7 Sales Email Sequence Examples to Help You Close More Deals

You’re hot on the trail of a juicy lead, so you send them an email packed with useful info. Everything they could ever want to know about your company and product. 

Then, you wait to hear back. 

And wait, and wait, and…

Nothing. 

Crickets.

What could possibly have gone wrong? 

Well, for a start, one-off emails alone are very unlikely to get a response. These days, competing for a prospect’s valuable time and attention takes a well-organized military-style campaign involving multiple channels and exquisite timing. 

Fortunately, sales email sequence tools make it easy for you to put one together.  

At Mixmax, we sell to salespeople, so we know exactly what you need. We asked our reps to share their secrets about how to write sales email sequences and achieve your goals faster. 

Kind folk that they are, they even threw in some sales email sequence examples you can steal. 

Let’s get started. 

Creating the perfect email sequence for your sales process and goals is a highly personal matter, and takes practice. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach but we recommend the following to get you started:  

• Define your situation and goals, and choose the right sequence to achieve them. You won’t get far trying to use a prospecting sequence to upsell to an existing customer, for example. 
  
  
• Define your buyer persona and customize the sequence to them. Do your research to find out their specific challenges and preferred channels.  
  
  
• Define the problem you’re trying to solve for them. Again, prior research will allow you to be confident you have the cure for their pain before you get in touch. 
  
  
• Determine the right sequence length, number, and frequency of touches for your sales cycle. B2C ecommerce is likely to be shorter, less personalized, and more intense than B2B SaaS, for example. 
  
  
• Vary your value proposition and information delivered with each touch. Nobody needs more “just checking in” emails clogging up their inbox. Add value every time you reach out, dispensed in bite-sized portions per touch.  
  
  
• Don’t skimp on calls and voicemail either. “Think about how many emails you get in a day vs how many voicemails,” says Daniel Kleinowski, Business Development Manager at Dairy.com, “It’s easy to get lost in the inbox but if you’re calling and leaving voicemails it certainly helps.” 
  
  
• Work those enhancements, baby. Use a sales engagement platform like Mixmax that includes one-click meetings, polls & surveys, calls to action, and more to break up the monotony of all that text and make it easier for prospects to respond.  
  
  
• Once you’ve got someone’s attention, consider removing them from fixed sequences and designing custom ones that are heavier on phone and LinkedIn than email. Remember to also give your reps the freedom to tweak sequences according to what they find works for them. 
  
  
• Track campaign performance. Never settle for what you’ve got and always be trying to improve. It takes time and trial and error to find the approach that works best for your prospects. Define your objectives in advance so you can assess whether your email sequence software tools are helping you achieve them. Finally, keep it simple and stick to testing two sequences at a time rather than overcomplicating things. 
  
  

Again, what makes your prospects bite will depend on their specific needs but, as a rule, you’ll get better results if you:  

• Make it personal. The point of sales automation tools is to free you up to spend more time personalizing interactions, so use it. Sales engagement solutions like Mixmax come packed with customizable email templates and integrate with your CRM and prospecting tools, making it easy to tailor communications to your persona, their industry, role, and challenges. The more relevant you are, the more engaging, authoritative, and authentic you appear. 
  
  
• Go multi-channel and mix it up, which also helps you seem more human. Instead of email, think about whether you can get your point across with a call, video, GIF, or simple 125 word email. You also want to vary the type of touches by persona. For example, adding in more personal touches using phone or LinkedIn for high-level decision-makers.
  
  
• Hook them with a killer subject line that’s short, eye-catching, and promises value so they’d be crazy not to open it.
  
  
• Provide value right upfront. You’ve got to give to get back, so don’t ask for their time until you’ve given them a reason to trust you.
  
  
• All killer, no filler. Get to the point or go home. Ideally, before they have to scroll down, which is especially important on phone.
  
  
• Mind your language... and your formatting. Nobody expects you to be a copywriting wizard right off the bat, but there’s no faster way to ruin a first impression than poor grammar and untidy formatting. No need to be excessively formal though; just keep it natural and about them by using language like “you/your company” more than “I/we.” 
  
  
• Include calls to action. Give them something to do every time, whether it’s to download content, book a meeting, sign up for a trial, etc.
  
  
• Include social proof if it’s a thing in your industry or you need to establish trust. So, known customers, referrals, testimonials, case studies, certifications, etc.

Sequences in Mixmax

Here are a few of our go-to formulas for sequence success right across the pipeline. 

How you space out touches in each will depend on your persona, goals, and sales cycle.

As a rule, every three business days is good for cold B2B prospecting but you can be more in their face in the run-up to signing a deal or if you know they’re actively researching your solution.

1. Cold prospecting

SDRs can adapt this multi-channel sequence to different personas and verticals to convert cold outreach into opportunities. The goal here is to get that first meeting on your AE’s calendar and turn cold prospects into sizzling hot leads.

