You can set up an email sequence to engage leads (prospects) and contacts by automatically sending them emails at intervals. A sequence is a series of actions that specify how and when sales reps contact new leads and contacts.
Sequence emails are created using a template. This mean you need to specify a number of suitable email templates to send to leads or contacts before setting up an email sequence.
To set up email sequences in Sell, you need admin rights.
Related articles:
Creating a sequence
To use a sequence, you need to specify the frequency of contact and the steps involved, including the type of correspondence (for example automated email or steps in a task). You can also name each task in the steps of the sequence. It could be something specific (for example: Call Contact, Send Follow Up Email, or Connect on LinkedIn) or it could be something as generic as Research Lead.
For the steps that have tasks, the sequence automatically progresses to the next step when the task for the previous step has been marked as completed.
To set up a sequence
- On the sidebar in Sell, click Settings (), then click Business Rules > Sequences.
You'll see all of your existing sequences that you have configured.
- Click Add sequence.
- Give your new lead or contact sequence a name.
Note: Use a meaningful name as this will be used by sales reps to find the correct sequence, when they add leads and contacts.
- Read the preset rules for sending out emails in the sequence:
- Any user can enroll leads and contacts into a sequence.
- Emails are sent to leads and contacts on behalf of the user who enrolled them.
- Emails are sent on weekdays (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday), and weekends (Saturday and Sunday) are ignored.
- When a lead or contact replies to an email, or a lead is converted to a contact, the sequence stops and the lead or contact does not receive any more emails.
- Click Add step.
Your automated emails will be sent in the order that you define them in your steps (although you can reorder the steps before you save the sequence).
- Choose the email template that you want to use for this step, or create a new template.
- Specify when you want the email to be delivered.
For the first step, you may want to send the email immediately, so the email is sent as soon as a lead or contact is enrolled in the sequence. If this is a follow-up step, specify a wait time.
The first step doesn't have to happen immediately upon enrollment as it depends on the sequence. The first action starts immediately, when the lead or contact is enrolled in a sequence, then the next step goes out precisely at the cadence that you've set it to. For example, if it is set to go out one day after, then the second step will go out 24 hours after the first one.Note: The wait time for a task is specified in weekdays (Monday to Friday), because weekends (Saturday and Sunday) are ignored when calculating the wait time. You can also set the time, in hours, for tasks in a step to be completed, or to send an email. - (Optional add an unsubscribe link to emails) To avoid your email being labelled as spam, it's good practice to include an unsubscribe link in any automated communication, such as email sequences. Including an unsubscribe link is also required by law in some jurisdictions. To include an unsubscribe link:
- Select the checkbox for Add an unsubscribe link to all emails in this sequence.
- Click the Unsubscribe link language dropdown menu and choose the language you want to use for the unsubscribe message.
The unsubscribe link will be added, in the selected language, to the bottom of each email sent in a sequence.
Note: It's good practice to only allow your users to click the unsubscribe link in an email, otherwise it may lead to unsubscribing your leads or contacts.When an email recipient clicks Unsubscribe, they'll see an unsubscribe confirmation and will be excluded from any ongoing and future sequences. To avoid sending unwanted email messages, if you accidentally add the recipient to a sequence or try to send them an email, you'll be notified that the recipient has unsubscribed. You can check when a given recipient unsubscribed by hovering your cursor over the unsubscribe icon next to the recipient's email.
- To ensure all information is correct, preview the email template that will be sent in a step.
Note: Shared email templates are available for everyone in your team to use, also for one-off emails. You can share a template by editing it (see Setting up a shared email template in Sell).
- Click Add step to include another step, and repeat the process for each step in your sequence. For follow-up steps, you can choose if you want the email to be sent as a reply to the previous step or to start a new email thread.
You can also add a task as a step at any point and define when the task is due (for example, after the previous step has been completed). To change the sequence order, drag and drop the steps.
- Click Save sequence to save your sequence.
You'll see your new sequence on the Reach - sequences page, including information about the number of steps in the sequence, any enrolled leads or contacts, and the creator of the sequence.
After you've created an email sequence, any Sell user in your account can use it to engage with their leads or contacts (see Sending an email sequence to leads and contacts in Sell).
