How to write a follow up email – Copywriting

Pitching for work and writing follow up emails are core parts of our businesses as freelance copywriters right? 

Simply put, it is our main income generator especially when we are just starting out. 

Follow up emails are a very important part of this process and in this post I’ll discuss how to write them to maximize your chances of convincing people to hit reply and schedule a discovery call with you.

What is a follow up email?

A follow up email is an email that comes after your initial pitch idea email. It is designed to remind the person you emailed that you are a REAL person and also to introduce them to you once again. It serves as another opportunity for you to connect with a potential client.

Why do emails not get replied to?

Life is so busy. You know from your own to-do list that it go on and on forever! This is what I try to remember when I’ve sent out like 25 pitch emails and none of them have had an instant response. 

The main thing to realize here is that none of this is in your control. 

Clients could be:

• Just really busy
• Ill and having a duvet day
• In meetings all day 
• Looking after their kids as they aren’t going in to school. 

The scenarios could just also be infinite, so try to remember this if you start worrying about lack of response. 

It’s nothing personal.

It’s important to be consistent

That said, regardless of whatever situations are happening to people we have pitched, we shouldn’t just give up after the first pitch email (even if it’s tempting because we feel frustrated) 

We need to send them a follow up email. I like to think of it like this – it’s another chance for us to REALLY help them. 

Okay so let’s dig into how to write follow up emails.

Structure of your follow-up emails

The structure is important because it will make the email easy to read and then your email will have a clear message.

Subject Line or not?

Personally I like to send mine via my Google Workspace and attach my email to the original thread from the other. This means that my original strong subject line stands out. 

So I might have led originally with: 

Copywriter who loves your unique approach to dog training! 

In my original subject line, I have introduced what role I have, and a great reason why I would love to work with them. 

I would want this powerful subject line to stand out. 

See more about sending the follow-up email via the original thread below.

A re-introduction to you and a reminder

In the first short paragraph, you want to mention that you contacted them recently with a few ideas for their site or business and you realize they’re busy. 

So say for example –

Hi Martin, 

I got in touch in the last week with some ideas for your beautiful pooch accessory site, but I know you’ll have been super-busy.

This will encourage them to look back at the thread and read your email. It could be that they missed it the first time.

Body – useful idea and quick signoff

In the next part you want to reassure the person that you won’t bug them, and then you give them something useful for them or for their audience. 

Useful things could be: 

• A link to a related podcast 
• A link to a really useful blog post. 
• An offer of a free copy review for one piece of copy of their site. (so 3 headlines on what they could improve. Not actually re-writing the copy for them)

Example:

I don’t want to take much of your valuable time, but I found this dog care podcast that I think would be really useful to share with your audience. 

Here’s the link _________________

Kind regards, 

Helen 

Schedule your follow-up emails for around 7 days later

This kind of schedule will keep you in potential clients’ minds, but also you have to consider your schedule too. Make it easy on yourself. Setting the follow-up emails to go out around 7 days later allows you time to make it happen consistently. 

Use Hubspot to help you

Hubspot free allows you to connect your Gmail address so you can track emails. I use it to schedule tasks including follow up emails. 

Just schedule a task in Hubspot for one week later. 

Pro-tip – always create your emails inside Gmail because your email branding will load properly.

 Ensure you switch the Hubspot logo to green and it will track your clients inside Hubspot automatically.

 Keep follow up emails short and sweet

Your aim with follow up emails is to provide value and remind the person you are willing to help them. So make your email as concise as possible because this acknowledges they are busy. 

Short and sweet gets to the point quickly. Your follow up email is all about giving them a reminder, but also showing you are not a bot.

Send via the original thread

When finding clients and emailing them, as I said above, I think this is the easiest way for both sides. For you, it keeps all the potential client’s emails together. For them, they can immediately access your original email without having to go searching for it. We need to make an impact in seconds, so this will help them focus on your messaging.

Move ahead 

Pitching can be cruel on your mind – it can really challenge your confidence. This has taken me a long time to get used to but now I put the client out of my head and move on to other things. 

It’s so important to be able to move on right away because you will be sending many pitches out in your freelance career.

Most of them won’t be replied to.

Follow Up Follow Up Follow Up

In conclusion, along with how to write a follow up email, I hope this has been useful also as a reminder that mindset and consistency plays such a big part in the pitching game.

Keep following up and you will succeed! Let me know in the comments how it’s going with pitching and following up.