The Art and Science of Follow-Up Emails (Including SERHANT.’s Secret Weapon) 

If you work in sales, you’re passionate about building relationships with your clients. Maybe you’re a little obsessed — the best sales leaders are.

We take email communication very seriously at SERHANT. — especially follow-up emails, which can turn missed connections into strong client relationships. If you aren’t thinking hard about the tone, timing, and content of your follow-up emails, then you’re letting potential relationships wither and leaving money on the table. 

This is our playbook for follow-up emails that really work: when to send them, how to write them, and the tool you need to stay on top of it all.   

Why follow-up emails can make or break your sales pipeline

Following up puts you ahead of the competition. 48% of salespeople don’t send a single follow-up email! Persistence pays off: if you send more than one follow-up email, your chance of hearing back rises.

After all, life happens. Your clients get busy and distracted. Your property, or product, or whatever you’re selling, might interest them — but without a nudge, it can easily slip from their mind. 

Follow-up emails are reminders that you’re still thinking about them, and you’re invested in helping them achieve their goals.

When to send follow-up emails

Sales is about personal relationships. You wouldn’t blast a friend with multiple emails day after day, and you wouldn’t leave them hanging either. Some studies show that the sweet spot for sending a follow-up email is 2-3 days after your last touchpoint, winning you a reply rate of 31%. 

If you wait more than 5 days, the likelihood of a reply drops to 24%. But following up the next day causes your response rate to plummet down to 11%.

The SERHANT. brokerage’s secret weapon

When it comes to follow-up emails, timing is critical — but it’s a lot to keep track of. I firmly believe that people in sales should be spending their time deepening their client relationships, not on admin. 

This is where AI tools come in. They remove your busywork and free you to focus on what you do best: building rapport and closing deals. That’s why years ago, I introduced my CEO and co-founder Ryan Serhant to SaneBox

SaneBox is an AI email management tool that quickly filters your most important emails. You can use its SaneReminders feature to keep your follow-up timing on point. You simply send an email, then set a reminder to follow up in 2 days — the follow-up sweet spot.

SaneBox spread through SERHANT. like wildfire. Before long, so many additional agents, and my own team, were using SaneBox. They were communicating better, they stayed on top of their most important threads, and they were seeing more success with their clients.

How to write the perfect follow-up email

Now you have the timing and the right tool, how do you craft an email that grabs attention? Here’s a breakdown of the email best practices we use at SERHANT.

Subject lines: Get opened or get ignored 

  • Be human. At SERHANT. we swear by the HALL method (you can learn about it on Ryan Serhant’s course, Sell It) and the “H” stands for “Have Empathy.” Don’t Use Title Caps or write like a clickbait headline. Read your subject line out loud — if it sounds off, it doesn’t read well either.
  • Stay on topic. What makes your client tick? Write a subject line that’s specific, either mentioning something you’ve talked about or one of their likely pain points. 
  • Avoid the spam filter. Most inboxes filter out subject lines with spam trigger words: “100% satisfied,” “limited time,” and “no cost” can send you to the spam folder. 

Writing the email: Always offer value

  • Skip generic intros. Do you like getting emails that are “Just following up” or “Per my last email?” Neither does your client.
  • Offer new information. Reinforce your position as a trustworthy adviser by sharing an industry update or news article. But don’t overwhelm them with info; a one-liner and link is enough. 
  • Bring a fresh angle. If you don’t have any substantial updates, then articulate your value prop in a new way — share stats or a relevant anecdote, or ask a specific question to gauge their interest and how their needs are evolving.

Getting the reply: Make it easy

  • Ask one question. If you fire multiple questions at your client, replying will feel like work. Make it as easy as possible by giving them one clear request — like suggesting a good time to jump on a call. 
  • Set a reminder. As soon as you’ve sent your email, set yourself a reminder with a tool like SaneBox, so you know exactly when to follow up again if you need to.

