Key Takeaways
- Why a follow-up sequence could be your make or break for conversations
- What a follow up sequence is
- How to build a successful follow-up sequence and customize properly
- Common mistakes/things to avoid
- How to contact a team for specialized help with creating a successful follow-up sequence
Introduction: What Is a Follow Up Sequence?
An email follow-up sequence are arguably the most important points of contact with leads. According to Optinmonster, over 80% of people open welcome emails and companies using multi-step automation workflows report 1.9x higher campaign ROI (SQmagazine).
Your website acts as your 24/7 salesperson. It uses great content, trust signals, and compelling offers to build credibility, ultimately convincing visitors to trust your brand and share their email by filling out a form.
The Follow-up sequence is immediately triggered — a customized string of emails sent within the first minutes of a visitor joining the email list, segmented by behavior and persona.
The goal of this sequence is to stay in front of your customers reminding them of the pain they have that led them to reach out and the value of your solution wrapped in your irresistible offer.
Consider this — they likely filled out your form for 1 of 3 reasons: requesting a time to meet, accessing gated content and events, or signing up for a trial/ demo. Your email sequence needs to be related to the reason they reached out.
Email campaigns are crucial, when segmented properly these sequences have been proven to generate 77% ROI and up to a 50% increase in conversion rate; seen in recent studies run by Campaign Monitor.
So how do you properly segment your follow-up sequence?
Customization is Key
In order to customize your emails, you need to be able to segment your audiences that have given you permission to reach out to them. This starts by 1st knowing your ICP. Then you need to have customized CTA’s and forms that capture not only the customers data, but their intent — by pulling in the URL and CTA they engaged with.
The best way to track CTA and form data is with UTM codes and hidden form fields that can pull in additional data from that user’s experience.
Every CTA on your site should map to its own campaign; whether it’s requesting a meeting, accessing gated content, signing up for an event, requesting a demo, or starting a free trial.
Each of these CTAs needs an active segment list in your CRM so new contacts are automatically added based on the form they submitted and the page they submitted it on. Clear segmentation also makes it easier to measure performance and run targeted follow-ups.
In HubSpot, you simply create a campaign for the CTA, then create the form tied to that CTA. Next, build an Active List using criteria like and optionally filter by submission page. You can then connect the list to nurturing workflows or sales alerts and then repeat the process for each CTA to keep your funnel consistent and fully trackable!
Now that you have segments, you can start customizing your sequences off of your segments. AKA if your subscriber met you at a webinar they would have a different series of welcome messages than someone who was on a specific service page when they signed up.
General Outline for a Follow-up Sequence
Each email sequence should be centered around one goal. What is the next step you are trying to get this customer to take: convert from a trial to a paid customer, set up a consultation meeting, go to an event, etc etc.
Again, these must cater towards the needs of your clients, but we will give you a generalized outline of how these sequences should function. Let’s take a 6+ part sequence as our example:
Email 1: Welcome and Value Offer
This is where you’ll touch base, thanking them for reaching out and acknowledging why they reached out, often offering some additional value in relation to why they reached out in the first place. If the email is not tied to an irresistible offer (I/O), say just a gated piece of content, you may want to tie this back to an I/O, maybe driving them to your trial or for a free consultation.
Email 2: Acknowledge their Needs/Problem
The second email is still a relationship builder and a reminder touching on the original pain point or interest they first signed up with.
Here even the subject line/ preview title should remind them of why they originally signed up for your list, and bring them back.
Email 3: Social Proof and Trust
Here you will want to introduce your social proof and build your trust. This can be done by sharing a concise case study or testimonial from a relevant client, focusing on tangible outcomes (e.g., ROI, time saved), with a gentle call-to-action to learn more.
This could also be done by sharing links to press releases about your brand or product, or talking about your many 5-star 3rd party ratings etc.
Email 4: Continue building social proof, w/ Selling point
The difference between this email of social proof and the last, is that this one should be focused on the pain point that the person originally signed up over, or if N/A here you would share success stories related to your I/O (irresistible offer).
Email 5: Direct Invitation / CTA
Here you’ll want to reiterate how you can help with their core goal. Also, offer a clear, low-commitment meeting request (e.g., a 15-minute call), include a calendar link for easy scheduling, and make sure to acknowledge their busy schedule!
Email 6: Hard sell
This is your last email before the subscriber is put on your general ICP bucket drip sequence.
Whether or not they sign up for the invitation from Email 5, providing the hard sell will be important. If they didn’t sign up in the previous email, here is where you’ll want to give all you got for expressing why they should sign up with you.
If you already had a meeting with them reiterating your hard sell here will ensure that their desire to work with you is solidified.
Email 7 and onwards: Move to a general ICP bucket drip sequence
Email follow-up sequences vary in length and consistency based on your site, services and offerings, as well as based on your clients.
Maybe you are ready to cultivate your email sequence, but not sure how to successfully cater it to your needs and your client’s needs… start curating your follow-up sequence!
Common Mistakes That Kill Conversions
Even well-meaning marketers fall into patterns that kill performance. Watch out for these pitfalls:
- Not responding fast enough. Lack of speed kills leads!
- B2B doesn’t mean boring; clarity and humor almost always win.
- Not testing subject lines, CTAs, and timing regularly. The best flows evolve with your data.
- Being too generic. Everyone is a unique snowflake and should be treated as such.
- Not having a clear goal for your sequence, if you are not driving them to the next step, most people won’t take it.
Remember, your leads aren’t just evaluating your product, they’re evaluating how you communicate and each message either builds confidence with them or erodes it!
Conclusion
The real goal of a welcome series isn’t to close a deal on day one, but rather to start a relationship that makes a deal inevitable.
A great welcome email sequence moves a subscriber from passive awareness to active curiosity. They start seeing you as a valuable resource, not just a vendor, so that when it’s time to make a decision, your brand is already top of mind.
When done right, your subscribers don’t just open your emails, they look forward to them. And that’s where conversion starts: not with the sell, but with the sense that your brand actually gets them.
If you’re ready to elevate your email strategy, Estes Media can help you build automated flows that do more than deliver, they connect, convert, and retain.
Let’s talk about building your next email strategy: estesmedia.com/schedule-a-free-consultation!
