Planning on emailing prospects but don’t know when to click send? There’s no exact answer to this question—no exact day or time.
So, instead of guessing, let your prospects do the work for you. This is possible with the help of email sequencing.
It’s a dynamic and automated strategy based on prospect behavior. You can use it to nurture leads, engage prospects from inbound sales, and even onboard.
All you need is the right email sequencing software. But with a multitude of options to choose from, which tool fits your organization best? We’re here to help! In this guide, we’ll cover:
- What is an Email Sequencing Software?
- The best email sequencing software options this 2023
- Why email sequencing is essential for every business
- How many emails should you include in each sequence?
- How to choose the right sequencing software
What is an Email Sequencing Software?
Email sequencing software automates entire email nurture sequences based on customer behavior. Suppose a prospect visited your site and downloaded a real estate lead gen eBook.
But your sales team missed that notification and only saw it a week later and rushed to send an email. Chances are, that prospect already forgot all about your site.
Remember, we want to stay top-of-mind. Email sequencing provides just that. With the right sequencing, that prospect would’ve received an automated follow-up email within days.
You get to stay top-of-mind, begin nurturing, and have a higher chance of conversion. However, an email sequence, although automated, requires strategic planning to set up.
Done correctly, sequencing becomes an essential part of any strategy that every business can benefit from. The question now is, which email sequencing software should you invest in?
Why is Email Sequencing Essential for Every Business?
The magic of email sequencing software is its ability to automate entire nurturing campaigns. After a quick setup, it can be a 24/7 conversion machine. Plus, it also provides the following benefits:
Improves Customer Engagement and Retention
You can’t stop providing support after turning a lead into a closed deal. You need to ensure that customers get post-purchase support.
The same goes for leads that didn’t respond to your initial emails. Re-engagement sequences allow you to identify whether or not a non-responsive lead is worth pursuing.
Scale Sales Efforts
Sending emails manually for 10 leads is a realistic endeavor—emailing 1,000 leads manually? Not so much. This makes sequencing an essential startup sales strategy thanks to its ability to scale your sales efforts.
Boost Sales
The likelihood of closing a sale after the initial email is abysmal. But, this significantly increases with every new touchpoint. More emails equal more opportunities to engage with prospects.
But sticking with a static script for every prospect won’t work. You must personalize every email or use sequencing tools that allow dynamic personalization.
Easily Address Customer Goals
Understanding your customer’s issues and goals is necessary for successful sequencing campaigns. When you do, you can send them relevant, high-quality content, handle objections, and provide immediate value.
However, we need to be careful when sequencing emails. Send too much, and you might end up in the spam folder. So, how many should you include in each sequence?
How Many Emails Should Each Sequence Have?
The likelihood of closing a sale after the initial email is abysmal. But, this significantly increases with every new touchpoint. More emails equal more opportunities to engage with prospects.
A sequence can run for as long as you want, as long as you can still provide value to prospects to push them further down your sales funnel. However, removing them from your lists is best if a prospect still sends no replies after 3-4 emails.
How to Choose the Right Email Sequencing Software?
Every business has its preference for what it deems important. To help you figure out which email sequencing software to go for, answer the following questions:
- Are you just starting with email marketing? (You should use tools that are user-friendly and intuitive.)
- How big is your sales team? (Some sequencing tools are limited to 1 user per account.)
- Do you need support in other areas of your sales process? (Try sequencing tools with sales enablement features like lead generation, email validation, and qualification.)
12 Email Sequencing Software You Need to Look Into
Finding the right sequencing software takes time, effort, and a lot of A/B testing. To help you out in your research phase, we’ve curated a list of the top 14 email sequencing tools you need to look into this 2023:
Instantly.ai
Instantly offers dynamic email sequencing and automated personalization. These features make scaling nurturing campaigns a breeze. Plus, it's one of the most intuitive tools in the market.
G2 users rated Instantly with a 9.9, making it user-friendly, even for businesses just starting with email marketing. And it's one of the only tools offering unlimited email warmups.
This means your email sequencing campaigns always have high deliverability rates. Paired with a comprehensive lead finder, you don’t have to go far to start your sequences.
