152: How to Convert More Meetings From Email

Welcome back to the Practical Prospecting newsletter!

Most teams spend all their energy on getting the reply and basically zero on what happens after that. A positive reply sits in an inbox for hours, gets one follow up, and then everyone wonders why interested prospects never book.

So in this newsletter, I’m breaking down our complete system for how we convert the most amount of email replies to meetings.

Agenda:

1. The end-to-end workflow

2. The four buckets every reply falls into

3. What happens in the first 10 minutes

4. The cross-channel touch

5. What to do when they don't book

Quick heads up if you’re in the San Francisco area (or will be toward the end of September).

I’ll be attending the ApolloNext event at the SFJAZZ Center on September 30th and would love to meet y’all!

Main reason I’m going is they’re going to have GTM operators from companies like Uber and Figma sharing and building real outbound plays - live on stage.

I negotiated $49 tickets for my audience. If you want to attend, just use code “NEXT26-JEDMAH-49”

Check it out here!

The end-to-end workflow

Here’s a diagram of our end to end workflow for what happens AFTER we get an email reply (thanks, Claude Design).

Step 1: Every reply gets sorted into one of four buckets

Every reply, whether it comes from email or LinkedIn, flows into Clay, which reads it and categorizes it into one of four buckets:

(1) Positive. 

They're interested or asking a question. This kicks off the full sequence in Step 2.

(2) Negative with no context. 

A hard no. We archive it and suppress from follow-up. Don't be the person who follows up on "please remove me."

(3) Negative or neutral with context. 

"We already use [competitor]" or "check back in a few months." This is not a dead lead.

It goes into a nurture campaign timed to whatever they said. If they said Q1, they hear from us in Q1. And if they didn’t give us a time, then we follow up with them in 90 days.

(4) Referral, OOO, or "no longer here." 

This is the bucket everyone throws away, and it's free pipeline. If the reply points to someone else or the person left the company, Clay finds the new contact's email automatically and pushes them into a dedicated referral campaign.

Most teams handle bucket one and ignore the rest. Buckets three and four are where tons of pipeline comes from over time.

Step 2: The first 10 minutes

When a reply lands in the positive bucket, two things happen automatically before any human touches it.

First, Clay enriches the lead with a direct phone number.

Then a Slack alert fires that tags the rep with everything they need in one message: the phone number, the lead's details, the actual reply, and a link back to the conversation in Smartlead or HeyReach.

The rep does two things immediately: calls the lead then replies to the email.

The call is the part people push back on, but it's also the part that converts. Think about the moment: this person just told you they're interested (or asked a question), and you're calling while your email is still at the top of their inbox. That's the closest thing to inbound speed-to-lead that cold outbound will ever produce.

Side note:

For some of our clients, we use Underfive.ai (not sponsored) to automate follow up. We usually only use this when (a) reply volume is super high and (b) the replies tend to be the same every time so you’re less concerned about the AI ‘messing up’ the response.

Step 3: The cross-channel touch

At the same time as the Slack alert, we trigger a second touch on whichever channel the reply didn't come from.

If the positive reply came through email, HeyReach sends a LinkedIn connection request with this note: "Thanks for the email reply, just wanted to connect here and put a face to the name."

If the reply came through LinkedIn, they get an email instead.

It's a small thing, but it changes how the prospect perceives you. One channel is a rep working a sequence. Two channels feels like a real person. And practically, it means when they go quiet later, you have two open threads to bump instead of one.

Step 4: When they don't book right away

Most positive replies don't turn into a booked meeting on the first exchange. That's why people leave SO many meetings on the table by not following up more than once.

If the lead doesn't book, they get pushed into a Smartlead “subsequence”: 3 to 4 automated follow-up emails, plus 3 to 4 more calls from the rep, until they book or clearly opt out.

All follow up emails are super short and to the point. They might share a resource but ultimately, they’re just designed to get that person to book.

The "not now" replies from bucket three run on their own track, re-engaged on whatever timeline the lead actually stated.

We’ve also been using salesmessage.com (again, not sponsored) to send text follow ups. Our SDR has been booking roughly a meeting or two a week from text follow ups alone. At first I was skeptical, but now I highly recommend it if you truly want to squeeze the most juice out of your replies.

Thanks for reading,

Jed