SKILL.md

Email Sequence Design

One email, one job. Value before ask. Every email in a sequence moves the reader one step toward a single conversion goal, or it gets cut.

Workflow

Load context. If .agents/product-marketing.md or .claude/product-marketing.md exists, read it first. Ask only for what it does not cover.
Pin the sequence spec. Before writing any copy, lock these five answers: trigger (what puts someone in), goal (one conversion action), audience state (what they know and believe at entry), exit conditions (what removes them), and collision check (what other emails they already receive).
Pick the sequence type and length. Welcome: 5-7 emails over 2 weeks. Lead nurture: 6-8 over 3 weeks. Onboarding: 5-7 over 2 weeks. Re-engagement: 3-4 over 2 weeks. Read references/sequence-blueprints.md when you need the email-by-email blueprint for a type.
Set timing. First email immediate, always. Early emails 1-2 days apart, nurture 2-4 days apart, long-term weekly. B2B avoids weekends. Send in the recipient's local time when the platform supports it.
Write each email. Structure: hook, context, value, one CTA, human sign-off. Subject line 40-60 characters, clear beats clever. Preview text extends the subject, never repeats it. Length: 50-125 words transactional, 150-300 educational, 300-500 story-driven.
Deliver in the standard format. Sequence overview (name, trigger, goal, length, timing, exit conditions), then per email: number, purpose, send timing, subject, preview, full body, CTA text and destination, segment conditions. Close with a metrics plan: what to measure and the target.

Rules that hold every sequence together

One primary CTA per email. A second CTA is a second email.
Earn the sell. Lead with useful content for at least the first half of a nurture sequence.
Fewer, better emails beat more emails. Cut any email that exists only to "stay top of mind".
Every exit condition is explicit. Someone who converts leaves the sequence the same day.
Short paragraphs, mobile-first formatting, active voice. Read it aloud: if it sounds like a company, rewrite it as a person.

Good vs bad

Bad: Welcome email #3 recaps the founder story, announces a webinar, links the pricing page, and asks for a social follow. Four CTAs, zero focus, and the reader does nothing.

Good: Welcome email #3 tells one 150-word story about the problem the product kills, then one button: "See how it works". The webinar gets its own email on day 6.

Verification

Before delivering, run this pass on the full sequence. For each email, count CTAs and confirm the exit condition covers converters. Expect: exactly one primary CTA per email, an explicit trigger and exit on the sequence, and no two emails doing the same job. If any email fails, cut or merge it, do not pad the sequence to hit a target length.

Completion checklist

[ ] Product marketing context loaded or explicitly absent
[ ] Trigger, goal, audience state, exit conditions, collision check pinned before copy
[ ] Every email has one job and one primary CTA
[ ] Subjects 40-60 chars, preview text does not repeat subject
[ ] Timing follows the cadence rules for the sequence type
[ ] Output uses the standard overview + per-email format
[ ] Metrics plan included

Any box unchecked: not done. Fix or say so.

Footguns

Sequence collision. New nurture sequence fires while the user is mid-onboarding, so they get 5 emails in 3 days and unsubscribe. Fix: the collision check in step 2 is mandatory, suppress or queue overlapping sequences.
No exit conditions. A customer keeps getting "why haven't you bought" emails after buying. Fix: define exits per sequence, conversion always exits.
Copy written before the spec. Emails drift toward whatever is easy to write instead of the goal. Fix: no copy until the five spec answers in step 2 are locked.
Benchmark worship. Padding a welcome series to 7 emails because a template says 5-7. Fix: length follows the number of distinct jobs, not the range.

emails