A mix of calls and emails every other day, interspersed with some LinkedIn in the middle, works well here. You don’t want to overwhelm prospects with touches every day, but neither do you want to spread them too thin.

• Day 1. 
• Kick off with an email showing you understand their industry, nailing their pain points and introducing yourself and your company, and stating how you can help them. Include social proof if necessary.
• Touch 2. Send a LinkedIn connection request to put a face to the name.

• Day 3:
• Touch 1: Follow up with a phone call.
• Touch 2. Follow up with an email.

• Day 6.
• Touch 1: Manual email task to insert in-email calendar availability
• Touch 2: Hit LinkedIn again to message them or even better engage with their posts. Kyle Coleman gives you all the reasons why you should do it.

• Day 8. Time for another email, this time with a video testimonial from one of your biggest fans, aka your best customer.

• Day 10. Follow up with a phone call. Leave a message if they don’t pick up.

• Day 14. Email them a video demonstrating a key feature of your product and how it can benefit their business.

Example:

Hi [FIRST NAME],

Sometimes seeing what we do is better than explaining what Mixmax does, so check it out.

Below you'll see a rep updating Salesforce, right from Gmail!

 

You can also make calls, search/connect/message on LinkedIn, manage tasks, and a ton more. Could this improve your reps' workflows? Let's talk if so!

Appreciate it,

[SENDER SIGNATURE]

• Day 17.
• Touch 1. Engage on LinkedIn again.
• Touch 2. Give them a call.
• Day 20. Email them with a video of your product and request a meeting. If you’ve dangled enough juicy carrots throughout this sequence, they should be keen to talk by now.
• Day 24. For total non-responders (happens to the best of us), send one final email with a poll asking if they want to continue to hear from you. If not, politely thank them for their time and leave it there. For now.

If you’re using Mixmax (and why wouldn’t you be?), you can set up workflow automation rules that will now trigger sending the prospect to a nurture sequence, assuming your prospecting was successful.

Related post:How to Improve Your Cold Calling Scripts

2. Re-engagement

Timing, as they say, is everything, and SDRs and AEs can use this sequence in multiple scenarios to revitalize a prospective deal, whether they got zero previous engagement or it just wasn’t the right time for the prospect.

The good news here is that you can take a more laid-back approach than with cold prospecting. You should already know their pain points and understand their operational structure, company procedures, and processes, so use those to build out your sequences.

Reengagement sequences can be triggered automatically after a decent interval following the end of the prospecting. The one below is designed to start two weeks after things went cold. It’s heavy on email and social but you can adapt on the fly and add-in calls if they’re biting. Have a mix of proprietary and third-party content on hand to establish credibility and trust, and keep emails brief; no need to bombard them with information.

• Day 13 (after last contact). Email to thank them for any previous engagement. Don’t forget to provide some sort of value.

• Day 26.
• Touch 1. Send an email with value-added content.

• • Touch 2. Engage with their content and/or connect with them on LinkedIn.
    
    

• Day 39.
• Touch 1. Email them with value-added content.

• • Touch 2. Engage on LinkedIn.

• Day 52. Follow up with another email including value-packed content. 

3. Inbound contact (not sales-ready) follow-up

These sequences come into play for SDRs and AEs in various opt-in scenarios So, when new subscribers are added to your email list, download content, fill in a form, etc. Because they reached out to you, these sequences are often short. For example, as few as 4-6 touches with an alternating mix of call and email over 7-10 days.

This particular sequence is designed to court leads who signed up for a webinar. Touches should be spaced out during the run-up to the event according to how long there is to go.

• Day 1. First, the basics: Send a confirmation email thanking them for registering. Share the agenda, and useful content for them to promote on social media.

• Day 2. 
• Touch 1. Send an email addressing their pain points and how your solution can solve them.

• • Touch 2. Follow-up with a LinkedIn connection request.

• Day 3.

• • Touch 1. Email them with an event reminder, and useful resources designed to address their poll answer.
  • Touch 2. Follow up with a call.

• Day 4. Send them a tempting offer, like a free trial, consultation, resources, etc., via email.

For example:

• Day 6. Send out a post-webinar thank-you email. Include a CTA for those wanting to learn more about your product.

With a sequence like this, if you don’t manage to get them in the pipeline, put them on the back burner and revisit the contact after a decent interval.

4. Nurture

If you are running a gift campaign to get meetings with selected prospects, this is a sequence your AEs could use to stay connected and deliver value as the prospect moves through the funnel from awareness to consideration to decision. Once they’re engaged, this should prove to be a high-performing sequence, as long as you’re selective about whom you drop in there. 

The goal here is to educate them about your product, build trust and develop a relationship rather than push for a sale. Keep emails short; there’s no need to flood them with information. A solid content library of proprietary and third-party content like whitepapers, case studies, comparison guides, etc. will help establish authority and overcome objections. Ideally, space this sequence to 2 months before their renewal date or to the point when they said it would make more sense to explore this opportunity.

