don’t miss it.
- – After the webinar, we send a thank you email with a link to the recording and some additional resources. We also sometimes send one more follow-up email a few days later, asking for feedback and maybe offering a free consultation call.
- – Depending on the response, we send yet another follow-up with more value propositions and a clear call to action to book a demo or sign up for our service.
This way, we can nurture our leads and move them closer to becoming customers, without having to write and send each email manually.
Pretty cool, right? 😎
Keep in mind that email automation aims to keep the conversation going, build trust and rapport, and move them closer to the next stage of the sales funnel.
Why do you need automated follow-up emails?
Automated follow-up emails are a must-have for any B2B sales team. They can help you streamline your sales process and boost your conversions by:
- Saving you time and effort: Set up a sequence of automated emails that will be sent out automatically, instead of writing and sending each email manually
- Staying on top of your leads: Send out timely and relevant messages that keep your prospects engaged and interested in your product or service.
- Personalizing your messages: Though you can have this benefit without automation, it’s easier to automate the process of personalizing and targeting your messages. You can segment your email list and tailor your messages to specific groups of prospects, making them more engaging and effective.
- Scaling your efforts: Maybe the most important of all, like all automations, your follow-up emails will scale with you as your business grows. You can send out more emails, to more people, without having to worry about time or resources.
- Reducing costs: This goes hand in hand with the previous point. As you scale, your costs will stay relatively the same, which in turn means more conversions and a better bottom line.
Ultimately, automated follow-up emails are here to make your life easier, and if done correctly, will help you generate more leads and conversions with less work.
How to Automate Follow-Up Emails in 7 Easy Steps
Now that we’ve covered why automated follow-up emails are so important, let’s jump into the how-to. Here’s a quick five-step guide to get you started:
Step 1: Choose your email automation tool
The first step is to choose a cold email automation tool that suits your needs and budget.
There are many options available, but we recommend LaGrowthMachine as it’s the best tool for automating not only your follow-up emails, but your whole outreach campaigns!
LaGrowthMachine is a multichannel sales platform that lets you create personalized sequences for your prospects and customers alike.
You can set up different triggers, conditions, and actions to send the right email at the right time. You can also track and measure the performance of your email campaigns and optimize them accordingly.
Some of the cool features that make LaGrowthMachine stand out are:
- Personalization tokens: These are placeholders that let you insert dynamic information into your emails, and with LaGrowthMachine, you have over 20 of them!
- Email tracking: This feature lets you monitor the performance of your emails, such as open rates, click rates, or reply rates. This will help you measure the effectiveness of your follow-up emails and optimize them accordingly.
- Analytics: LaGrowthMachine comes with a powerful analytics dashboard that lets you track the performance of your emails over time, and identify areas for improvement.
LaGrowthMachine also has some awesome new features that you should check out:
- Magic Messages: With all this hype around AI-Generated content, we had to partake. Our Magic Messages feature lets you create automated emails in a matter of minutes, with just a few clicks. All you need to do is provide some information such as your company’s value proposition and the tone you want to use, and our AI-powered engine will generate the email copy for you.
- Lead qualification: You can now include your lead qualification process in your LGM campaigns in order to properly assess them!
- Multichannel Inbox: The first ever Multichannel Inbox that not only lets you send automated emails and LinkedIn & Twitter DMs but also lets you manage all conversations with your lead in one place.
LaGrowthMachine also integrates well with your CRM system either natively to HubSpot and Pipedrive users or through Zapier. This will ensure seamless communication and data synchronization between your platforms.
So what are you waiting for? Check out LaGrowthMachine and start automating your follow-up emails today!
Step 2: Create your email templates
The next step is to create your email templates for different scenarios and purposes.
Your email templates should be engaging and personalized. Make sure to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) in each email.
Some of the best practices for creating email templates are:
- Use a clear and catchy subject line that conveys the purpose and value of your email. Your subject line should grab the attention of your recipient and entice them to open your email.
- Keep your message short, simple, and focused on one goal or action. Your message should be easy to read and understand, and avoid unnecessary details or distractions.
- Use a friendly and conversational tone that reflects your brand voice and personality. Your tone should match the expectations and preferences of your audience, and build trust and rapport with them.
- Don’t be scraed to use bullet points, images, or simple emojis to break up long blocks of text and make your email more visually appealing. “Areate” your text and don’t send something that tired your eyes just by looking!
- End with a clear and compelling CTA that invites the recipient to take the next step in the sales process. Your CTA should be visible, actionable, and urgent.
Here’s a template we send after our onboarding sessions:
Step 3: Identify your follow-up triggers
Now that you have your LaGrowthMachine account ready and email templates on-hand, the next step is to identify what will trigger each of these templates in your sequence.
Identifying these triggers will help you set up automation rules for sending out emails based on certain conditions.
- You can set up triggers for all sorts of things, such as when:
- Customers make a purchase
- Prospects sign up for your newsletter
- Leads interact with your website or social media accounts
- Leads participate in a webinar you organized
This is not rocket science, we even gave you one of the templates that we use for our onboarding.
