B2B Blog

Appropriate to Send an Email Follow Up

Some messages are so important that you need to make sure they aren’t missed. For those messages, it’s a good idea to send a follow-up message.

Here are some situations that might require you to follow up on an email:

Potential job.

If you’ve sent out a resume or applied for a job, a follow-up email that further explains your qualifications may be what it takes to impress a recruiter and get noticed.

Possible sale.

A surprising reason many sales people fail is that they never follow up with a prospective client. They make the sales with prospects that are ready to buy right away, but miss out on future sales.

Meeting request.

If you’ve requested a meeting with someone and they haven’t responded, follow up to find out whether they can attend or whether the meeting needs to be rescheduled.

Communication with supervisor.

Work-related emails are usually important. If some time has passed and your supervisor hasn’t responded, follow up. They may have overlooked your email, or it might have been caught in their Spam filter.

Project-related communication with peer.

In most companies, you’re part of a team. Your success depends on your ability to communicate. If a team member isn’t responding, you need to find out why.

Why Do You Need a Strong Email Strategy?

Businesses now demand personalized marketing and dynamic results, all on a small budget. In other words, you need to make the most of the key characteristics of emailing.

Visible

Email offers unparalleled reach, and it’s also very visible: 90% of emails get delivered. These statistics trump alternative channels such as Facebook, where just 2% of your followers will organically see your content.

Effective

The click-through rate (CTR) can also be much higher, compared to alternative channels. Of course, the CTR is contingent on a strong strategy and the best follow-up emails possible. Here’s a closer look at ways to achieve a higher CTR.

When to Send a Follow-up Email

In email marketing, timing is a huge factor that will determine whether you’re successful. A 30-minute window could mean the difference between your email being clicked and read, and being deleted without a moment’s hesitation.

But in terms of general advice, here are some of the best tips about timing.

Avoid the Monday Purge

Most professionals start their week by organizing their tasks and sorting through the emails they received while they were away. They’ll often delete anything that appears to be unimportant or unsolicited, so you should avoid sending those emails on Saturdays, Sundays, or Monday mornings.

Also Avoid Fridays

At the end of the week, most professionals spend their time finalizing tasks and thinking about their weekend plans. These professionals aren’t in the right mindset to start thinking about new products or prospects, so it’s better to avoid sending emails on Fridays.

Midweek at 2 pm

your best bet for achieving email marketing success is sending emails on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays at around 2 pm.

Break the Mold

However, the following best practices can also be challenging, given that you run the risk of sending your email at the same time as everybody else. In other words, you can reduce the amount of attention your email receives and lower your CTR.

How to Write a Follow-Up Email

The subject line, messaging, and structure of your follow-up email will also play a big role in determining how successful you are. Here’s a look at the key steps to writing a fantastic follow-up email.

1. Define the Purpose

First things first. You want to determine exactly why you’re sending your follow-up email. If you have a detailed sales funnel, this step will be much easier.

Now that you have this objective in mind, you can think about how to achieve it via your email.

2. Create a Spectacular Subject Line

With your subject line, you have a small window of opportunity to capture the attention of your recipient. So you have to capitalize on it as much as possible. Here are the features of the best kinds of email subject lines:

Catered

The best subject lines are developed by using quantifiable data.

Short

While the specifics will vary according to your own data, it gives you a good benchmark to aim for: Keep it short, and find a creative way to get to the point.

Detailed

You should make sure that your subject line is as clear as possible, and that it helps your recipient decide whether they want to read it.

Engaging

Finally, you should try to find a way to make the subject line engaging without feeling spammy. In other words, you can capture the attention of your recipient using innovative techniques.

3. Be Direct and Clear

Most email recipients receive an average of 121 emails a day. In other words, you must be brutal about determining whether an email is worthy of readers’ time and attention.

Your recipient will appreciate that you respect their time, so you will be much likelier to receive a response. It also helps you build positive feelings.

4. Get Professional Help

Every business delegates responsibilities in different ways. In some companies, sales professionals are responsible for crafting their own follow-up emails.

To make sure everything is correct, you’ll want to enlist the help of a copywriter, so you can put your best foot forward by writing an amazing email.

5. Think About the Next Follow-up Email

When it comes to email marketing, perseverance is key. A study from Iko System demonstrates that the sixth email in a marketing sequence can receive a huge boost, in terms of the response rate.

How to Write a Follow-Up Email

Send it after two weeks.

If you haven’t heard back from the employer two weeks after sending your resume and cover letter, consider sending an email. Don’t send it any earlier. You want to give the employer enough time to read and respond to your application.

Send an email, if possible.

Employers typically prefer receiving this kind of message by email; it allows them to keep a record of your contact, and they can respond quickly.

Use a clear subject line.

In the subject line, include the title of the job you are applying for and your name. This will allow the employer to know exactly what the email is about right away.

Be courteous.

You want to be as polite and professional as possible in your email. Begin with a polite salutation and use the employer or hiring manager’s name if you have it. Begin the email by thanking the employer for taking the time to look at and consider your resume.

Keep it brief.

Don’t write an extremely long email. Keep it brief so that the employer can quickly skim it and understand your purpose.