Monitoring sequence usage
To get the most out of sequence workflows, you can view usage and performance statistics for each sequence.
To view sequence statistics
- Click Settings (), then click Business Rules > Sequences.
On the Reach - sequences page, you'll see all of the existing lead and contact sequences you've configured.
- Click the name of the sequence you want to edit to open it.
You can see usage statistics for that sequence:
- Active: How many leads or contacts are currently active in the sequence.
- Completed: How many leads or contacts have already completed the sequence.
- Reply rate: What percentage of leads or contacts, who completed the sequence, replied to any of the sequence emails. To see the exact sum of the leads or contacts who replied, hover your cursor over the reply rate.
Changing a sequence
You can edit an existing sequence if you need to change some of the details.
To edit or change a sequence
- Click Settings (), then go to Business Rules > Sequences.
The Reach - sequences page, lists all of the existing lead and contact sequences that you've configured.
- Click the name of the sequence you want to edit to open it.
If the sequence is in use (it has active leads or contacts enrolled in the sequence) then you'll receive a warning specifying the number of leads that'll be affected if you edit the sequence. As a Sell admin, if you don't want existing leads or contacts to be affected by changes in a sequence, you must create a new sequence. When you edit the sequence, any enrolled leads or contacts will follow the changes from after the next step (the step after the one that is scheduled).
- From the lead sequence editing page you can:
- Change the sequence name: Click the sequence name to change it. This doesn't affect the sequenced leads and contacts.
- Reorder the email sequence steps: Drag and drop the steps to change their order.
- Add a step: Click Add step to add a new step to the sequence, specify an email template, and time delay for the step.
- Change a step: Click Edit on a specific step to open the dialog to change the email template and time delay for the step.
- Remove a step: Click Edit on a specific step and click Delete to remove the step.
Any new leads or contacts that start the sequence after your changes have been applied will follow the new email sequence. All active leads and contacts that had started the sequence before your edits were applied, will continue the existing sequence without your changes being applied to them.
Note: Changes you make to email template content are immediately applied to all sequences in which the edited template is used. - Click Save to keep your edited email sequence.
You'll see your edited sequence on the Reach - sequences page, including information about the number of steps, and the creator of the sequence.
Deleting a sequence
You can delete a sequence from the Reach - sequences page. When you delete a sequence, it is permanently removed.
To delete a sequence
- Click Settings (), then go to Business Rules > Sequences.
On the Reach - sequences page, you'll see all of the existing lead and contact sequences that you have configured.
- Click Trashcan () to delete the sequence.
If the sequence is currently in use (that is, it has active leads or contacts enrolled in the sequence), you'll see a warning specifying the number of leads or contacts that will be affected if you proceed to delete the sequence. If you delete the sequence, it is deleted immediately and the enrolled leads or contacts will not receive any new emails as part of that sequence.
- Click Delete to confirm.
Your sequence is permanently deleted and no longer appears on the Reach - sequences page.
16 comments
Paul Garcia
Dropping out of a nurture sequence shouldn't be automatic. While I may still be communicating with a lead or contact directly, I wouldn't want the standard nurture messages to stop just because the lead replied to a message. Maybe they wanted something explained, but that shouldn't cancel the next several messages bringing them to an educated buyer state they would otherwise have gotten if they stayed in the sequence.
2
Bryan Wilson
I'm sorry if this is posted somewhere else. Is there any chance of sequences coming for deals or contacts as well? We have long sales cycles and would like to be able to set a deal up with a sequence at specific stages to ensure the prospect is getting the appropriate follow ups, especially if reps get busy and forget to do it.
9
Nick Wurm
+1 @... we also have a long sales cycle and sequences for deals or contacts would be a huge help to our sales reps and business development reps.
4
Ryo Ogochi
Is there any way to duplicate/copy a sequence? Creating sequences is quite a task.
2
Owner
It would be nice if this feature was also available for deals.
4
Nate Brown
Hi there!
Ryo-
While you can reuse email templates included in older sequences, I'm afraid there is no way to duplicate an entire sequence in Sell! For now, you will need to arrange the existing templates you'd like to use in the new sequence and save the new sequence.
