Nurture by email and book the next meeting months out

1. When the call ends without a sale

What it can add. Typically, on the low side, the boost from putting this in place is 25 percent, going up to 50 percent, where nothing like it is in place yet.

Book the next meeting anyway. Say a prospect does not want to buy today, and a follow-up two or three days away is not on the table either. Book the next meeting 60 or 90 days out; you can simply push it further back. Once they resurface in your pipeline, the reminder sequences run as usual, and testimonials go out as they would for anyone else. By then they might have moved into another buying cycle. Booking that next meeting is strongly recommended, even when it is a long way off.

Send what answers their objections. This is where the prospect lands in your pipeline, and it is where the rep sends testimonials and content relevant to the objections the prospect raised on the call. That is why call notes matter: the rep pulls them back up, sees what this person's issue was, and sends a testimonial and a piece of content that deal with it. Call notes, and a tagged list of your best proof to send from, are SOP 248 — Prep every call with notes and proof matched to the prospect.

The company, to everyone at once. Beside what each rep sends, the business itself keeps giving value to the whole list. That steady stream is email, and it is the rest of this page.

Booking the next meeting before a call ends, and the reminders that follow a booking, are SOP 89 — Run the seven-day follow-up cadence, sections 4 and 6. Working through the closes on the call itself is SOP 249 — Keep asking with the general closes, then book the next meeting.

2. Why email

The view here, held with no room for argument, is that email is the single highest-return platform there is. Some of you think what you need is more leads. What you really want is to make more money, ideally money with high profit in it, and that is where email points.

How much it can bring. For most businesses, if you send email and at least treat it seriously, the claim is that you should be able to get 25 percent of your revenue from email, sometimes 40, even 50. Getting 25 percent of revenue from email is, reportedly, kind of fairly normal; it is not a sign of doing email unusually well. Among e-commerce businesses, reportedly, sometimes half of their sales arrive through email follow-up. The view here is that e-commerce businesses are always at the leading edge of marketing, because such a business is marketing and nothing else.

It is free. Email costs nothing to send, so what it brings in drops straight to the bottom line.

Read the share against the rise. A share of revenue hides how big the rise is. If half your revenue comes from email, you have doubled your revenue by adding it: you had five, and email added another five.

You are probably sitting on it. You are probably missing a big opportunity, simply because email gets none of your attention. It need not be complicated. If more money is the goal and your customers get no email from you now, start emailing them. If the worry is that you will bother them, the answer here is to get over it.

3. Put an email together; do not write it

Break an email up into its parts. It makes the job far easier: treat it as assembling an email from pieces, not writing one from nothing, and the stress of it drops sharply.

Make a format. Make one; one practice uses the same one for every email. That format, in order:

1. Hook. A quote that has proven itself: one of real value, or of real interest.
2. Value. Something that matters to your reader and gets them where they want to go faster, more easily, or without risk.
3. A call to action.
4. A PS. A reason for them to come back next time.

That is all there is to it.

The big parts, taken one by one. Taken apart at more length, an email has five big parts, in this order: a subject line carried by the brand, an opener that rewards the open, getting to the value quickly, a call to action, and a PS. Sections 4 to 7 follow that order.

SOP 148 — Stabilize the business at one to four people, section 4, lists the parts of each email in its own terms, with a PS meant to get people used to clicking. Rewarding people so they come back, and the reputation that builds, is SOP 20 — Build the content unit — hook, retain, reward, section 5.

4. The subject line is a brand

One owner used to think the subject line held a lot of magic. The real magic is making your emails really good; do that, and your emails become a brand. In one example, that owner's newsletter has a name, and every issue aims to be unmistakably that newsletter, because anyone who liked the last one will like the next. Let the brand be what earns you the open. That is the advice here.

No tricks. Set the brand against the little tricks and hacks: a subject line saying you forgot something, or one that opens with "re:" as though the reader had written first. Over the long term, in the view here, the only thing that matters is whether the emails are good. So one owner decided to obsess over nothing except making the brand of those emails strong. Then people are rewarded for opening that particular kind of email. The subject line could be a string of random letters and it would make no difference, as long as good material came with those words.

Writing headlines that give people a reason to look is SOP 21.

5. The opener rewards the open

One view is to treat the opener as something owed to the reader for opening. In one example, an owner who posts a lot on X takes posts that did well and sit near the topic of the email, though they need not sit very near. Given the choice between a middling post that fits the topic and an excellent one that does not, that owner takes the excellent one and puts it at the top anyway, because that owner knows people like it. The first thing a reader meets is short and sweet, and they enjoy it.

Then that owner gets to the value as fast as possible.

6. One idea, told quickly

One structure. One owner builds emails to much the same pattern, one said to be used by a lot of businesses: why the reader is missing out on something; how it works; an example; a summary line; then the call to action and the PS (section 7).

