Explode Your ROI With an Email Sequence Template

You could be just one email sequence template away from achieving your wildest dreams!

We’re about to show you how to use a tool that has generated 3600% ROI. According to Campaign Monitor, automated emails generate more than three times as much revenue as non-automated emails.

Combine this amazing firepower with time-saving email sequence templates, and you could multiply the reach and revenue of your newsletter tenfold. Let’s look at how to do it.

What is a Basic Email Sequence?

A basic email sequence is simply a series of pre-written emails. The sequence could announce a sale or a special event, such as a webinar.

But more often, an email sequence is automatically sent out to an individual when they take a specific action. For example, when they sign up for your newsletter or buy one of your products.

What is the Best Email Sequence Template?

Email sequence templates are designed to carry out a specific function. That’s why the best way to look at email sequence templates is to think about what you want them to do.

Are you selling a specific product or service? Are you trying to get more readers? Do you want people to sign up for an event? Do you want readers to subscribe to your premium newsletter?

A Few Examples of Email Sequence Templates

Welcome Email Sequence

One email sequence template that virtually everyone should have is the welcome email sequence. You’ll find an easy-to-use welcome email template here.

The welcome email sequence isn't just a way to make sure readers put you on their white list or acknowledge that you received their sign-up. It's a way to set expectations, and to make sure readers are looking forward to your next email.

Your welcome email sequence also sets the stage for all of the other email sequence templates that you may use.

Nurturing Email Sequence

If you are using your email newsletter primarily to gain new customers or clients, you will probably want to use a nurture email sequence template. A nurturing email sequence is designed to build rapport and a sense of connection between you and your readers.

A nurturing email sequence template might contain one or more sales emails near the end of the sequence, but that’s not the only goal. A good nurturing email sequence will lead to higher conversions far into the future, as well.

The nurture email sequence template might look something like this:

Email 1: Tell your story, share your philosophy, and talk about your mission.

Email 2-4: Give your reader some attention. Talk about their problems and interests. Ask for feedback via surveys or replies. Create all kinds of micro-engagements.

Email 5-6: Talk about your reader’s pain. This is the problem your business solves. Use vivid details to inspire fear, greed, frustration, and other strong emotions. You want your readers to feel worked up, and eager for a solution.

Email 7-10: Provide a solution to your reader’s pain in several ways. Offer free PDFs, checklists, and videos. Share your best tips. Provide enough information so readers can solve the problem themselves. Some of them will, but many of them will see that you’re the one to do it for them.

Email 11: Provide social proof in the form of a case study, testimonial, or customer story. Show readers how you solved the problems for this client.

Email 12-15: Sell your product, service, subscription, etc. Every sales email should have a different angle. Make a soft sell, then a hard one. Announce a deadline, or tell readers that you only have 17 spots left. Answer common objections in the form of FAQs. Provide 10 reasons NOT to buy your product.

Onboarding Email Sequence

Once you've made a sale (and this could include getting someone to subscribe to a premium version of your newsletter), you may want to use an onboarding email sequence template.

The onboarding email sequence is meant to give readers a “quick start guide” to the product or service they just paid for and to help them feel good about the purchase.

This email sequence should start with any information the buyer needs right away, such as passwords and login credentials, or how to download important resources.

Next, reiterate the pain or problem that caused them to buy from you in the first place.

Another purpose of the onboarding email sequence is to highlight the core features and functions of your product. Make sure buyers get the most out of their purchase so they will continue to use it in the future, renew their subscription, buy future products and services from you, and refer you to others.

The onboarding sequence could also teach best practices for using your product, provide answers to FAQs, show how others have benefited with testimonials and case studies, and if appropriate, offer the next steps the reader should take.

Re-engagement Email Sequence

Sometimes, you will have people who have not opened your email for a long time or have not bought from you after receiving the entire nurturing email sequence. Eventually, you may want to “resurrect” inactive subscribers with a re-engagement email sequence.

A typical re-engagement email sequence may look like this:

Email 1: Remind the reader what you stand for.

Talk about your mission, who you serve, and why. If this doesn’t resonate with them, then it may be better if they’re not on your list.

Segue into mentioning “We noticed you haven’t been opening our emails lately.”

