How to Dig a Buried Email Out of Your Prospect's Inbox in 15 Seconds

Aja Frost
Aja Frost

Published:

To succeed in sales, you must walk a fine line between persistent and pushy. You don't want to give up too easily -- just because you don't get a response the first time you try doesn't mean the prospect isn't interested.

email-buried-compressor

But you also don't want to annoy them -- sending 20 emails over the course of two weeks will turn an on-the-fence buyer into an uninterested one and will probably give your company a bad name.

With that in mind, how should you handle the buried email situation? It happens all the time: You send an email, your prospect opens it, even clicks on the link ... And never replies. Chances are, something came up, they couldn't answer right away, and then they forgot about it.

You could send a "just checking in" email -- or the new variation "Just wanted to bump this to the top of your inbox."

However, these messages fall into the "pushy" category. They're not helpful, just irritating.

Here's an alternative approach. Respond to your first email with the subject line "Email Buried?"

This suggests the prospect missed something and will prompt them to open it.

Use one of these four templates for the body of the email, depending on the stage of the sales process and the scenario.

1. If you're trying to schedule a connect or discovery call:

2. If you've already qualified them and want to schedule a demo:

3. If you're waiting for them to sign the contract:

4. If they've gone dark after the discovery call or demo:

5. If you've conducted warm outreach once and heard nothing back:

6. For those moments you just think they forgot:

7. When they cancelled a demo and haven't responded to your rescheduling email:

Does this email take a little longer to write than your standard "bump this back up" one? Yes. It's worth it to avoid coming across as just another pushy, self-serving rep.

HubSpot CRM

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