Influencer Outreach: Why Nobody Replies to Your Follow-up Emails

Does this sound familiar?

You’re working away minding your own business when you hear that familiar ding of an email sneaking into your inbox.

When you look at it, this is what you see:

FROM: John Doe (Who is this John Doe, anyway?)

SUBJECT: Let’s chat (Or some foolish subject line that suggests you know the sender)

You’re smart. You know this is bogus and so you delete it. All is good in your world again.

Until…

Two days later, the ominous ding brings forth:

FROM: (Oh goody, it’s John Doe again.)

SUBJECT: Just following up (or another rendition of that)

Remembering that John just emailed you two days ago and you deleted that email, you quickly delete this one as well.

Unfortunately, John is like a vampire in a movie; you can’t kill him with the delete button. As the vampire rises with the moon, so does John two days later.

Ding.

FROM: (Guess who?!)

SUBJECT: (Another version of following up)

OK, John has started rubbing you the wrong way now.

Deleting an email takes a nanosecond—but John the Vampire is sucking your time and energy with each email.

To make matters worse?

John hasn’t figured out that you can’t “follow up” with someone who had NEVER responded.

That’s the ludicrous idea that I struggle to eliminate from the teams I consult with. Let me say again:

If no one has responded to your email, common sense says you cannot follow up with them.

Maybe it will help to look at this from a different angle.

By its very definition, following up indicates that “something continues or completes a process or activity.”

So… if John’s email is a follow up with you, then obviously there should have been an existing process or activity.

At this point you might be saying, “Erik, this is my exact process!”

Good for you! Let me reassure you this: you are following up. However, you are in this process all alone unless someone responds to your emails.

Yes – YOU are John the Vampire sucking the energy from your prospects.

Your prospects are not just ignoring you—they use the delete button as their holy water and garlic. You’ve trained them to ignore your messages instead of opening your messages.

Oh, and another thing, it’s a feeble attempt at cyber-stalking.

No one respects feeble cyber-stalking.

Now, you’re probably fretting and wondering what’s next. You’ve bought the list of the perfect prospects. Do you just give up after sending one email?

I am NOT going to tell you to surrender after one email.

For you to have a real chance at getting past the torches and pitchforks of your prospects, you have to do something drastic.

You need to start over.

Think of it this way:

Solving problems for your clients is your thing, right?

Your clients look at their problems differently even if they have the same exact problem, correct?

In your first email, take the opportunity to discuss only one way to view their problem.

Then, if they delete that first email, send a second email talking about the same issue from a distinct point of view—and don’t reference the first email.

Make a clean break between the two emails.

There is one caveat to this approach. If your solution is described in several pieces, it’s fine to refer back to a preceding email.

The key to remember is… you are NEVER EVER “following up.”

Remember: You can’t “follow up” if a prospect hasn’t responded to you. But you can repeatedly “start over” when you are providing something that is actually useful.

Now go forth and engage your audience.