Focus on why you are a good fit.

Briefly remind the employer why you are a good fit for the job. If you have any new information you want to share (such as a new achievement at work), you might mention that here.

Ask any questions.

If you have any questions related to the job or the application process, you can ask them at the end of the email.

Mention a visit.

If you live far away, you might want to mention a time when you will be visiting the area and are available to meet.

Review and Edit.

This email is another opportunity to make a good first impression on the employer. Make sure your email is professional and thoroughly edited.

Reputation Management for Lawyers

Reputation management essentially refers to controlling the message everyone sees relative to you and your profile, or that of your firm.

With the Internet being accessible to almost everyone around the globe, one comment can spread exponentially in a matter of seconds.Here are six important principles you should keep in mind as you build your online reputation management plan:

Good SEO Helps Reputation Management

If you keep on top of SEO and make sure that pages from your own website stay in the top results when people search for your law firm’s name or the name of one of your attorneys, there’s less room for any bad word of mouth to pop up where anyone will see it.

Know How You Appear To Prospects

More specifically, know how you want to appear to prospects. Use a combination of technology and human expertise to analyze how netizens see your firm. Social media is also a great way to look at yourself and your firm in the mirror and see where your strengths and flaws are.

Listen To Your Past Clients

Reach out to your previous clients and ask them for feedback. Word of mouth is still an effective marketing tool. Welcome both positive and negative feedback so you can establish what your best practices are and what your clients think you might be able to improve. Everything is worth learning from.

Be Proactive About Gaining Reviews

Place an option on your website or social media pages for your visitors to review you. It can do wonders for your online presence and reputation. This way, they can also share feedback with their friends, family and associates that will help get the word out there.

Always Balance Your Response

One of the worst mistakes companies make when it comes to responding to issues is ignoring things they don’t like. When you ignore serious issues expressed by concerned individuals, you are essentially saying that their concerns are not valid and that you couldn’t care less.

Make A Plan And Be Prepared

If things really go wrong, you won’t have much time to try to contain the damage.

It is also important to have one go-to spokesperson who can issue a statement. Notify everyone that this spokesperson is the only one authorized to send an official statement. Mixed messages coming from different people will undermine people’s trust in you.

16 Reputation Monitoring and Management Tools for Agencies

Building up the online reputation management part of your marketing or public relations agency means addressing the full scope of the task as efficiently as possible.

A few shortcuts can help you save software subscription costs, staff, and time as you launch your reputation management services.

1 – 3 Reputation Repair

Easy Testimonials (Pro):

Choose from over 75 themes to display and collect testimonials on your WordPress site. $599 / year for agencies.

Thrive Themes Ovation:

Customize, collect and manage testimonials on your WordPress site. $97 / month for 15 licenses

Boast:

Collect and manage text, picture, and video testimonials, showcase them on any website and the most popular social platforms. $83 / month professional plan.

Reputation management software for agencies that streamlines the process of collecting testimonials and reviews helps to repair the reputation faster.

4 – 9 Reputation Assessment and Audit

Manual Geolocation:

Hone in on your clients’ local searches with this Chrome extension. Free.

Bright Local:

Take a closer look at your clients’ local SEO. $49 / month for agencies.

isearchfrom.com:

quickly search from specific locations at any time. Free.

Hootsuite:

Connect and manage over 155 different platforms. $599/ month for business pricing.

Sendible:

Learn a reputation monitoring platform fast and manage only the accounts you need. $199 / month for agency plan.

anewstip.com:

search local and national news. Free.

A full picture of your clients’ reputation is key for successful reputation management. This includes all of the physical and digital assets attached to their name, from sponsorships to Facebook pages to online reviews and much more.

10 – 16 Reputation Monitoring

Google Alerts:

Get individual alerts or digest emails anytime keywords your specify appear on sites indexed by Google. Free.

Awario:

Crawl 13 billion web pages for the full scope of your clients’ reputations. $299/ month for enterprise pricing.

Keyhole:

Get detailed insights on accounts, hashtags, or trends on Twitter, Instagram and, if needed, Facebook. $449 / month for corporate plan.

Sprout Social:

Create, manage and publish social campaigns in one place. $249 per user / month for agency plan.

TweetReach:

Focus specifically on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and get detailed analytics. $199 / month for marketing team pricing.

Reputology:

Monitor over 100 review sites including Google Business, Facebook, iPhone App Store and more. $10 – 49 / month / location for agency pricing.

ReviewTrackers:

Monitor over 100 websites, analyze NPS data and integrate with other platforms as needed. Starting at $49 for agencies.

A business’s reputation can change overnight. This is why reputation management requires accurate, easy-to-use tools to monitor the conversation occurring around your client. Whether it’s a seemingly small thing like a complaint on Twitter, or a PR firestorm you have to put out ASAP, the sooner you know about it, the better.

What Can Digital Marketing Agencies Do for Your Business?

INTRODUCTION

Digital marketing agencies can help you skyrocket the ROI of your marketing campaign without having to spend tons of money or time to assemble an in-house team.

