Create a Sequence

Sequences replicate manual sales processes and automates the right touch points, at the right time, so sales reps never forget to follow up and always get looped in when it's time to take action.

This article will focus on the process of creating a new Sequence from start-to-finish.

Prerequisites:

• Connect at least one (1) mailbox
• Imported Prospects (Contact List via CSV, CRM List, etc).

Important notes and recommendations: 

• The ability to create and edit sequences will vary based on user permissions. If you don't see a specific sequence in the Sequence Manager, it's most likely due to a lack of access permission or a sequence may be set to Private instead of Shared. Please check with the account owner for more information about your user role and access.
• Sequences are built using individual action steps to mirror a sales process flow. Sequences can contain as many steps as necessary to create the appropriate sales process, but we recommend at least 8 steps to maximize the reach and response.
• Leadfwd best practices strongly discourage editing sequences that have actively enrolled and touched contacts. This can easily lead to unintended consequences when the timeline of actions abruptly changes. It's recommended that you pause the Sequence, clone it and then make adjustments to the new version.
• We strongly recommend that you set a daily limit for new enrollments. The daily limit will restrict the volume of new contacts that start 'Working' in a Sequence. Without a daily limit you can easily overload a Sequence with too many contacts, which can cause delays for follow up steps. Mailboxes can reach their daily sending limit before follow up email steps are processed. When those limits are reached, contacts will be moved to a pending status until the mailbox(es) daily sending limit resets. With a daily enrollment limit enabled, a Sequence will only move a specific number of contacts into a 'Working' status. When properly set, this throttling will allow sending resources to be proportionally shared with follow up email, instead of the first email step consuming all of the available sending capacity.

Get started with Sequences

• Create a new Sequence
• Clone an existing Sequence
• Sequence Configuration
• Build your Sequence
• Add Sub-Steps
• Set a Sequence Schedule
• Timed Delays / Pauses
• Enroll Contacts

Create a new Sequence

From the Sequence Manager, click the Add Sequence button in the top right.

Clone an existing Sequence

From the Sequence Manager, scroll to the existing sequence that you wish to clone and click the clone button from the Manage column.

Step 1. Define your Sequence configuration

Each sequence can contain unique rules and settings to define how your sequence will function.

Step 2. Build your Sequence

Once your basic settings are configured for your Sequence, the next step is to begin building the step-by-step flow that will engage your contacts. A Sequence can be viewed as timeline of events, which organizes specific outbound touch points (like sending emails or connecting on LinkedIn) on specific days. Contacts are enrolled in a Sequence and they're automatically moved through each step, day-by-day (based on your defined schedule) until they respond.

1. To begin scroll down to the Sequence Steps view and click Create first step
2. That will open the Action Step drawer with a list of available step actions to select.

Sequences support multiple channels and offer several action types, including: Email, SMS, Manual Tasks, LinkedIn Auto-Tasks, Ringless Voicemail, Reminders, CRM Tasks, Assign CRM Owner, Webhooks and Transfer and/or End Sequence. 

Add Sub-steps

Sequence steps are triggered according to the schedule you define. Only one sequence step will be actioned at a time for an individual contact, based on your schedule. Sub-steps enable you to combine and trigger multiple actions for a single contact, without requiring multiple windows in your schedule for the same day.

• Sub-steps are still separated by individual time delays that are triggered after the parent step is completed. 
• Sub-steps must completed before a contact can be queued up for the next parent step. In the example above, the next parent step is Step 3.
• Sub-steps can be created after any parent step, simply by clicking the Add Sub-step icon

You can continue building your Sequence step-by-step by clicking on Add another step.

Step 3. Set your Sequence Schedule

Sequences run automatically in the background and trigger your action steps based on a schedule that you configure. 

The schedule creates the baseline for when each enrolled contact will be transitioned and actioned in their next step in your Sequence. 

An exception to the schedule is that you can set your Sequence to process Step 1 for a contact immediately when they're enrolled. 

Only one step (plus sub-steps) will be processed per contact, per scheduled touchpoint window. 

Timed Delay / Pause

While the schedule controls the available days and times for when steps can be triggered for contacts, the overall Sequence can be configured with time delays that reduce the frequency of your touch points. 

Time delays will overrule the schedule and skip actions for a contact until the time delay expires. When a time delay expires the contact automatically becomes eligible for their next step, at the soonest point determined by the schedule. 

Step 4. Enroll Contacts to your Sequence

Once you've completed adding your steps and configuring your schedule, you can add contacts to engage with your Sequence.

Contacts originate from lists and segments that you've imported to your Accounts & Contacts in Leadfwd. You can also enroll individual contacts, simply by typing their name or email address. 

Tags

Enrolling based on tag assignment is a seamless approach to automating engagement. Tags represent 'groups' of contacts that you've either tagged manually or automatically. When you choose to enroll Tags, the Sequence will constantly monitor for tag assignments and enroll contacts when a specific tag is assigned to their record.