Templates you can use right now

These are some of our favorite approaches to follow-up emails and you can customize them, whatever you’re selling.

The Value Reminder 

You’ve had a call, or exchanged messages, and you can sense their hesitation. This is a good time to re-emphasize your value and understand where the friction lies. 

Hi [Their Name],

I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, so I’ll keep this quick. 

We’ve been talking about [product/service] and how it can help with [specific need].

One thing we didn’t talk about yet: [add a statistic, pain point, industry shift, or other new information like a price change].

What’s your timeline for [making a decision]? I want to make sure I’m here when you need me.

Best regards,

[Your Name]

The Industry Update 

We love this approach at SERHANT.: remind your client of your expertise and that you’re here to solve their problem. 

Hi [Their Name],

I came across some news that’s shaking up the market/industry: […] 

I pulled together a quick snapshot of how buyers/companies are leveraging [specific strategy/trend] to stay ahead [include a couple links/insights in bullet points here].

I’d love to hop on a call to explore how we can put these insights to work for you. Is there a day next week that works for you?

Talk soon,

[Your Name]

The Curiosity Igniter 

You thought they’d be a straightforward sale, but now they’re ghosting you. Spark their curiosity and remind them you’re committed to a deal that works for their needs and timeline. 

Hey [Their Name],

Curious if you’re still exploring [solution/product]?

When we last spoke, you mentioned [specific need/challenge], and I had this idea pop up that could be a missing piece of the puzzle. 

How about we set up a call: would Friday afternoon work for you?

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Common follow-up mistakes 

Being too aggressive. Daily follow-ups, pushy subject lines…make sure your follow-ups are adding value, not raising your prospect’s defences.

Getting discouraged. Don’t give up after the first follow-up. Three follow-ups is the magic number, and many closers get results with a sixth or seventh.

Not using AI as your follow-up wingman. If you don’t schedule your follow-ups effectively, they’re a waste of time — so lighten your admin burden by setting follow-up reminders with a tool like SaneBox. 

Your email follow-up checklist: 3 essentials

Implement these today and watch your sales pipeline transform.

  • Templates. Customize our templates or create your own.  
  • Reminders. Follow up with perfect timing; SaneBox makes this easy.
  • Persistence. You can have the best product and the best pitch, but if you’re not persistent, someone else will close the deal instead of you. 


Author Bio

Ryan J. Coyne, affectionately known as “Coyne,” has been a tech enthusiast since childhood, steering his passion into a dynamic career at the forefront of real estate technology. As the Chief Technology Officer for SERHANT. and a co-founder when the brokerage rose to global recognition in 2020, Coyne has been instrumental in shaping the company’s technological evolution, including its media production, education, and creative agency, along with the ADX platform.

In addition to his pivotal role at SERHANT., Coyne has made appearances on Netflix’s hit real estate reality show Owning Manhattan. His innovative approach to tech and leadership in hospitality, cybersecurity, AI, and blockchain have earned him speaking engagements at esteemed conferences like Inman Connect, The Real Deal Showcase, and Silicon Slopes, as well as for global giants like IBM and Google.

Coyne’s work extends beyond real estate, with significant contributions to public service as a tech advisor to Nassau County and for the Town of Oyster Bay. His forward-thinking infrastructure plans for the USPS even garnered federal attention.

Whether he’s revolutionizing tech, captivating audiences, or shaping the next trend, Coyne remains a trailblazer with a charismatic flair.

SaneBox Affiliate Masterclass: How Francesco D’Alessio gets a 39% click-to-signup rate

Francesco D’Alessio is on a mission to help people live their best lives. As a productivity tools expert, Francesco champions his favorite products on Tool Finder (formerly Keep Productive) and his YouTube channel — and his recommendations help hundreds of thousands of people to save time and improve their focus.  

One of those recommendations is SaneBox. As a SaneBox partner, Francesco shows his audience how to quickly declutter their inbox and regain control of their time. 

