Design Sales Cadences to Systematize and Personalize your Best Messaging Across your Entire Sales Team
- Navigate to Sequences in the left-hand main navigation menu and click the + New Sequence button in the upper-right corner
- Choose to build a new sequence from scratch, clone an existing sequence, or use one of the helpful prebuilt sequences templates Apollo provides. For this walkthrough, we will create a new sequence from scratch. If you choose to clone an existing sequence or to use a prebuilt sequence, you will have many of the next steps already complete.
- You will see a modal that has all the options for setting up your sequence
- Name - Set a name for your sequence
- Schedule - Choose the hours and days your sequence will send in. Learn more about schedules here.
- Permissions - Set which teammates can access this sequence. Learn more about permissions here.
- Sequence Ruleset - A set of rules that the sequence will use. You can leave this blank to use the default ruleset. Learn more about sequence rulesets here.
- Folder - Choose a folder to organize your sequence in.
- Sequence Type - Allows you to choose the sending style of your sequence. As of now, the "Steps by day interval" is the only correctly functioning option. Please do not use the "Steps by exact date/time" option unless you have received training from your CSM.
- Tags - Add tags to your sequence to allow for improved search-ability in your sequences list.
- Add - Click here once you've finished to create the sequence!
Define and Activate the Steps in your Sequence
1. Click +Add Step in the middle of your new Sequence's page
2. Select the Step Type (automatic or manual email, phone call, or task) you want to add and the number of Minutes, Hours, or Days you want to Wait For it to be automatically triggered after the previous step, or, in the case of the first step, since the contact was added to the sequence. There is also an advanced option to limit the number of emails sent from this step per 24 hours - use this if you want to limit the number of emails that this sequence step would take up from your mailbox send limit. Click the +Add button to save the step and start editing the email or task.
Note: For your first Step, you can set your wait time to 0, but we recommend at least a few minutes to allow for last-minute checking and editing before it is sent out to your Contacts once you've activated the completed Sequence.
3. Edit Template: In the Type field, "New Thread" means the email's subject line will be brand new and the email will appear in your recipients' inboxes as a new message. Where applicable, "Reply to Previous" will be added to the email thread with the format "RE: ...." and show the body content of the previous email in your Sequence. Customize your message for your target audience. Note you cannot start a sequence with a "Reply to Previous Thread" Type message.
You can use the other icons at the bottom of your email composer to save your current message as a new template (as detailed here), load any email templates you've previously saved in Apollo, attach files, upload images, insert links, edit the raw HTML of your email, and/or format your text.
Check out the preview of your messages in the right-hand pane as you go, and Send a Test Email to yourself to proofread exactly what your customers will see.
Pro Tip: Utilize Snippets - Click Available Snippets to see examples of data fields you can use to auto-populate parts of your emails and subject lines with customer- and company-specific attributes. For example, {{first_name}} will insert the real first name of any customer you have on-file if you send them an email using that snippet.
Click Save Changes.
For a much more advanced walkthrough of the email editor, check out this doc!
4. Repeat #1-3 above to add as many Steps (of any many types) as you like to your Sequence.
Pro Tip: Minimum number of Steps - Industry data shows that Sequences of at least 5-8 Steps are most effective in most cases, but of course cater each one you make to your desired customer outcome and keep in mind that even interested buyers will often not reply until you've engaged them a number of times.
Pro Tip: A/B Testing - If you create multiple email templates for a single email Step, they become versions of that email which will be A/B tested against each other (by being sent to sub-sets of the customers that enter that Step). Be sure to flip on the blue switch to the left of each email template you want to be active when you turn on the Sequence itself. Learn more about A/B testing in this article!
5. After reviewing your complete Sequence, be sure to turn on the master blue switch at the top-right corner. You can also come back to this step after you add Contacts to your Sequence (#5 and #6 here can be done in whichever order you prefer).
6. Add Contacts to your sequence with the dropdown in the top right
Prospect Searcher - Opens the prospect searcher and allows you to apply filters and add them from the resulting lists.
Upload CSV - Upload a CSV of contacts directly into the sequence. Learn more about uploading CSV of contacts here.
Note you can also add contacts into sequences from several other places, like from the People page or when prospecting.
Congrats, you've officially created and activated a Sequence! Return to your Sequence page any time you'd like to pause it, view its statistics, update any Steps and/or Email Templates within it, turn on and off specific templates you're A/B testing, and/or edit, archive, or delete entire Steps as you see what's working best engaging your Contacts.
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