Sequences: follow up until they reply or book

A sequence takes one person at a time through a few steps: an email, a wait, a call, a LinkedIn touch, a text, another email. It is for the follow-up a salesperson would otherwise do by hand, and it stops for each person the moment they reply or book a meeting.

1. Build it

Open Sequences in the sidebar and click New sequence. Name it, choose who it's for (usually Contacts) and what to start from: the Outbound cadence (an email, a call, a LinkedIn touch and a text, then a last email) or Emails only. Add steps with the buttons under the list:

• Email: a subject and a message, with merge tags. Leave Reply in the same thread ticked to send it as a reply to the one before. + Test a second version tries another wording; you choose how many get version A.
• Call: a call task for the record's owner, with talking points if you like. The task has the Call button on it, which rings the owner's phone first and then the contact.
• LinkedIn task: view their profile, send a connection request or a message, with what to say. The task links to their profile (the field is chosen at the top of the sequence; without one it opens a LinkedIn search for their name). Nothing is sent on LinkedIn for you: the owner does it and ticks the task off. With the browser extension, a profile is saved to Solstral in one press.
• Text: a text to the record's phone from your workspace number. It goes only to people who agreed to texts, outside quiet hours, with the opt-out line.
• Task: any other to-do for the record's owner.
• Wait: up to so many days before the next step.

Choose who the emails are from (the record owner's inbox or a shared sender), click Save, then Turn on.

2. Enrol people

On the People tab click Enroll people and pick records, a list or a saved view. You are told who was left out and why: no email address (when the sequence sends email), already in this sequence, opted out, emailed in the last few days, or emailed four times without replying. Tick Include people emailed recently, or four times without a reply to add those anyway; opted-out people can never be added.

When it stops for someone

• They reply to an email or a text. Every wait ends as soon as a reply arrives, and every email checks again before it goes. Automatic replies such as out-of-office don't count.
• They book a meeting through one of your booking pages (untick book a meeting at the top to keep them in).
• An email bounces. A hard bounce ends it straight away.
• You remove them on the People tab.
• It finishes after the last step.

Emails and texts also follow your contact policy: one due in someone's quiet hours or past a weekly cap waits until it can go, rather than being dropped. A sequence email never goes on a day a campaign reached the person (and a campaign waits a day for someone a sequence email reached today): the later one goes at the same time the next day.

The report

The Report tab counts who is in progress, replied, booked a meeting, bounced, finished or was stopped, and for each email how many got it and how many replied, per version.