How Many Follow-Up Emails Should You Send?

The money is in the follow up.

This is a common phrase repeated by many sales leaders.

Although it is true that sending follow-up emails is very important, it is possible to send too many.

In this article, I will share the optimal number of follow-up emails that you should send in your cold email campaigns to maximize your responses.

I will cover the following:

• How many times should you follow up after no response?
• How many follow-up emails is too many in sales?
• Is it ok to send multiple follow-up emails?
• Final thoughts

How many times should you follow up after no response?

I recommend that you send three follow-up emails.

Some people say you should keep following up until the prospect responds, but I think this is a bad idea because it increases your chances of being marked as spam by recipients, which will negatively affect your deliverability, causing your future emails to go to spam folders.

Also, if you’ve already sent three follow-up emails, and the recipient still hasn’t responded, then you should take a hint that they aren’t interested.

Most people are very busy, so it’s important to send follow-up emails, but if you send too many, then there can be negative consequences.

The below video (25:00 to 27:10) shows how many times Tyler Bosmeny needed to follow up to close a $100,000 deal for his company Clever:

How many follow-up emails is too many in sales?

In my opinion, if you are sending more than three follow-up emails to a single lead, then you are sending too many.

If the lead has already responded, and you are engaged in an existing conversation, then you can send more than three follow-up emails over the course of the entire conversation.

However, if you send a cold email to someone, and they don’t respond, and you keep emailing them, still without a response, and you send more than four emails in total, then you are entering the realm of spam.

It should be quite obvious that someone doesn’t want your product or service if you send them four emails and they still haven’t responded.

I recommend that you check out the example follow-up email sequence that I share in my article How To Write A Follow-Up Email (+13 Templates & Examples). In this example sequence, I include a “break-up email” which is an effective way of ending your follow-up sequence.

Is it ok to send multiple follow-up emails?

Yes, it is definitely ok to send multiple follow-up emails.

In fact, I highly recommend that you do. I recommend that you send three follow-up emails to maximize your response rate.

I also recommend that you send your cold email campaigns with Emailchaser, because Emailchaser allows you to easily send automatic follow-up emails to leads that haven't responded.

Emailchaser also automatically stops sending follow-up emails when a lead responds. This is very important to avoid embarrassing situations where your lead has already responded, but you send another automated follow-up email by mistake.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

I recommend that you send three follow-up emails in your cold email campaigns.

If you send more than three, then you will most likely annoy prospects, and they will mark your emails as spam, which will negatively impact your deliverability.

You can see an example follow-up email sequence in my article How To Write A Follow-Up Email (+13 Templates & Examples).

I also recommend that you check out my other article How Long Should You Wait Before Sending A Follow-Up Email?