Pricing: You can get started with Instantly for free. If you want to start scaling, there are two options—the Growth plan for $30/month and Hypergrowth for $77.6/month.
The growth plan includes 1,000 leads, unlimited warmups, 5,000 emails, and unlimited email accounts. Hypergrowth gives you 25,000 active leads, 100,000 emails, and premium support.
Key Features:
- Automated personalizable email sequencing.
- Unlimited email warmups to ensure high deliverability.
- Analytics.
- Email tracking.
- Comprehensive personalization features.
Gmass
Gmass is an excellent tool for conducting sequencing campaigns straight from your Gmail accounts. You get it as a Chrome extension, making it a lightweight option you can easily install.
Personalization features include mail merges, email tracking, and the ability to start an email sequence using your email lists from Google Sheets or a CSV file.
Pricing: You can get started with Gmass starting from $19.95/month. But, if you want to utilize email sequencing and follow-up features, you need to pay $29.95/month. There’s also a $125/month option for teams looking to scale.
Key Features:
- Can start email sequencing campaigns directly from Gmail.
- Email personalization via mail merge.
- Email click and open rate tracking within Gmail.
Klenty
Sequencing works best when emails are triggered based on customer behavior. If you want a tool with such features, Klenty might be for you.
It offers intent-based sequences that boost personalization. The tool lets your salespeople focus on prospects already engaged with your previous outreach efforts.
One of the advantages of Klenty is its ability to centralize data from cold calls, SMS, LinkedIn, and emails. Klenty can also be integrated into popular CRMs like Hubspot and Zoho.
Pricing: Klenty starts at $50/month for their startup plan. $70 for their growth plan. And $100 for their Pro option. To scale into enterprise sales, you must contact Klenty for a quote.
Key Features:
- It offers omnichannel communications for streamlined sales efforts.
- Ability to integrate into popular CRMs like Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho, and Pipedrive.
- Custom domain and verification features.
- Real-time analytics from prospect engagement.
Spotio
For sales teams that like to get up close and personal, Spotio could be your go-to. After initial meetings with prospects, Spotio can automate follow-ups with qualified leads.
It’s also available on desktop and mobile, so your sales team can use it while on the go. It also provides your team with signals to focus on sales-ready prospects.
Pricing: Spotio gives a quote after they’ve done a personalized demo for your business.
Key Features:
- Automated email follow-ups to qualified leads.
- Follow-up signals to help teams engage the right prospects.
- Optimized UI for field sales reps.
- Lead tracking paired with location and engagement strategies.
SalesLoft
SalesLoft is a sales engagement platform tailored for moving qualified leads through your pipelines. It can provide analytics for pipeline health, potential revenue from prospects, and insight into where leads are in their buyer’s journey.
You can use SalesLoft for cold emails to new prospects at the top of your sales funnels and warm leads further down.
Pricing: SalesLoft offers custom pricing options that are available after a demo.
Key Features:
- Automated scheduling for emails, calls, and meetings.
- Sales pipeline analytics.
- Lead movement tracking.
- Integrations with popular CRM tools.
Reply.io
Reply.io is an excellent sales enablement tool that allows your team to streamline cold email campaigns and follow-ups. It can even record calls so your team can study and optimize further.
Aside from email sequencing, it also tracks your sales team’s performance. With this insight, you can make the right data-driven decisions to improve your sales strategies.
Pricing: Reply.io has a 14-day free trial and starts at $60/month for their starter plan and $90 for their professional plan. If you want to scale further, they also offer custom pricing options upon request.
Key Features:
- Email, sales performance, and call tracking.
- Insights for optimal email timing.
- Customized opt-out options.
- AI-assisted email writing.
- CRM integrations.
Mailshake
Mailshake is an email marketing tool designed to optimize cold outreach campaigns. The tool grants access to SHAKEspeare, an AI writing assistant that automates emails based on lead information.
With Mailshake, sending personalized email sequences becomes much easier thanks to their Mail Merge placeholders. Plus, with its built-in Phone Dialer, your sales team gets to cover a variety of outreach potential.