Then offer a “soft ultimatum”: If you want to keep receiving (insert something valuable about your newsletter), then just click the button below. But if you don’t want to hear from us again, we will remove you from our list in three days and you don’t have to do anything.

Email 2: Ask for feedback

This email will accomplish two things. First, it shows you care about the reader and want to do better. Second, it gets them actively involved in your newsletter again.

Tell the reader you want to know how you can improve. Give them a very short survey, or ask them to reply or leave a comment.

Email 3: Show them how extraordinary you are

In this email, share your best, most popular, highest-value content. Remind the reader why they subscribed in the first place.

Email 4: Invite them to take action

If they’re still on board after the last three emails, then congratulations! You haven’t broken up after all. Now it’s time to see if you can get more commitment.

If you have a Facebook group you want the reader to join, a social media account to follow, a task for them to do, or something they can buy, this email is the place to make the ask.

Other Email Sequence Templates

A few other common email sequence templates include an upsell sequence to increase the size of a purchase, a stick campaign that is similar to onboarding, and an email sequence to announce a recurring sale or special event.

It would take too long to detail all of these sequences, but here’s a general pattern:

Email 1: Show the reader why you are uniquely relevant to them

Email 2: Provide value

Email 3: Provide more value and invite the reader to take action

Email 4: Invite the reader to take action

Email 5: Provide more value and invite the reader to take action

Email 6: Provide more value and offer reasons the reader should take action

How Do You Write an Email Sequence?

As we have seen, what goes into an email sequence depends on who it is for and the action you want them to take.

If you have a common task in mind, you can save a lot of work by leaning on an email sequence template. But if you need to write your email sequence from scratch, here’s a basic strategy.

First, think about how and why your reader triggered the email sequence. How do they feel? What will attract their attention? What’s the best way to convince them to take the action you want?

After you’ve pondered these questions, brainstorm several email ideas.

Finally, write an email sequence based on your ideas. Only use one idea in each email.

How Many Emails Should Be in a Sequence?

There’s no general rule about how many emails you should send. It all depends on your readers and what you want to achieve with your email sequence.

A good rule of thumb is to send the emails in your sequence slightly more frequently then your readers are used to normally getting emails from you.

For example, if you have a weekly newsletter and you want to send a nurturing email sequence, send one or two emails per week in the sequence.

If you’re using the sequence to promote a product you’re going to launch in six weeks, and readers expect an email a week, then you could probably get away with six to eight emails in the sequence.

Of course, there are exceptions. Often a welcome or onboarding sequence will involve a lot more emails than you normally send. Also, a sales email sequence with a short deadline might involve many emails in a short time period.

If the emails in your sequence are going out at an unusually high frequency, tell your readers that the number of emails they are getting will taper off in a week or two. Most readers will understand.

How Do You Write an Email Sequence in Outlook?

You can schedule an email to be sent at a later date in Outlook. If you schedule several of these emails, you now have an email sequence.

However, there are many flaws and limitations to this tactic.

For instance, you cannot automatically send the sequence to individuals based on their actions. If someone signs up for your newsletter today, you will have to send them the welcome email sequence manually.

That’s not a big problem, but when someone else signs up for your email tomorrow, you will have to manually set them up to receive the welcome email sequence again.

If you plan to grow your list beyond a dozen readers, this chore quickly becomes unmanageable. You will spend hours copying and scheduling emails whenever you get a new sign-up.

Worse still, sending emails this way can hurt your deliverability. A lot of these emails will end up in spam folders.

Instead, we strongly recommend you use a solid email platform like beehiiv.

Putting Your Email Sequence Template to Work

Writing a strong email sequence using an email sequence template is just a part of your job.

You need sign-up forms to get readers in the first place. You need to make sure your email sequence doesn’t end up in the spam folder, as we mentioned above.

We highly recommend you use beehiiv to get the most from your email sequence template.

In addition to being one of the most intuitive editing platforms you can find, beehiiv also provides segmenting tools so the right email sequence goes to the right reader. We give you analytical tools so you can make sure your email sequence is being read.

You’ll even get a custom, SEO-optimized website to promote your business and grow faster.

If you’re determined to squeeze every drop of value out of your email sequences, start a beehiiv newsletter today.