Marketing automations and drip sequences

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Two ways to automate

Automations do the follow-up for you: send the welcome email when someone joins a list, nudge people who did not open, move engaged contacts onto a different list. Marketing has two tools, both under Workflow:

  • Drip Sequences: a simple list of steps (send an email, wait, send another). The quickest way to build a welcome series or a course delivered by email.
  • Automations: a visual flow builder for journeys that branch, for example "if they clicked, add them to the hot leads list; if not, send a reminder in three days".

Start with a drip sequence. Move to the visual builder when you need branches.

Build a drip sequence

  1. Go to Marketing, Workflow, Drip Sequences and choose New Automation.
  2. Give it an Automation Name, such as "Welcome email sequence", and an optional description.
  3. Pick a Trigger, the event that enrols someone:
    • Added to Mailing List: choose a list, or Any list.
    • Tag Added: enter the tag, for example vip.
    • Form Submitted: when someone fills in a lead capture form.
    • Trial Started or Trial Ended (with how many days before the trial ends).
    • Manual Enrolment: you add people yourself.
  4. Choose Create Automation, then add steps in order. Step types are Send Email, Wait / Delay (in minutes, hours or days), Condition, Tag, Add to List, Remove from List, Goal and Exit.
  5. For each Send Email step, pick the email template to send. See Marketing email templates.
  6. Switch the automation on when you are ready. Use Enrol to add someone by hand, which is also a good way to test it on yourself.

A classic welcome series:

  1. Send Email: "Welcome, here is what to expect".
  2. Wait 2 days.
  3. Send Email: "Our most useful guide".
  4. Wait 4 days.
  5. Send Email: "How we can help, book a call".

Build a visual automation

  1. Go to Marketing, Workflow, Automations.
  2. Either pick one of the Journey presets to start with a ready-made flow, or create a new automation with a Name and Description and choose Create + open builder.
  3. In the builder, start with a trigger, then connect actions, waits and conditions. Only marketing triggers and actions appear in the palette:
    • Triggers include Form Submitted, Subscriber Added to List, Subscriber Unsubscribed, Campaign Sent, Email Opened, Link Clicked, Email Bounced and Social Post Published.
    • Actions include adding to or removing from a list, sending an email, scheduling a social post, updating a subscriber, attaching to a campaign and publishing a landing page.
    • Wait steps pause for a number of hours or days, and condition steps branch on a value, such as whether an email was opened.
  4. If you started from a preset, choose the email template for each send step.
  5. Save and switch the automation on.

Tips

  • Test on yourself first. Enrol your own address and check every email arrives at the right time with the right content.
  • Respect unsubscribes. Automation emails include an unsubscribe link, and people who unsubscribe leave the sequence.
  • Use a goal or exit step so people stop getting "book a call" emails once they have booked one.
  • Keep the gaps sensible. Two or three days between emails is a good starting point for most audiences.
  • Link automations to campaigns so their enrolments count in the campaign's results. See Running a campaign.

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