Pricing: For purely email outreach features, you can go for their Email Outreach plan for $58/month. If you want more features to support your sales team, you can get their Sales Engagement plan for $83/month per user.
Key Features:
- AI-assisted email generation.
- Personalized and customizable placeholders.
- Multi-channel outreach support.
- Saleshub, Hubspot, and Pipedrive CRM integration.
- Email sequencing.
SmartReach
For more comprehensive email outreach management, SmartReach offers tons of great features. You can do email sequencing, track open and reply rates, and even conduct A/B testing for your campaigns.
With all this data, your organization can start making informed decisions on the best ways to engage leads, which won’t be an issue thanks to their dynamic email content personalization capabilities.
Pricing: Their Individual plan ranges from $19-$59/month, depending on your chosen features. The Business plan ranges from $79-$199. Agencies can get tailored quotes upon contact.
Key Features:
- Personalized and dynamic email sequences.
- Email tracking.
- A/B testing email content.
- Integrations with more than a thousand Zapier apps.
- Email campaign monitoring.
Airborne App
Airborne is a powerful tool for client management, sequencing, and email marketing in general. You can access various deliverability tools to ensure messages go straight to your prospect’s primary inbox, not spam. It also offers features for analytics and reporting catered for agencies looking at high-value tickets.
Pricing: Their Essentials plan starts at $60/month, Scale plan at $399/month, and Enterprise for $999/month.
Features:
- Team and client management features.
- Personalized email, call, and social media sequencing.
- Email deliverability improvement tools.
- Analytics and reporting tools.
- CRM integrations.
Lemlist
Lemlist offers personalized email sequences, task scheduling, and sales automation features. It also has email warmup capabilities in its base plans. But you need to go for the next tier to access the email outreach features like sequencing.
Pricing: You need to pay $29/monthly or $300 yearly for email warmups alone. If you want outreach and sequencing features, you need to pay $59/month or $600/year per user. Pricing starts at $99/month or $996 yearly for better sales engagement features.
Features:
- Domain warmups.
- Personalized email sequences.
- Google Sheets, Salesforce, and Hubspot integrations.
Followup
Followup is an aptly named email tool that offers automated follow-ups, sets task reminders for your sales teams, and tracks emails.
Although it is a great app, it falls short of some features if you plan to scale email marketing efforts. It can also integrate with Salesforce, but you must pay for their highest tier plan to access the feature.
Pricing: Followup’s Starter Plan is $23/month or $216/year. Their Professional plan costs $36/month or $348/year. And the Salesforce integration costs $50/month or $480/year.
Key Features:
- Task reminders and follow-up scheduling.
- Email tracking
- Analyze team sending reports.
- Salesforce integration
Mixmax
Mixmax is a versatile tool that can fit in with businesses from multiple industries. The tool can even automate email, phone, and social media sequences.
It also provides in-depth insights for each campaign and each recipient. Mixmax also acts as a sales enablement tool that can sync calendar meetings, schedules, and tasks with your team.
Pricing: The Starter plan starts at $12/month, the SMB plan costs $29/month, and the Growth plan costs $65/month. You can also ask for a custom quote for enterprise sales features.
Key Features:
- Personalized sequences for email, social media, and phone outreach campaigns.
- Personalizable email templates.
- Analytics and reporting.
- Scheduling features.
- Integrations Slack, SalesForce, and other CRMs.
Key Takeaways
Each touchpoint gets you closer to a closed deal. But you can’t just spam emails and hope for the best. That’s where email sequencing comes in. It helps you identify the right time to send an email without lifting a finger.
Ensure you’re making the best out of your email sequencing efforts with the following best practices:
- Always personalize your emails.
- Use email sequencing software that can automate dynamic personalization.
- Automate sequences based on user intent and behavior.
- Email sequences can be as long as you want as long as you provide value.
- Remove the prospect from your email list after 3-4 follow-ups with no replies.
Instantly has you covered if you want to scale your email sequencing and boost each sending account’s deliverability rates with unlimited warmups! Sign up for a free trial today!
