How to Create the Perfect Email Sequence (with templates!)

What is an email sequence?

When reaching out to new prospects or new clients, staying in touch with them is usually an important aspect of the sales process. Being the first one your ideal customers think of when they need your services is a difficult task with all of the competition. If they are seeing your name and company repeatedly, however, it’s much easier to remember you.

An email sequence is a series of emails or messages, typically in the B2B space, that you send to prospects over a short-ish period of time and is usually repeatable. For example: After speaking with any prospect for the first time, you follow up with them 1-2 days later. If they don’t respond, send another message. If they still don’t respond within a couple of days, you may try to reach out to them on LinkedIn. If there is still no response, you may try an email again.

These days you can fortunately (or unfortunately) include a number of different methods and places you can use. While this gives you options, it makes it a bit more difficult to know when and where people are actually interacting with your messages.

Thus, creating a sequence of messages that reaches them in a number of different platforms and ways is your best chance of reaching the right contacts no matter where they are online. With LaGrowthMachine, you can create a multi-channel flow that reaches out to your prospects in different places automatically.

Creating sequences like this for outreach can be very time-consuming if you do it manually. Having this sales automation tool will save you hours with less headache.

Why do you need email sequences for sales prospecting?

One of the most common aspects of sales prospecting is the sheer number of contacts. Having an email sequence that fits your sales process will allow you not only to automate some tasks but help you scale.

In other words, if you talk to 20 prospects in one day you won’t need to manually write an email to each one. You can create one message that covers the typical information and send it to them all.

Aside from saving you mental time in crafting a new email each time, it will save you physical time because you don’t need to customize every word for every email. That being said, if there was a specific part of your conversation you want to mention, that will go a long way.

Another benefit to creating email sequences is so that you can nurture leads as well as retain customers all with a few simple messages. Each message you send helps build trust and increase engagement.

They’ll not only be more likely to have a conversation with you, but purchase and refer simply by sending helpful communications. Learn how to create these beneficial sequences next.

How to perfect your email sequences

Over time, you’ll begin to see patterns within your messages, responses, and non-responses. Every aspect of your experience can help you learn more about what works best for you and your prospects.

The first step is creating a plan that will make the most sense for the people you’re contacting and why. Be sure to choose one type of list for each sequence you’re creating so that you can customize it as much as possible.

Evaluate each quarter how your messages are working. Are you getting a response from 1/10? 5/10? 0/50? Determine which style of email gets more responses and keep doing those.

No matter the success or failure, you can learn how to improve upon the process. Improving your email sequence will take time and discovery, but there are often proven general paths to take to help get you started.

Effectively converting your audience with your messages will take time as mentioned, but you can speed that process up with these starter templates. Depending on what your goal is, you can create an email sequence that matches it. Each email sequence you send to your list should be its own campaign with its own goals.

Quick Tip (block):

These templates will be on the more formal side as they’re more B2B focused, but feel free to edit based on your company’s policies, brand, and your personal touches.

Onboarding and welcome sequence 🤝

If no one’s told you yet, your customer interaction should not stop with the sale!

Continuing the conversation is vital to retaining customers, especially when there’s a lot of competition in your market. Use this email sequence to maintain interactions with your customers and keep them around long-term.

Email 1: Day 1

Email 2: Day 2

Email 3: Day 3

The goal with onboarding emails is simply to keep your name and company in their minds. There’s no need to sell too much unless you’ve got a new feature that fits with their current scenario. Spending time on customer retention will benefit you in the long run because people will refer you and come back for more services.

Lead nurturing 💅

This email sequence will be for those you have interacted with in some manner. You can use these templates to stay in touch with your prospects afterward. The focus for this type of email is typically for those who are 2-3 out of 5 in your leads list based on your lead scoring. In other words, for those who were a bit interested but not quite ready.

Keep in mind that these should be sent in a relatively slow manner. You can set these up to run automatically every 2-3 days; ideally based on whether or not they’ve replied, scheduled, or spoken with you already.