How to Run a Marketing Campaign

Here’s a general list of what goes into a marketing campaign:

Understand your customer’s behavior

Before running a successful marketing campaign, you need to have deep insight into your customer’s behavior.

Create processes

Scaling anything requires proper documentation of systems, processes, and workflows that go into completing a specific task.

Gather the right tools

Inbound marketing campaigns require a variety of tools from start to finish. These tools help accomplish your key tasks and hit your goals more efficiently.

Be consistent

One of the most important skills when it comes to inbound marketing is patience. Typically, noticeable results only come in after several months.

Some of the most successful companies have been consistently putting in effort over the course of many years:

Pull from past experience

Lastly, you should make sure that you have experience designing and running some portion of inbound marketing campaigns.

Online Reputation Management Steps for Lawyers

While online resources can help legal consumers find lawyers, they can also be used by those very same people to express dissatisfaction with a law firm’s services.

STEP 1: Follow What’s Being Said About You and Your Firm

Monitor online chatter by creating Google alerts for discussions about you and your law firm. Once you create the alert you’ll receive emails whenever new matching results are located. You can also utilize tools that track online mentions of your law firm, such as Social Mention,

STEP 2: Be Aware of What’s Being Said on Online Review Sites

The sites clients use to find lawyers are often the same sites where they later leave feedback about their experience.

The sites often used by legal consumers to provide feedback about lawyers include: LinkedIn, Justia, Avvo, Yelp, LawyerRating, Martindale.com, Lawyers.com, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Google Places and Google Business.

STEP 3: Request and Track Feedback

One way to manage online feedback is to encourage positive comments from happy clients. These will balance any negative comments that may come your way in the future. Throughout each case, make sure to obtain regular feedback by systemizing the feedback process.

STEP 4: Augment Positive Reviews

When your clients leave positive reviews about your law firm, make the most out of them. Highlight them by adding them to your law firm website’s client testimonial section. Sharing good reviews engenders trust and encourages potential clients to retain your firm’s services.

STEP 5: Manage Negative Reviews

Hopefully, you’ll never receive a negative review. But if you do, you need to carefully and thoughtfully respond to the former client’s feedback. Be aware of the optics should a potential client stumble upon this review. And finally, counteract the negative review by encouraging other clients to leave positive reviews on that site.

What are the Best Practices for a Lawyer to Manage Online Reviews?

Maintain Your Listings

First and foremost, claim your listings and complete your profiles. If anything changes, such as your address or phone number, then keep your listings up-to-date.

Respond to Reviews

Whether a review is positive or negative, you should always respond to it. By responding, you are demonstrating that you are actively engaged with your clients and that you care about your online reputation.

Responding to Positive Reviews

Responding to positive reviews is easy.

Responding to Negative Reviews

Of course, the best way to avoid a negative review is to give your client’s the best service possible. In other words, in time, you are bound to get a negative review.

When responding to a negative review, don’t let your pride get in the way of responding professionally. Also, invite the reviewer to contact you privately to address their concerns.

Responding to “Black Hat” Reviews

For some of our customers, we deal with “black hat” reviews from persons who are not genuine clients of the lawyer or the law firm. These persons pose as a client to leave bad reviews.

Some of these persons may be the party on the other side of the case or their friends or family. Sites such as Yelp and Facebook aren’t very helpful in removing black hat reviews. If you can’t get the review removed, then here is a sample professional response to a black hat review that alerts other readers that the review isn’t genuine.

Strategy for Building Your Stock of Online Reviews

You can’t stop people from saying things about your practice online, and if you ignore that feedback and the existence of review sites, you leave an open door for naysayers to destroy your reputation. It’s true that people tend to only send feedback and write reviews after a negative experience.

The following steps for managing and controlling online reviews will work — if you follow the steps religiously.

Step 1: Assess Which Reviews Matter Most to Your Firm

Naturally you want to know what reviews are out there, and which directories already include your firm. More important to your strategy, however, is pinpointing which directories are most influential in your geographic area and practice area.

Step 2: Claim Those Directory Profiles

In “Take Control of Your Firm’s Local Directory Strategy,” I discussed the importance of claiming your profiles. It’s especially important for online reviews, because once you claim all the profiles that allow for reviews and “own” them, some sites (like Google) will allow you to respond to positive and negative feedback.

Step 3: Monitor the Online Reviews

You can’t improve something you aren’t tracking. Here are sites that can help automate this process:

GetListed.org.

GetListed doesn’t send you email notifications, but it shows reviews across major sites. (Free.)

ReviewPush.

ReviewPush is great for a multi-location practice. It sends email alerts and tracks trends. (Paid.)

GetFiveStars.

This is a brand-new service that has major promise for law practices, especially those with multiple locations. It’s designed to help you with the process of getting reviews and monitoring them.

Step 4: Make Reviews Part of Your Daily Routine and Client Process

It’s always easier to achieve a goal if you incorporate small steps into your daily routine. But there’s another reason why you shouldn’t save your online review activities for one big push: It can set off alarm bells on the Internet.

Step 5: Rinse and Repeat

If you get just one review per month on Google with this method, in five months you will have enough reviews for stars to show up next to your business listing — and those stars will help attract more clicks on your listing.