But how does Francesco maximize the partnership to earn money and deliver exceptional content? We asked Francesco to share his advice for new SaneBox partners; here’s what he had to say.  

Continue reading “SaneBox Affiliate Masterclass: How Francesco D’Alessio gets a 39% click-to-signup rate”

The 9 Best AI Tools for Enhancing Remote Work Productivity

Nowadays, remote work has become the norm for many businesses. However, to maintain productivity, organizations need the best tools to support productivity. Some of these tools include artificial intelligence solutions, which are designed to help with work processes and support workers in managing their tasks effectively.

For example, AI-driven content generation tools help businesses create digital copies, from ads to blog posts, tailored to specific needs, while tools like SaneBox have AI smart inboxes to keep email management efficient and prioritize important messages.

Continue reading “The 9 Best AI Tools for Enhancing Remote Work Productivity”

Digital Hoarding: The Hidden Productivity Killer (and How to Rein It In)

When you think of hoarding, you might be picturing bags of junk, or an attic piled high with moth-eaten sweaters. Think again: stockpiling unneeded items has gone digital. Instead of a moldy old attic, we now have laptops brimming with useless files and neglected cloud storage that, for some reason, we can’t bring ourselves to clean up. 

This is digital hoarding. It’s a close cousin of physical hoarding, and it has a huge impact on our anxiety levels and productivity. It’s also easier to hide than physical hoarding, meaning that many of us are in denial we’re even doing it. 

Here’s how to know if you’re a digital hoarder — plus our step-by-step guide to decluttering your digital spaces, from your inbox to your desktop. Let’s dive in…

Continue reading “Digital Hoarding: The Hidden Productivity Killer (and How to Rein It In)”

Abandon Information Overload With Building A Second Brain

Have you ever struggled to recall important information when someone asks? Have you wasted hours looking for documents you thought you saved but cannot find? 

Information overload is a stressful but common issue we all battle daily. However, productivity expert, Tiago Forte, founder of Building a Second Brain, has developed a system to alleviate the stress and anxiety of information overload and our inability to recall information.

Building a Second Brain (BASB) is not just about note-taking; it’s about creating a digital repository that extends your cognitive faculties – a Second Brain if you will.

Continue reading “Abandon Information Overload With Building A Second Brain”

How To Use ChatGPT To Write Better Emails

“ChatGPT” might just become your new favorite term when you discover how much it can simplify your email writing process. Even after using it every day for many months, I keep finding new use cases for this fascinating tool that are helpful in daily communication!

Email doesn’t have to be a source of anxiety anymore – in fact, it can be an efficient, stress-free way to connect if you have the right tools at your disposal. To achieve this, get used to treating ChatGPT as your never-tired, always-ready-to-help writing assistant.

Can ChatGPT improve your email communication?

Just as your favorite writing instrument can become an extension of your hand, so can ChatGPT become an extension of your ideas, your voice, and your professional identity.

AI has evolved a lot recently, and you can now take advantage of various amazing AI email assistants to make your life easier and your mailbox less full. But how exactly can ChatGPT help you enhance your email communication? Let’s take a look.

  • Improve your communication skills. Not everyone is born a writer, and that’s okay. ChatGPT can help you articulate your thoughts better, provide you with relevant phrases or sentences, and ensure your message is clear and concise. Think of it as a writing coach who is available 24/7.
  • Save you lots of time. By suggesting complete sentences, entire paragraphs, or even drafting full emails for you, ChatGPT can drastically cut down the time you spend writing emails, protecting you from email overload. This lets you leverage that extra time to focus on more critical tasks or take more mindful breaks that help avoid burnout.
  • Increase your email opening rates. ChatGPT can help you come up with compelling subject lines and engaging opening sentences that make your recipients want to read more. If you are selling products or services online, using ChatGPT prompts for email marketing may be enough to make you more attractive to potential customers.
  • Protect your reputation. Your emails are a reflection of you, and you always want to come across as professional and respectful. ChatGPT can assist you in maintaining a professional tone while also helping you personalize your emails. This will result in stronger relationships and a better reputation in your professional network.

