Key takeaways
- Each email needs its own reason to exist. "Just bumping this" is not a reason.
- Keep emails short enough to read on a phone without scrolling much.
- Personalize the first line from real research, not from a mail-merge field.
What to do
- Email 1, day 1: the reason. One specific observation about their business, the problem it points to, and a small question. No feature list.
- Email 2, day 3 or 4: the nudge. Two or three sentences replying to your own thread, restating the question in a new way.
- Email 3, day 7 or 8: a new angle. A result, a short example or a different problem you solve. Give them a second way in.
- Email 4, day 12 to 14: the close. Say this is your last note, leave the door open, and make it easy to say "not now".
What to know
Longer sequences mostly add complaints. If four relevant emails get no response, the list or the message is the issue, and a fifth email rarely fixes either.
The legal basics for US senders: identify yourself truthfully, use an honest subject line, include a physical postal address and honor opt-outs promptly. Other regions have stricter consent rules. This is general information, not legal advice.
Buzzlist writes a four-email sequence per person, using research on their company, and shows the reason behind each email so you can edit before anything is sent from your own email tool.