Ranya-
As for duplicating deals, you can take a look at using our "Clone Deals" App, available on our App marketplace! Here is a link to the app and a link on installing and using the app:
https://www.zendesk.com/apps/sell/clone-deal/
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048059873-Installing-and-using-the-Clone-Deal-app
Otherwise, you can always export the deal(s) you would like duplicated, and reimport them with a new name to create a new copy!
Thanks,
Nate
Nate Brown
Customer Advocate | Zendesk Sell CRM
Visit our Support Center - Email us at support@zendesk.com - Call us at +1 888 670 4887 Mon-Fri 8am-5pm PT
0
Ola Z
Hi,
do you know if this feature will be also awailable for contacts and deals? nor only for leads ?
2
Mike Englebrecht
Would love to know if this feature will become available for Deals & Contacts?
1
DJ Buenavista Jr.
Hi Mike and Aleksandra,
Thank you for reaching out to Zendesk Support.
In regards to your concern, this feature is only available for Leads only. Since this is a Reach add-on, the following is only for Leads at the moment.
I would however encourage you to upvote this post from our Community page, (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360051286454-Need-the-ability-to-send-an-email-sequence-to-contacts) asking for this feature to be added for Contacts and Deals.
Thank you and have a wonderful day ahead!
Kind regards,
DJ Buenavista Jr. |
Customer Advocacy Specialist | Support@Zendesk.com
0
Owner
I was previously of the opinion that email sequences were needed for contacts and deals, however, I no longer believe that to be the case i.e. the concept of applying such sequences is flawed unless you can add triggers and conditions e.g. a fixed sequence would not make sense unless it was based upon individual stages, however, it does makes sense at the lead level because leads do not sit within pipeline stages.
1
Paul Garcia
A use case for sequences with contacts could be a new customer orientation or onboarding series. Yes, triggers would be helpful, but would likely all need to be based on custom data since there's very little in standard Sell fields that would serve as a logical trigger.
1
Mike Englebrecht
Similar to Paul Garcia's use case - we would use in two ways: for orientation & onboarding series based on an onboarding "pipeline" in Sell - and, one step further - for ongoing customer success communications based on various user-based success "pipelines" in Sell. Changes in states of certain elements within the pipeline and the user record - and eventually on user usage metrics communicated from our SaaS to Sell - would result in different messages being sent for different contacts (for different reasons/purposes). I would love to be able to map these out and automate, natively. I'm sure it's a big ask tho. Conversely there are a number of other apps we are considering using to accomplish, along with either Zapier or Automate.io. One of the main goals of the overall project is as little "code" and as much "low or no code" as possible. #rambling. :-)
2
Paul Garcia
@Mike, we map those conditional automations into our email marketing tool instead of CRM, since most CRMs don't like to be in the emailing business, especially when it is triggered by metrics that the CRM won't track. But for things that are straight templated series, it is convenient to have Sell do some things.
1
Mike Englebrecht
@Paul i hear you, that's the route going to go as well. TY!!!!
0
Owner
There are a number of considerations, one being that you cannot send large volumes of emails from Sell. Another being whether you want the email logged in CRM or you want to report 'days since last communication'.
If your volumes are small, you could get the benefit of having the emails logged against the contact record by creating an email sequence using Zaps and based upon 'days since last communication' and the added benefit of sequences for deals.
An email sequence via an external email marketing tool would not suffice if you have more than one sequence for deal pipeline stages. In this case, maybe only zaps to SMS would be viable.
If your requirement is for contacts only, and deals have not been assigned, maybe you could keep them as leads or you could zap them into another pipeline as leads?
I.e. I only say this because I expect, an email sequence with automation at the deal level would take some time for Sell to release.
0
Jakub Konik
Hi @..., @..., @..., @..., @... and @... I wanted to let you know that it's now possible to add contacts to sequences. For now it's a simple reflection of lead sequences on contacts.
It's not yet possible to add deals to sequences, but it's possible to add any contact to a sequence, so if there's a contact associated with a deal you could add such a contact to a sequence via this contact's page.
Do you have any needs or use cases that you'd like to be able to fulfil via sequences that are not yet possible? We are collecting feedback for the next round of sequencing improvements and it's a great moment to share your needs :)
0