Cold email is a powerful tool. But what will take your email practice to the next level is turning successful cold outreach into long-term relationships.
Here's a happy story:
That's all great, but what comes next?
Game of Thrones Season 8 had an ending so bad it nearly killed the entire franchise. Don’t be Season 8: if someone gave you help, follow up with them and tell them the outcome!
From there, follow-up email maintains the same principle as the first cold email: provide value however possible. Treat the first few pieces of follow-up like cold emails until you’ve built a relationship.
Don't follow up just to follow up. Fewer, better pieces of outreach keep people excited to see you in their inbox. Follow-up is a long-term game—think weeks or months—not days in most cases.
All of this follow-up is a lot to keep track of. Fortunately, there are great tools to help.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management—the software salespeople use to track leads and conversions. That's not what we're doing. But we can take inspiration from these sophisticated tools to build our own lightweight system.
Your CRM needs to do two things:
There are dozens of tools competing to be your CRM. What you choose comes down to personal preference; pick the system that makes sense to you.
Some options:
Don't get stuck in analysis: just pick something that looks pretty good. If you can't decide, get started with this free personal CRM template for Notion.
The best system in the world won't replace putting in the time and energy to maintain your connections.
Opportunities for follow-up arise naturally from staying current with the communities and topics that helped you find the original cold email opportunity.
Keep in touch with someone by:
Be sure to track this activity in your CRM for a complete record of your follow-up efforts.
Best,
Philip
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