What To Do If a Sales Email Recipient Doesn’t Respond

Aug 4, 2022
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You can have your expectations set high while creating a sales or marketing email, however, sometimes, the message may not bring you the results you hoped for.

If you don’t get a response to your email, don’t panic – there’s still a possibility for marketing and sales in front of you, however, it’s important to know how to proceed. A good follow-up email gives you a chance to get your customer to respond to your message and make them engaged.

How to Draft a Checking in Email

If you haven’t heard back from the recipient after sending a sales or marketing email, it could be for many different reasons. Maybe they are not interested in the email that you sent, or perhaps they just don’t have a lot of time at the moment. If you haven’t gotten the response you were expecting, you may want to check if they have opened the email or engaged with it at all. You can use email metrics to figure out if they have even noticed the email – it could have been placed in the spam folder by accident or perhaps, they received hundreds of other marketing messages in their inbox and it’s been overlooked. If that’s the case, and they may need a reminder to check it, then it’s time to draft a checking-in email. Usually, you would send it a few days after the original email, to give them some time to read the email and reply. Don’t send a follow-up just a few hours after sending the first email – they might have not even had the chance to open their inbox yet.

Keep your checking-in email short, gentle, and to the point. You want to avoid being too pushy as this could end up discouraging your recipient from reading any of your messages. Make it easy for them to take an action and ensure that you provide a valuable reminder of your offer.

How to Send a ‘We Haven’t Received any Response From You Yet’ Email

It could be discouraging when a recipient that you had high hopes for doesn’t reply to your sales or marketing email. However, there are a lot of reasons why this happens, and it doesn’t always mean that you’re going to miss out on a sale or not gain a new customer. There are two main things that you need to accomplish quickly when following up with a customer or lead who hasn’t opened your previous email.

Firstly, you need to start from where you left off in the previous message and reference any benefits, advantages, or value that has already been mentioned. Perhaps, your recipient was intrigued a little by the idea in your first email but needs to learn more before they feel the need to take action.

Professional Email Response Examples

Keeping things professional is key when it comes to sending follow-up emails. While it may be that your previous email has simply been overlooked, there are many potential reasons why somebody hasn’t responded to your message. Maybe they need more time to form a more solid impression of your company and what you offer, or perhaps, they need to know more about the value that is in it for them. Since it’s difficult for you to determine exactly why you haven’t received a response to your first email, it’s usually important to go back to the beginning.

Start by reading the previous message, before going into quickly re-establishing the value of your offer. Bear in mind that one potential reason why your prospect hasn’t responded could be because they are researching different options. Therefore, the follow-up email gives you a chance to differentiate your company from the crowd.

Personalise As Much as Possible

When it comes to B2B email marketing, personalisation is the key, as it has been proven to deliver consistent results. Research has found that B2B industry emails that have personalised subject lines deliver almost thirty percent higher unique open rates compared to those that are more generic. When recipients take the time to open and read the follow-up email, personalisation means that they immediately know why you contacted them. A generic message that is clearly sent out to everybody who doesn’t respond is probably not going to get you very far. The good news is that even simple personalisation, such as addressing the recipient by name, can make a huge difference.

Make Taking Action Simple

Calls to action in your follow-up email should be easy to understand and easy to follow. Make sure that the recipient has as little work to do as possible to take action. For example, instead of asking them to reply and let you know when they are free to schedule a call with you, add a button that takes them straight to a booking system where they can book the call right away. The less work your recipient has to do to take action, the more likely they are to react. Your follow-up email is all about finding what needs to be simplified and made easier.

What to Consider When Sending a Haven’t Heard Back Email

Sending a ‘haven’t heard back from you’ email can be a great way to jog the attention of your recipient and get them to take the desired action, or it could simply end up annoying your recipient and reducing your chance of getting them on board. Because of this, there are several things to consider when it comes to crafting a good follow-up email. Some of the main things to keep in mind include:

Be Respectful of Their Time

When it comes to sending a follow-up email, always be respectful of your recipients’ time. Make sure to demonstrate that you know their time is valuable. Maybe the reason that they didn’t reply to your email in the first place, was that they were too busy, or they did mean to respond but other messages in their inbox made yours get pushed back and overlooked. Assume that this is the case, shows that you value your customers as humans who have their schedules to deal with and that you’re aware that replying to your sales messages may not be a top priority for them.

Remind Them They’ve Opted In

If you don’t get responses to marketing emails from recipients who have opted in to receive them, then a follow-up email is a good chance to remind them of why they decided to sign up for marketing emails from you in the first place. For example, you may want to send them reminders of the content that has inspired them to sign up for your email newsletter, or include promotional offers that are exclusive to subscribers to remind them why they decided it was worth opting into marketing communications.

Use Strong Calls to Action

Some may believe that avoiding a strong call to action in the follow-up email is best, as you don’t want to appear too pushy and demanding. However, the truth is, that sometimes a strong call to action can make things clearer and easier for your recipient to follow. As long as the rest of the email is respectful of their time and avoids being too pushy with the language used, then, a strong CTA ensures that the recipient has a clear path forward when it comes to the actions that you want them to take.

Be As Helpful As Possible

Understanding that you need to be as helpful as possible to the recipient is the key when it comes to writing a successful follow-up email. Make sure that you are clear on why you are sending the email in the subject line, rather than leaving it to be included in the email body. Adding specific details to the subject line of your follow-up email gives you the chance to directly address your recipient and remind them of the value that they can get from reading and responding to your message.

Not getting any response from a sales or marketing email can be frustrating. However, a good follow-up email can be all it takes to turn things around.

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