Quick Tip 💡
You can use the SMART model to define your follow-up triggers:
- – Specific: Clearly define what you want to accomplish.
- – Measurable: Set goals that can be tracked and measured.
- – Achievable: Break down larger goals into smaller, achievable steps.
- – Relevant: Make sure the goal is in line with your long-term objectives.
- – Timely: Establish a timeline and deadline for your goal.
For example, instead of “I want to follow up with my leads”, say:
“I want to send an email to my leads one day after they sign up for a free trial, asking them how they like the product and offering them a 10% discount if they upgrade within a week”.
This way, you can create clear and effective follow-up emails that will help you achieve your desired outcomes.
Step 4: Set up your email sequences
Once you’ve identified your triggers, the next step is to set up your sequences. Essentially, an email sequence is a series of emails that are sent according to the triggers and conditions that you have specified in the previous steps.
Start setting up the basic structure of sequence – the number of emails, when they should be sent, and what should happen after each email is sent.
Then start adding more details such as the content of each email, the subject line, and any other actions that should be triggered after each email.
Finally, set up rules for ending the sequence if a certain condition is met (for example, if the customer upgrades their account).
With LaGrowthMachine’s easy-to-use and intuitive interface, you can quickly create powerful email sequences that will help you close more deals and increase your revenue.
All you have to do is make the choice: do you want ready-to-use templates that you can customize and set up quickly, or do you want to create each bloc from scratch?
No matter which option you choose, LaGrowthMachine will help you achieve your goals in no time!
Step 5: Monitor and optimize your campaigns
As is with anything related to automation or growth in general, it’s all about designing, testing, reiterating.
Once you have set up your email sequences, it’s time to start monitoring them to see how they are performing. Keep an eye on the open and click-through rates, as well as any other metrics that are relevant to your campaigns.
In addition, you should also set up A/B testing to optimize the performance of your emails. This will allow you to experiment with different subject lines, content formats, and CTA buttons to find out what works best for your audience.
Finally, don’t forget to keep an eye on the unsubscribe and bounce rates, as this will give you a good indication of how effective your campaign is.
Luckily, LaGrowthMachine has stellar Analytics capabilities that will give you valuable insights into your campaigns and help you identify what is working best for you.
Measure and optimize your prospecting efforts across multiple channels. You can:
- Track the performance of your campaigns and individual messages on LinkedIn, Email, and Twitter. You can see how many prospects you have contacted, how many have replied, and how many have converted into leads or customers.
- Compare different campaigns to see which ones are generating the most results. You can filter by date range, channel, industry, job title, and more. This will help you to fine-tune your targeting and messaging strategies.
- Get actionable recommendations based on your data. You will get tips on how to improve your open and click-through rates, how to reduce your unsubscribe and bounce rates, and how to increase your conversion rates.
With LaGrowthMachine’s analytics, you will have a complete overview of your prospecting efforts and a clear roadmap to optimize them. You will be able to measure your ROI, track your progress, and scale your growth.
Get 3.5X more leads!
Do you want to improve the efficiency of your sales department? With La Growth Machine you can generate on average 3.5x more leads while saving an incredible amount of time on all your processes.
By signing up today, you’ll get a free 14-day trial to test our tool!
Follow-Up Email Examples
To help you get started with your follow-up emails, here are 5 examples that you can use:
Template 1: Re-Engagement Email
Template 2: Nurture Email
Template 3: Product Purchase Follow-Up
Template 4: Upsell Email
Template 5: Reactivation Email
Win at Follow-Up – Follow-Up Email Best Practices
You thought the templates were all you needed? Think again! After all, this is the ultimate guide for a reason.
To make sure you nail your follow-up email strategy, here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Create urgency – use words like “now”, “today” or “this week” to encourage people to take action.
- Be conversational – use a casual tone of voice and keep the emails short for maximum readability.
- Make it personal – use the person’s name and other personalized information such as their job title or company.
- Provide value – make sure each message is valuable and offers something of interest.
- Test different versions – A/B testing is essential to success, so test different subject lines, content formats, and CTA buttons.
- Analyze your results – analytics tools can provide valuable insight into how effective your campaigns are.
Now if you’ve followed this guide closely, we’ve already touched on every one of these best practices. That’s why I didn’t really dive into details here.
This section was meant for the lazier ones among us, so you can have all the key takeaways in one place and avoid having to search through the entire article.
Get 3.5X more leads!
Do you want to improve the efficiency of your sales department? With La Growth Machine you can generate on average 3.5x more leads while saving an incredible amount of time on all your processes.
By signing up today, you’ll get a free 14-day trial to test our tool!
Final thoughts
By now, you should be able to create an effective follow-up email strategy that will drive results and boost your business.
The key is to create personalized messages, make them relevant and valuable, and track your progress based on analytics data.
With the right approach, you can expect to see an increase in engagement and conversion.
Happy following up! 😊
Comments
Hi,
This article provides a clear and helpful guide to automating follow-up emails using LaGrowthMachine. I especially liked the breakdown of the benefits and the actionable tips for creating email templates and setting up sequences. Overall, a valuable resource for anyone in B2B sales!