Cold email follow up: when to send it, what to say, and when to stop

By Zach Schleien

When to send each follow-up, what to put in it, three fill-in-the-blank examples, and the signs it's time to stop emailing.

A cold email follow up is a short email you send when someone didn't answer your first cold email, and its job is to give them a new reason to reply. A good rule of thumb is to send the first one about three days later, space the next ones further apart, and stop after three or four follow-ups if you still hear nothing. If you've already had a call with them, that's a different email, and I cover it in Follow-Up Email After a Sales Call: What to Send and When.

I've sent a lot of cold emails. Filteroff, my video speed dating app, raised $2.4M, and nearly every investor came from cold emails I sent myself. Later, the offer that bought the company started with cold emails I sent too.

TL;DR

• Follow up in the same thread about 3 days after your first email, then space the next ones further apart.
• Every follow-up needs one new thing: a result, a piece of news, or a smaller ask. "Just checking in" gives them nothing to answer.
• If nothing gets a reply, check your first email before you blame the follow-ups.

When to send a cold email follow up

A lot of the time, no reply just means your email got buried on a busy day. It doesn't mean they read it and decided no.

Here's a simple schedule. Treat it as a starting point and adjust it once you see when your buyers tend to reply.

1. Day 1: your first cold email.
2. Day 3 or 4: first follow-up.
3. Day 7 or 8: second follow-up.
4. Around day 14: your last follow-up.

Reply in the same thread instead of starting a new email, so your first message sits right under the new one.

Email doesn't have to be your only channel. A short LinkedIn message or a quick video can sit next to your emails. It's like marketing love languages: different people respond to different channels.

What to say in a cold email follow up

The follow-up that gets ignored says something like "Just bumping this to the top of your inbox." It gives them nothing new to react to.

Each follow-up should bring one new thing:

• A result. Something that happened since your last email, like a new customer, a number that went up, or a launch.
• A piece of news. Something going on in their industry or at their company that makes your email more timely.
• A smaller ask. If your first email asked for a 30-minute call, ask a question they can answer with yes or no.

The cold emails that led to Filteroff's acquisition worked this way. I sent them straight to CEOs and CFOs at companies that might want to buy us. They weren't sales pitches. They were status updates that basically said, "This is what we're up to," and that we were profitable and growing. We ended up with two offers, and the one that closed came from that outreach. If you're selling bigger deals without a sales team, I wrote more about outbound for that in Why Hiring a VP of Sales Is Wrong (And How to Master a Founder Led Sales Strategy High Ticket).

So write each follow-up as a short update on what changed since your last email.

Cold email follow up examples you can copy

Fill in the brackets with your own details.

Follow-up 1, day 3 (a result):

Hi [name], quick update since my last email. [One new result, like a customer you just signed or a number that went up.] I think it could help [their company] with [the problem from your first email]. Worth a quick look?

Follow-up 2, day 7 (a smaller ask):

Hi [name], I know a call is a big ask. Would it help if I sent a 2-minute video showing how this would work for [their company]?

Follow-up 3, day 14 (the last one):

Hi [name], I don't want to keep filling up your inbox, so this is my last email about this. If [the problem] becomes a priority later, just reply here. And if someone else on your team handles this, could you point me to them?

Keep every follow-up shorter than your first email. If it takes more than a few seconds to read on a phone, cut it down.

When to stop following up

Stop when any of these happen:

• They say no or ask you to stop.
• You've sent three or four follow-ups with no reply.
• They tell you they're the wrong person. Thank them and ask who the right person is.

That last one matters more than it looks, because the yes doesn't always come from the person you emailed. In 2020, I sent roughly 70 pitches to every New York Times writer covering the beat that fit my dad's story about his COVID recovery. One of them forwarded it to the op-ed editor, and the op-ed ran on April 9, 2020.

Why your cold email follow ups aren't getting replies

If nobody answers any of your follow-ups, the follow-ups usually aren't the problem. Go back and check the first email:

• Did it go to someone who actually owns the problem you solve?
• Did it give them one clear reason to care in the first two lines?
• Was the ask small enough to answer in one line?

The other thing that stops founders is fear. You don't want to seem pushy, so you send one email and give up. A matchmaking client of mine was scared to make a follow-up call. I told her, "If you don't make this call, your business will fail and you'll go back to your 9-to-5." She made the call, shaking while she did it, and got the sale.

A follow-up feels pushy to you because you're the one waiting for an answer. To them, it's one more short email they can answer or skip.

Want help setting up your outreach and follow-up? Book a consultation.