Overview
Sequences are outreach campaigns that sales teams use to reach out to contacts over a planned period of time, with sequential touchpoints like phone calls, emails, social media engagement, and other tasks. On Apollo, you can customize each step in a sequence to engage your target contacts and help your sales teams speed prospects through your pipeline.
After you hone in on your ideal customer profile, use sequences to enroll your highest priority leads into tailored, automated, multichannel sales campaigns that help you start meaningful conversations and set up meetings to convert prospects into customers as efficiently as possible.
Each sequence step may be composed of individual emails or activities that you want your team to complete to successfully engage. Here's an example sequence for tier 1 prospects, where automated touchpoints are minimal:
Day 1
| Manual email | A hyper-personalized manual is a good strategy to begin outreach. Check out Apollo's book Outbound Sales for tips on cold emailing. |
| LinkedIn — Interact with post | By liking a contact's LinkedIn posts, you gain familiarity with your name. |
Day 4
| Dialer | Give your contact a call, and if they don't answer, leave a voicemail that references your email or LinkedIn message. |
| LinkedIn — Connection request | Send a connection request on LinkedIn with the goal to keep your name top of mind. |
Day 7
| Automated email | A single automated reply to your original email helps resurface the value props you shared. Check out Apollo's book Outbound Sales for tips on cold emailing. |
Day 10
| Action item | Use an action item task a reminder to send a handwritten note or gift. This brings something tangible to your multichannel outreach. |
Day 23
| Manual email | After you've sent a gift or note, give it a few weeks to resonate, then send another manual email referencing the gift with more personalization to make it sing. |
Day 25
| Dialer | Give it your last best shot with a final call and voicemail. |
In this example sequence, hyper-personalized messages are key. Your own sequences may differ significantly, but no matter how they look, by standardizing your pipeline you can ensure your sales reps better manage outreach.
Get your hands on Apollo's free ebook Outbound Sales for more sequence tips and tricks.
Check out the following sections to learn how to set up and use sequences for success, and discover answers to some frequently asked questions.
Get Started
To get started:
- Create a sequence: Customize your sequence with the steps, email templates, and timing intervals that you prefer. You can create automatic and manual email, phone call, action item, and LinkedIn tasks sequence steps.
Need some inspiration? Check out these sample sequences from Apollo's Academy:
You can create multiple sequences to match the type of prospect you’re targeting or the type of outreach, inbound or outbound, you’re employing.
- Use email A/B tests: Implement A/B testing on automated email steps to determine which messaging works best for your target contacts.
- Manage sequence rulesets: Create a sequence ruleset to protect you from sending emails to the wrong people, and manage triggers and automations based on how prospects interact with the outreach.
- Configure sequence sending schedules: Use sequence schedules to control the day and time that you send emails, and to avoid holiday messaging.
- Add contacts to a sequence: With your sequence created, add contacts to the sequence to begin outreach. Apollo moves contacts through the sequence, prioritizing them based on their prospect score and the rules, triggers, and automations you created. Need some help finding sequence contacts? Check out Use Apollo to Find New Customers.
- Report on sequences: Use email tracking statistics, sequence diagnostics, and analytics dashboards to gain powerful insights into your sequences and audiences. Determine which sequences perform the best and remedy low performing sequences.
Ready to roll? Get started with sequences on Apollo!
FAQs
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Frequently asked questions |
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| What happens if a contact replies midway through the sequence? | Which email address sends sequence emails? | How do I resume sending messages to a bounced contact in a sequence? |
| Can I email a contact in the middle of a sequence? | What happens if a contact is in enrolled in multiple sequences? | How are contacts prioritized in a sequence? |
| How do I share a sequence I created? | How do I know which contacts are in a sequence? | Does an out-of-office reply pause a contact in a sequence? |
What happens if a contact replies midway through the sequence?
Use sequence rulesets to define what happens when a contact replies in a sequence. You can choose to stop sending messages to the contact or keep them enrolled in the sequence outreach.
