The Ultimate Sales Follow Up Email Post-Meeting
Learn the best practices for writing the ultimate sales follow up email
- Read time: 6 min
On average, only 2% of sales are made during the first touchpoint. Basically, if you don’t follow up after your first meeting, you’re missing out on 98% of potential sales!
Writing an effective sales follow up email is more than just another attempt to get a prospect’s attention.
1. How to write the first follow up email
The last thing you want to do is be aggressive or pushy in your sales follow up email. Instead, your message should show your prospect exactly how you can be of assistance to them.
You’re the sales rep and you recently had a first meeting with a new potential customer. The meeting was exceptional. The prospect was engaged and excited about the product you were offering. Essentially, it seemed like a done deal from the moment they said, “hello!” And yet, the meeting ends without any decision being made.
Before you begin writing the follow up email, there are a few things to consider:
- Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes
- Think to yourself: would I open this email?
- Address your prospect’s needs and problems to immediately grab their attention
- In every aspect of your email, including the subject line, be personal
- Your buyers are human - so be human
Hi [First Name],
I had a great time speaking with you today! I’m glad we got a chance to discuss the lack of engagement your sales team is experiencing during their meetings. As a fellow sales professional with over 10 years in the industry, I understand the struggle! As promised, attached is a brochure highlighting our sales enablement platform, how it works, and a personalized report of just how we can help your sales reps support the customer dialogue with interactive presentations.
Please let me know if you have any questions, I’d be happy to chat further! Feel free to set up another meeting with me via my calendar link.
[Signature]
This email proactively continues the conversation from earlier in the day.
It addresses the prospect’s main pain points.
It does a great job of offering a personalized solution.
The tone of the email is friendly, empathetic, and understanding.
It ensures the prospect feels comfortable moving forward in the sales cycle.
2. Personalize the follow up email for each prospect
Remember, a follow up email helps to further grow the buyer/seller relationship.
Consider a few things:
- No one wants to receive a superficial message that appears as though it was written by a robot.
- Your prospect needs to get valuable information to foster a productive buyer/seller relationship.
- Take notes during your initial meeting on not only their specific use case for your product, but also on their personal attributes such as their likes and dislikes.
- Use this information to personalize your sales follow up email.
A great way to add a fun personalized touch to your follow up email is to incorporate a common interest. For example, let’s say your prospect is a fan of baseball. Below is an example of an email that speaks to the prospect’s interest in baseball while still addressing the main reason for the email and offering value.
Hi [First Name],
Did you see the Yankees win last night? I was blown away by the double-play in the 9th inning. It was incredible!
I’m following up on our conversation regarding sales enablement technology. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Let me know what makes sense for you as a next step.
Looking forward to speaking with you again.
[Signature]
Including the baseball anecdote adds a bit of your own personality into the conversation as well.
By adding your own personality the prospect feels comfortable speaking with you again — sort of like a friend.
By having a humanistic conversation with you the prospect is able to gain trust and comfortability.
3. Offer a time and date for you to speak again
One of the most common mistakes sales reps make is not including a time and date to meet again.
Have you ever tried to make plans with a friend and one of you says, “Just let me know when you’re free!” The typical response is “Okay, sounds good!” But no one ever offers a date and time to meet up, and so you don’t hang out for weeks.
By offering the dates and times you are available in a follow-up email, whether written out or via calendar link, helps lock in another meeting with a prospect.
Take a look at the email example below:
Hi [First Name],
I wanted to reach out and see if I could help answer any questions you may have about Prezentor’s interactive sales presentations.
You can book a time to meet with me here or just reply to this email. We can walk through your sales enablement goals and show you how [Company Name] can achieve a 25% increase in effectively communicating your sales messages with interactive sales content.
I look forward to hearing from you!
[Signature]
Setting up a future meeting enables the sales rep to take the knowledge they gained from the first meeting.
By setting up a future meeting you can use your selling tactics in the next meeting.
The prospect has a deeper understanding of the value the product brings to the table.
The sales rep has a greater chance of wowing the prospect.
4. Leave space for questions
By leaving the email open-ended, you’re creating a safe space for the prospect to ask all the questions they have.
This is a great way to build rapport and further the conversation. Based upon the prospect’s questions, you gain more insight into their exact needs and pain points.
Essentially, their questions help you to more adequately sell your product by offering a tailored solution to their problems.
The relationship between you and the prospect will bloom.
Let’s take another look at our first example of a sales follow up email. But this time, let’s add an open ending.
Lets look at an Example
Hi [First Name],
I had a great time speaking with you today! I’m glad we got a chance to discuss the lack of engagement your sales team is experiencing during their meetings. As a fellow sales professional with over 10 years in the industry, I understand the struggle.
As promised, attached is a brochure highlighting our sales enablement platform, how it works, and a personalized report of just how we can help your sales reps support the customer dialogue with interactive presentations.
Do you have any questions? Let me know what you’re still curious about, I’m here whenever you need me.
[Signature]
The final sentence of this follow up email informs the recipient that you value their time.
These perceived notions will show that you care about their needs.
The relationship between you and the prospect will bloom.
A great sales follow up email can be the difference between closing a sale or never hearing back from a prospect again.
Maximize your sales by sending the ultimate sales follow up email with the techniques listed above. Take it one step further and schedule a demo with Prezentor to learn more about how the right sales enablement technology can propel your sales even further.