This sequence can extend for as long as you like, technically, but generally after 4 emails without a response means they’re not interested or will reach out if/when they are ready. Don’t spend much of your limited time with this group, but make sure you’re top of mind when they do move forward.

Email 1:

Email 2: Focus on providing valuable content in this email. Send them information that gives them confidence in you, your product or service, and your company.

Email 3:

Increase engagement sequence 💬

The whole point of emailing or direct messaging people is to get their attention in a place where they’re not distracted by social media, ads, or other articles. You have their undivided attention if you can get them to open and respond to your email.

Here, you’ll find some ways you can do just that.

Email 1: New trial for accountants like you

Email 2: This email should focus on something specific that matters to them. Ideally, you’ll separate out your list to focus on one pain point per industry, location, or job title. Take the following example and customize it to each type of email you’re sending to make a bigger impact.

Conversion sequence 🤑

If you’re looking to create your own converting email sequence — which is generally recommended to at least customize it — then you’ll want to include elements that make you and your company unique. Describe what you’re doing in a personable and relatable way so that they can read it without feeling sold to.

This is especially important with B2B sales because they’re likely sold to much more than direct consumers. It’s important to remember, though, that they need to feel like a person, not a company. You can also use the following templates to help you develop your own personalized way of converting customers.

Email 1: Day 3 after call

Email 2: Day 4 after call. The key to this one is actual numbers, truthful results, and a customer name if possible.

Email 3: Alternative to email 1

The ‘abandoned’/retargeting sequence 🎯

The idea for this email sequence is often used by marketers in a different (usually automated) way. However, as a salesperson you can also use the idea to re-engage with old contacts.

All it means is that you’re reaching out to people who you’ve had contact with in the past because they were interested. It can serve as either a last resort to clear out the truly uninterested, or as a means to reignite the interest they had when you last spoke with them.

A great way to set this up is also to automate your emails as much as possible by:

• Segmenting your list to those you haven’t spoken to in at least 6 months.
• Creating an email that gently checks in but asks for their engagement somehow — generally by scheduling a new call.
• Using LaGrowthMachine or another automation service to reach out with the least amount of time spent.
• Sit back and let them come to you!

You’ll want this email to remind them what you do, perhaps even why you do it, who it’s for, and what it generally does. This will make their lives easier in remembering what you spoke about and if they might be ready for it now. Try something like this:

The next step would be a good opportunity to both ask if they’re no longer interested as well as asking for a referral who might be. In this case, try something like this:

Regardless of what you choose to discuss with them, be sure it’s a gentle reminder of what you do, including what you’re contacting them about. Being upfront in your emails will be to your advantage in the long run because they won’t feel tricked.

Storytelling sequence

This email sequence I unfortunately can’t give you an easy template for. However, it might be the most used no matter what industry you’re in because it tends to be the most successful.

Writing a successful storytelling email needs to come from an experience. It should have an “Intriguing beginning, a riveting middle, and a satisfying end.” It would be ideal to have 3-4 different stories in order to capture the attention of varying types of people with varying needs. If not, one long story split into a couple of emails is also an option.

Regardless of which you choose, be sure to capture their attention from the start with an interesting fact that keeps them wanting to read on. The more they read, the more they should be able to understand if your product could be for them, too.

Prospect like a pro

Choosing the right email sequences completely depends upon who your audience is and what you’re trying to accomplish. Using an automation tool like LaGrowthMachine will set you up for success without the headache.

In helping over 4,000 companies perform successful campaigns, LGM supports sales teams in saving up to 40% of their tasks by using our automation system. We provide a solution for you to save time, reduce stress, and have a consistent flow of leads.

Just start by separating out your list by who will get one type versus another, be sure they don’t get too many emails, and follow up to see what’s working and what’s not. Once you have set up the automated processes, you can make edits with ease while increasing engagement and sales.