Automated email follow up in a nutshell
The automated email follow up watches deals in a chosen pipeline stage and if there is a response to an email, the deal is moved to Review Response. If there is no response then any number of chaser emails can be sent at preselected intervals until finally the deal is automatically moved to another pipeline stage.
Why would we want an automated email follow up?
We know that many new enquiries don’t respond to the first email but we hate waiting and forget to do the chasing so expensive leads go down the drain. Automating the process means we save that money and we don’t have to waste any time doing it. Up to 40% of leads that didn’t respond to the first email will respond to one of the subsequent chaser emails.
What does an automated email follow up do?
A good example of using automated email follow ups is found in a typical enquiry pipeline. In this pipeline, the first stage is "Qualify" where we try to phone the contact.
If we can’t get through by phone, then we’ll send an initial response email and drag the deal into "Waiting Response" and that’s where the email follow up automation is applied.
When a deal is dropped into this stage and the contact replies, the system will detect this and move the deal to the "Review Response" stage where the user can read their reply and take appropriate action.
If they don’t reply then we can set the number of days to wait before a template is sent and then we can repeat the process to send the next one. If the contact replies, the deal will be automatically moved to the "Review Response" stage of the pipeline.
Ultimately, if there is no response after a selected time, the deal will be moved to another pipeline where newsletters and property matches can be sent and the deal is removed from our main focus of attention, the Enquiry Pipeline.
How often should you follow up by email?
An email follow up is designed to remind the contact to take action. We need to do this without pestering them and this is determined by the interval between emails and the content quality of the chaser emails.
The interval between the emails depends on how fast moving the market is. For example rental markets generally have faster transactions and therefore the interval between chaser emails will be shorter than chasers to contacts enquiring about property for sale.
Generally there would be no more than 3 chaser emails sent over the course of about a week for a typical property enquiry.
Typically the first chaser after the initial email will be sent 2 days after the initial email. The next would be sent 3 days after and the final chaser another 3 days later.
What should you write in your email follow up templates?
The content of automated emails is a major factor in the response rate. We don’t like receiving emails from robots and so any template should be as personalised as possible.
At this point the only information we are likely to have is what we see is the contact details that they filled in on the form that they enquired from.
<name>
<email address>
<phone number>
We also know the source from where they enquired, for example a property portal like Rightmove.
<source>
And we also know which property they enquired about and we can use any field from within the property to show on the template.
Typically properties can be displayed as a "card" within the email and this card would be similar to those used in your website so that the branding is consistent.
<property type>
<price>
<location>
<property title>
<bedrooms>
<short description>
<image>
<property link to website>
Finally, we also know our own contact details, so within the email we can also extract our own information.
<user phone>
Creatively using these fields can make the template much more personal and increase the response rate. Check out some examples in the downloads below.
Free Download example automated email follow up templates
Here are 3 automated email follow up templates in PDF that you can use to inspire yourself to greater things! In each template we try to be personal and incentivise the contact to communicate back with us.
These templates would fit into the example pipeline above. So prior to these 3 emails, the contact would have received an email to acknowledge their enquiry, we would have failed in our attempt(s) to phone them and sent an initial response email.
To put the chaser emails in context, you can also download an example template of an initial response email below.
| Action | Interaval | Download Template |
|---|---|---|
| Failed phone call, send email and drag deal to "waiting response" | <initial phone call failed.pdf> | |
| If a response is detected, the deal moves to the next pipeline stage | 2 days later | <chaser 1.pdf> |
| If a response is detected, the deal moves to the next pipeline stage | 2 days later | <chaser 2.pdf> |
| If a response is detected, the deal moves to the next pipeline stage | 3 days later | <chaser 3.pdf> |
These three templates are sent over the course of a week, but if the contact still does not reply, we would set our automation to move this contact at 10 days to a marketing pipeline.