6 ways to utilize ChatGPT for writing better emails

ChatGPT already sounds great, doesn’t it? Sadly, knowing the benefits alone doesn’t make you a good communicator – so let me show you some specific use cases where ChatGPT shines!

These six strategies can make a significant difference in how you approach writing emails and how others perceive your messages.

1. Change the tone

ChatGPT can help you adjust the tone of your emails to suit the context and the recipient. Simply prompt it with the message you want to convey and whether you want to appear more professional, polite, friendlier, or, say, more intriguing.

For instance, if you want to turn a stern reminder into a friendly nudge, your prompt could be, “Draft a friendly reminder for the team to submit their reports.” The AI will generate a suitable response, making internal communications smoother and more effective.

Alternatively, you could draft an email yourself in whatever way you feel, even if it’s “I need this report ASAP, stop whatever you are doing and start working!!!” and just ask ChatGPT to make it more polite, professional, or kind.

ChatGPT is great at this – and it often helps me deal with annoying people without appearing angry, irritated, or otherwise unprofessional.

Another area this can be put to good use is marketing. Your brand voice is important, and depending on the situation, you might want your message to sound more friendly or more formal. AI gives you a way to quickly experiment with your tone and choose the most appropriate version.

2. Improve the subject line

A subject line is rarely more than ten words, but it can be the difference between your email being opened or ignored. Even if you write the best email in the world, it’s a waste of time if nobody reads it. You need to do your best to ensure it gets read.

For example, compare these subject lines:

Bad Subject Line: “Monthly Newsletter”

Good Subject Line: “🚀 June Insights: 5 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Sales!”

Whether you are sending cold emails or building an email list, a single email subject line can often make a difference between making a sale and losing a customer.

ChatGPT can create engaging, relevant subject lines that capture the recipient’s attention and clearly reflect the email’s content, increasing the likelihood of your messages being read.

3. Draft a reply

If you often get stuck in front of the empty email editor window, you are not alone.

Research shows that people spend, on average, 28% of the workweek on dealing with emails, and I suspect a noticeable chunk of that is wasted on overthinking the wording and typing the common structures.

While you can get away with using email templates in some cases, not every situation is standard, and finding the right template still takes a bit of time. With ChatGPT, you can literally get the first draft of the response in just a couple of seconds.

Here is my go-to prompt for email replies:

“Here is the email I received. [INSERT EMAIL HERE] Write a polite reply saying [MAIN IDEA]. Match the tone of the incoming email.”

The “main idea” part is there to give a baseline direction for ChatGPT because it can’t read your mind. For example, if you want to say no to something and it writes the whole email agreeing on your behalf, you’ll likely be frustrated and need to prompt it again. So make sure to always give AI a clear understanding of what you need – it’s still a machine, after all.

Next time you’re not sure how to respond to a particular email, or if you’re pressed for time, just ask ChatGPT for help. If you make a habit out of it and keep your prompts handy to copy and paste, you can get any email you want in under a minute.

4. Personalize a cold email

When reaching out to someone for the first time, personalization can make a massive difference. The first sentence of your email can either catch your reader’s attention or make them immediately trash it.

Based on the information you have about the person (from their website, a recent article, or a tweet they’ve shared), you can ask ChatGPT to help you draft a personalized email.

If you have ChatGPT Plus, the process is even simpler. You can just give it the link to someone’s LinkedIn or website’s about page, and it will scan the profile information and find a personalization point (or several) you can open with.

Most people don’t care about personalization and send mass emails hoping to get a 1 in 100 success rate. While personalization takes a little longer, it can increase your chances of getting a response to 30-50% instead of 1-3% and will often result in building amazing business relationships.

5. Check your grammar

Regardless of what you do, accurate grammar is essential in email communication as it reflects your professionalism and attention to detail, ensuring your message is both clear and credible.

