A sales follow-up is the message sent after a first contact that went unanswered. No reply doesn’t mean no: the message may have arrived at the wrong time or not asked the right question. The follow-up gives a second chance, provided it brings something the first message didn’t have.
What a follow-up must bring
- A new fact observed since the first message: a job ad or a post by the person.
- Another angle on the same signal if nothing new has appeared: a concrete example or a simpler question.
- An easy way out: the person must be able to answer “no” in one word.
A follow-up that merely recalls the first message asks the prospect to do the reading again, with no new reason to reply.
When to follow up
The first follow-up goes out a few working days after the first message, in the same thread so the context stays visible. The next one can switch channels: a LinkedIn message after an email, for example. A new fact can justify a faster follow-up; a reply, even a negative one, stops the prospecting sequence.
The last message
The last message closes the exchange. It recalls the reason in one sentence and says, without an ultimatum, that you won’t push further. If the topic comes back later, for instance with a new signal at that account, the person keeps a clean impression of the exchange.
Example
After her new role at Atelia, Claire Morel lists opening the Belgian market among her priorities in a LinkedIn post. The first email asks her who prepares the account lists for that market. With no reply, the follow-up arrives a few days later in the same thread, with a new fact: Atelia has just published a sales job ad for Belgium. The follow-up asks the question again from that fact and offers an explicit way out.
See also: Prospecting sequence, Reply rate, and Multichannel prospecting.