Which email address sends sequence emails?
When you add contacts to a sequence, you determine which mailbox sends any emails in the sequence to the contacts. It's possible to rotate mailboxes so messages are dispersed through multiple email addresses. To determine which email address is sending messages to a specific contact, navigate to Sequences and select your sequence, then click Contacts. Click any contact to see sequence email details, including which mailbox is sending emails to the contact.
How do I resume sending messages to a bounced contact in a sequence?
If a contact doesn't receive your message, Apollo sets their sequence status to bounced.
If you have a high bounce rate, typically more than 10%, across many of your sequences, you may have a domain reputation issue.
However, if your bounce rate is below 10%, it's possible the bounce is the result of the contact's information. To resume sending emails to the bounced contact, first review and correct their email address:
- Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
- Select your sequence, then click Bounced.
- Click the bounced contact's name, then click Contact overview.
- Hover over the email address, and select Edit to update the email address.
- Next, navigate to Sequences and select your sequence.
- Click Bounced and click ... beside the contact you just updated.
- Click Retry undelivered email.
If the contact information is accurate, Apollo will deliver the email and resume the sequence for this contact.
Can I email a contact in the middle of a sequence?
Yes, you can always reach out to a contact individually outside of a sequence. Just navigate to the contact profile, then select to email or call them directly. If the contact remains in the sequence, they'll also receive any messaging configured in the sequence. You can always pause or remove a contact from a sequence to avoid sending them too many emails.
What happens if a contact is in enrolled in multiple sequences?
When you add contacts to a sequence, Apollo will flag if any of those contacts already exist in other sequences. You can choose whether to continue adding the contacts. If a contact is enrolled in multiple sequences despite this warning, the contact will receive messaging from all the sequences they're enrolled in. Check out How Do I Avoid Adding the Same Contact to Multiple Sequences to learn more.
How are contacts prioritized in a sequence?
Apollo prioritizes contacts in a sequence based on their prospect score. Contacts with a higher score are more likely to be a good fit for your outreach, and they will move through the sequence ahead of contacts with lower scores.
How do I share a sequence I created?
You can share the sequences you create with other members of your team or with your entire organization.
- Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
- Select a sequence.
- Click Share.
- Select whether to share the sequence with your entire organization or specific teams or users.
Learn more about sharing sequences on Apollo.
How do I know which contacts are in a sequence?
You can check which contacts are in a sequence from a sequence or from the people hub.
From a sequence
- Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
- Select your sequence, then click Contacts.
- Apollo lists all the contacts in your sequence. Click Show filters to search for a specific contact or use filters to narrow your results.
From the people hub
- Launch Apollo and click People.
- Click Show filters > Sequence. Use the sequence filter to narrow your results to people in one or more sequences.
Does an out-of-office reply pause a contact in a sequence?
If you send a message to a contact that has set up an out-of-office auto-reply, Apollo pauses the contact in the sequence. Apollo can automatically resume messaging the contact if the contact specifies the return date in their out-of-office email. If Apollo can't detect a return date, you can manually resume messaging a paused contact.
When Apollo identifies an out-of-office message, Apollo pauses the contact and doesn't count the OOO message as replied.
Apollo can detect auto-response messages in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Swedish, and Dutch.
To identify when Apollo has paused a contact in a sequence:
- Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
- Select your sequence, and click Contacts.
- Click Show filters, then click Sequence Status.
- Set the status to Paused, then select Auto resume date scheduled or Auto resume date not scheduled to filter your contacts:
- Auto resume date scheduled: Hover over the Paused status on a contact to view the auto resume date.
- Auto resume date not scheduled: Hover over the Paused status for more details. Select one or more contacts to manually resume them in the sequence.
Can't find those filters? These filters only appear as options on your sequence if Apollo has detected an out-of-office reply from one of your contacts.
Was an out-of-office reply not detected? Reach out to Apollo support to share the message and let us know.