While tools like Grammarly are useful for basic grammar and spelling checks, they often do not understand the nuances of context.

Personally, as a non-native English speaker, I sometimes have doubts about whether or not a certain phrase is commonly used in a specific context. ChatGPT can easily check that, let you know if there is ambiguity, and offer alternative phrasing if needed.

It can also rephrase your sentence if it gets too complicated or split it into two shorter sentences if needed. Or suggest a synonym for something. Or give you alternative ways to finish your thought.

There are a ton of ways to utilize ChatGPT, and the more you work with it, the better you understand what it’s good at and which use cases are particularly helpful for your email writing.

6. Navigate sensitive situations

Email can often be a challenging medium for sensitive discussions. How do you say no politely? How do you ask for something without appearing too pushy? The person you are talking to can’t hear your voice or see your body language, so it’s better to carefully choose the words you write to avoid misunderstanding. ChatGPT can help you navigate various tricky situations.

For example, if you need to decline an invitation without offending the sender, you could prompt ChatGPT with, “Help me draft a polite decline to an event invitation.” It can provide you with a considerate and respectful response, ensuring your professional relationships remain strong.

ChatGPT alternatives for email writing

While ChatGPT is a universal multitool that can be used for anything you can think of, you can also leverage AI email generators that are made specifically for email management.

Here are some of the most popular ones in 2024:

  • HyperWrite is a tool that helps you write faster. It suggests words and sentences as you type, making your writing smoother and easier.
  • Harpa is a free Chrome extension that follows you wherever you go on the web. If you use it on your mailbox page, you don’t even need to copy the incoming email – it can draft a response in one click.
  • TextCortex is an AI assistant for multiple writing tasks, from emails to creative content. It can do online research, summarize email conversations, and help you draft messages.
  • HoppyCopy is designed for professional email marketing purposes. It can generate full sequences, newsletters, and various types of email campaigns, saving you hours of time every week.

Wrapping up

As you can see, leveraging ChatGPT to craft better emails is a smart move for anyone looking to enhance their email communication. This smart tool will help you write compelling, clear emails that stand out in everyone’s inbox.

However, the benefits of advanced email writing can only be fully enjoyed when your inbox itself is well-managed and not a source of stress. That’s where Sanebox steps in: it keeps your inbox clutter-free so you don’t get distracted from your work by each message demanding your attention. Try Sanebox free for 14 days today!

Author bio: Juliet Dreamhunter is a certified goal success coach passionate about artificial intelligence. On her website Juliety, she talks about different ways digital entrepreneurs can utilize AI tools to simplify daily operations and grow their businesses faster.

The role of AI in organizing your email inbox for enhanced productivity

By ProofHub

Introduction

Do you have this overwhelming feeling of hiring an assistant to manage the incoming load of emails?

If your answer to the above question is YES, then you are at the right place to understand a simple yet effective way to organize your email inbox. 

Having an organized email inbox is directly linked to your productivity, as well as the overall productivity of your team. When you respond to your emails on time, you are passing instructions to your team on time. This helps in creating a smooth workflow. 

In this article, we will be discussing methods to organize your email inbox with the help of Artificial Intelligence to enhance the overall productivity of your team. 

Understanding the concept of AI and Email organizing

As technology advances, it is essential for you to fully exploit the available potential for enhanced productivity and the ease of completing tasks. 

As projects became more complex and team size increased, project managers started feeling the complications of using emails for managing projects. This led to the rise in the usage of project management tools. 

Project management tools simplify workflow, but a tool for organizing and intelligently sorting incoming emails will simplify the workload on managers and make teams more productive. 

The current era is governed by Artificial Intelligence. There are various tools that help you in sorting and organizing your email inbox. 

Let me just put this in simple words – An automated tool sorts your incoming mail and shows you only the important ones. The rest of the emails are kept down, and the tool even deletes emails that are redundant. 

Sounds cool! Isn’t it? 