One nugget. Emails are so small that giving value in them is easy: you have about five sentences, so give one nugget. Keep each email to one thing and add nothing more. Three points to make means three emails, never one email carrying all three.

Dull is the danger. In the view here, sending often and writing long are not what go wrong; being boring, or giving nothing of value, is. So the preference here is that you send less often than send weak emails, though you surely have good, valuable things to say.

7. The call to action and the PS

The call to action can be as light as an offer of more: if you want more like this, go here.

The PS is either another call to action or a reward. One owner uses memes a lot there, finding them funny. The comparison is the funnies in a newspaper, the short comic strips on the last pages. What is a big, established paper doing with them? The answer: people like them. People read the headlines, one or two articles, then turn to the funnies, and that is fine for these emails too, as long as readers stay subscribed and actually read through. People need a little lightness too.

8. How often, and the time it takes

Cadence. One owner sends three emails a week. You need one, and at least two are recommended. Two a week, it is said, would be eight emails.

Time. One owner's writing time is put at two hours every six weeks, and also at two hours a month (section 10); at two a week, eight emails are said to take you two hours. Whichever it is, what else do you do with your time that returns more? Even if it took you a whole day, would it not be worth it?

In SOP 148, section 4, the floor is one email a week to the whole list, and three a week, segmented, is called the best.

9. The simplest outline, and a sample's layout

The simplest outline.

1. A small, free email under a brand, one everyone knows as your newsletter.
2. A single opening line with something good about it, which you believe has been tested, or a hook that matters.
3. One specific piece of value. Do not get clever: a single thing, helping a single, specific person in a single way.
4. Then an offer of more like it, and where to go for it.
5. A PS: something funny, or another call to action.

A sample, in outline. One sample issue reads, from the top: the newsletter's name as the brand, a headline not billed as exciting, an opener taken from a widely shared post, a short explainer, a link as the call to action, and a meme in the PS.

9.1 A second format: one offer a week

One practice here adds a second email beside the newsletter: one offer, sent to the whole list once a week, with no end date. Its rules:

• Plain text. No graphics; the aim is to land in the inbox.
• The same plain subject line every week, naming the thing and where it is: your town's offer of the week, say. No clever subject lines; the reader should know at a glance what the email is.
• One thing in the spotlight: a deal, a client's result, a strategy, a product or a bundle, named for what it is (client of the week, strategy of the week). A discount is not required.
• Three to five bullets the reader can skim, and the price in bold.
• No pictures, no address and no links. The only way to learn more is to reply, and the single call to action asks for that: reply, and the details follow.
• Tell the truth. State the facts about the thing and let the reader judge.

The goal is a handful of conversations from each send, not clicks. On a big list most people are not ready this week; the few who are reply, and the rest are not put off, because another comes next week. In this view, a list sent one offer every week comes to accept a pitch every week, and these emails get very high open and reply rates and make more money than anything else. The newsletter keeps going alongside. Keeping the conversation going once someone replies is SOP 14.

10. What this page does not decide for you

• The writing time. Two hours every six weeks, or two hours a month: This page does not settle which reading is right.
• A newsletter, or an offer a week. Sections 4 to 7 have a branded newsletter earn the open, give one nugget of value in each email, and end on a light call to action, such as a link to more. Section 9.1's practice holds that nobody wakes up wanting a newsletter, keeps one going anyway, and sends a pitch every week that asks only for a reply, with no links. SOP 24, section 3, says keep giving until people ask what you sell, since asking for money in public slows growth. This page does not settle which reading is right.
• The boost. What the 25 to 50 percent in section 1 is measured on: Not established on this page.

11. The checklist

Step	What to do
1	If a prospect will not buy now or meet again soon, book the next meeting 60 or 90 days out
2	Once they resurface in your pipeline, keep the reminders and testimonials going as usual
3	From the call notes, send testimonials and content that answer the objections they raised
4	Have the business keep giving value to the whole list by email
5	Make one format and assemble each email from its parts
6	Let a strong, recognizable newsletter earn the open, not subject-line tricks
7	Open with something short and proven that the reader will like, then get to the value fast
8	Keep each email to one idea; more ideas mean more emails
9	End with a light call to action and a PS: another call to action, or something funny
10	At least two emails a week are recommended; one owner sends three; you need one
11	Beside the newsletter, one practice adds one offer a week: plain text, the same subject line, one thing, three to five bullets, no links, reply to learn more

12. What this page does not cover

Reminding existing customers to buy again, and the promotions that sit on top of that, are SOP 235 — Get customers to buy again: make it good, onboard, remind, sections 6 and 7; running a promotion is SOP 81 — Run a fast-cash campaign. Where to find topics to write about is SOP 22 — Source content topics. Writing at a reading level your reader can follow is SOP 31. Asking who still wants your emails, and removing those who do not answer, is SOP 278, sections 5 and 6.

Email software and list segmenting are not covered on this page.