• Day 1.
  • Touch 1. Intro/discovery call with a prospect.
  • Touch 2. Thank you email
• Day 3. Email. Send an email addressing their pain points and sharing educational content, like an e-book. At this stage, it’s all about showing you get them.

• Day 5.
  Touch 1. Follow up with a call. Leave a voicemail if they don’t answer.
  Touch 2. Request to connect on LinkedIn (that can be sent directly from your email if you are using Mixmax).
  
  
• Day 7. Email. Send an email showing how to get the most out of the resource you shared, or helpful tips to solve their main challenge.

• Day 10. Follow up with a call.
• Day 12. Email them with a video showing how your product can solve another of their key challenges.

• Day 15. Follow up with a call.
• Day 17. Email them with a free consultation offer or a special promotion, and a link to book a time.

• Day 19. Send out an email poll asking if they want to continue hearing from you.

5. Reinvigorating sequence

You can’t win ‘em all, so sequences like these allow AEs to play a long game using a mix of automated email and LinkedIn to slowly but surely breathe life back into a lost or cold deal. You can bring them into play whenever a prospect signs with a competitor (as in this example) or delays a decision for several months.

• Day 1. Show how mature you are in defeat by emailing them to say thanks for having considered you. Make the most of the touch by including a survey link to get feedback you can use to tailor future approaches.

• Day 38. Wait a while and email to ask them how things are going with your competitor. It’s long enough that you don’t look pushy but not so long they’ve forgotten you ever existed.

• Day 38. Wait a while and email to ask them how things are going with your competitor. It’s long enough that you don’t look pushy but not so long they’ve forgotten you ever existed.

For example:

• Day 44. Engage with them on LinkedIn.
• Day 52. Send an email with value-added content, like news of a new feature, upgrade, or publication you just released.

• Day 58. Follow up with a call.
• Day 61. Email them with value-added content.

• Day 74. LinkedIn engagement.
• Day 85. Send an email with value-added content. 

• Day 100. Email them to find out if they still want to hear from you. Include a calendar link and/or call to action in case they do.

6. Onboarding emails

Onboarding sequences can be used by different sales reps to streamline sign-up or convert a trial into a customer, as in this example designed to run over a week-long trial.

• Day 1.
• Touch 1. Send a “here to help” email introducing yourself as their point of contact and including a poll to find out why they’re trialing your product.

• Touch 2. If your prospect is qualified and in this case answers Yes! In the poll, a Mixmax rule will be triggered and they will automatically receive another automatic email with a CTA to book a call with a sales rep.

• Day 3.
  • Touch 1. Email them with a poll to find out which features brought them to your product and a link to book a time to discuss their needs.

• • Touch 2. Connect with them on LinkedIn.
    
    
• Day 7. Email them with a GIF or Vidyard video demonstrating some useful product features and a link to book a full product demo.

For example:

• Day 9. Follow up with a call
• Day 14. Crunch time: At the end of the trial, send out an email with a survey link to see how it went. Include some proprietary content with tips to solve specific challenges going forward so they take away value whatever the outcome.

7. Expansion

Sales opportunities don’t end when you seal the deal, so these sequences can be used to boost retention by reminding the AE to check in regularly with their customer and leveraging upselling or cross-selling opportunities.

This killer cross-sell sequence is designed to get more teams in your customer’s company using your product so you can jump straight in there. However, if you’re targeting an existing user, never open by trying to sell them something. Always check first to see how things are going and deal with any issues they’re having before you try and hit them up for a bigger commitment.

• Day 1.
• Touch 1. Email them with a case study showing how current teams are successfully using your product.
• Touch 2. Connect with them on LinkedIn.

Example email:

• Day 2. Call and leave a voicemail.
• Day 4.
• Touch 1. Another call, but no voicemail this time.
• Touch 2. Send a follow-up email with a poll.

• Day 5. Engage them on LinkedIn.
• Day 9.
  • Touch 1. Email them with a Vidyard video demonstrating the product features they could most benefit from.
  • Touch 2. Follow up with a call. Leave a voicemail.

• Day 12. Email to ask which other teams in the company could benefit. Include a one-click poll to make it easy to answer

So there you have it, some highly customizable sales email sequences and templates you can use to take a more structured, effective approach to building pipeline and moving buyers through it. 

Remember, though, that it takes more than templates to ensure success. Automation like this gives you back selling time, but it’s up to you to do your homework and leverage data-driven insights to personalize every interaction for best results. 

Get off to a good start by investing in a sales engagement platform that fits your sales processes and your teams’ roles and needs. In our humble (and only a teeny bit biased) opinion, fast-growing sales teams using Gmail can’t go wrong with Mixmax. It comes with a powerful rules engine, customizable email sequences, and templates, and a bunch of time-saving enhancements to reduce friction and increase the chances of getting a response.

From first contact to sealing the deal and keeping them coming back for more, we’ve got you covered.