In the next section, we will discuss the steps of how AI tools sort your email inbox and lower the clutter of loaded inbox. 

7 ways AI organizes your email inbox 

Let us look at the top 7 ways AI can help you increase your productivity by providing you with an effective method to organize your email inbox. 

  1. Focus on what matters the most
    • By incorporating an AI tool into your email inbox, incoming emails are automatically organized into different categories. The AI simply removes all the unimportant emails from your inbox and shows you only the most important ones. 

      This helps you to focus on the things that you need to get done while keeping all the other emails for a later time. Additionally, using an email project management tool will eliminate the need to check your emails repetitively. 
  1. Eliminate distractions 
    • How about having an email inbox where new emails keep pouring in all throughout the day? 

      Irritating, distracting, and what-not!

      With AI, you can overcome this challenge, which will help improve your email response time. You can create a separate folder where all your unimportant emails keep accumulating. This means you will be notified only for the important emails and for the rest of the unimportant emails, they will be delivered silently into a separate folder. 

      You can read those emails later on, or even have an automated assistant to take action as necessary. 
  1. Block unwanted spam emails 
    • A problem more severe than a distraction is emails that result in losses. Spam emails not only cause distractions but also waste your time and end up in financial loss.

      There are two important stats that highlight the importance of blocking spam emails! 

      As of 2021, more than 45.37% of emails were spam. Further more than 96% of phishing attempts were through emails. 

      By blocking spam emails, you are not only increasing your productivity but eventually protecting yourself from events that may result in loss. 
  1. Identify people at the right time 
    • This is where you need the advanced search option, but that is also simplified by using AI. 

      Basically, your email inbox consists of emails from numerous people. And guess what, you want to look for a specific email from a person years ago. This is where AI helps you providing you with an advanced search option that understands your requirements. 

      The integration of a talent assessment tool alongside AI-driven email management enhances your overall organizational productivity by aligning tasks with the right talents. This strategic approach ensures that your team operates at its full potential, ultimately contributing to a more streamlined and efficient workflow.

      Further, AI tools help you to remember people from any designation and location, who are specifically wanted at that particular time and are great prospects for client onboarding
  1. Store attachments in the cloud 
    • Emails coming with attachments use up a bulk of your storage. Cloud storage helps you in lowering the use of physical storage, but also makes the documents available for remote access from multiple locations. 

      By automating this process with AI, attachments are uploaded to the cloud storage automatically. Further, those attachments are sorted and available for quick access remotely. 
  1. Email-free time
    • Ever imagined that you could just use the DnD (Do not disturb) functionality in emails? 

      Well, with AI you have the ability to do that as well! You could set up time zones where notifications and all other alerts are hidden. 

      You can use this time peacefully to focus on critical tasks or simply lower your screen time. Further, you can even automate responses during this time period to make the sender aware of your email-free time zone. 
  1. Find emails with ease
    • AI not only just hides unimportant emails from your visibility, but also organizes incoming emails in separate categories. 

      By efficiently separating emails into different categories, AI helps you find the right emails you need with ease. This saves time and helps you to work seamlessly. 

Conclusion 

Artificial Intelligence is clearly the way ahead when it comes to managing and organizing your email inbox. The seven steps mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. AI for organizing emails plays a key role in boosting overall productivity by helping you focus on critical tasks. 

SaneBox provides you with the perfect solution to solve every issue related to email overload. This is just like hiring a hyperactive and intelligent assistant who completes a major chunk of your work without your interference and constant monitoring. 

Author Bio: 

Vartika Kashyap

Vartika Kashyap, CMO at ProofHub, is a renowned B2B SaaS marketer with 17+ years of experience. She’s a prolific writer with 200+ articles on productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Vartika is a three-time LinkedIn Top Voice recipient and a thought leader in people management. Her work is featured on various top-tier publication platforms such as Muck Rack, Medium, eLearning Industry,  Business2Community, DZone, Social Media Today, G2., and TweakYourBiz.