You can send a series of templated emails to companies, people, and leads in Nutshell to automate your outreach.

Schedule personal email sequences to automatically email a contact every few days. Keep those leads warm, am I right? Nutshell helps you out by automatically stopping a sequence when a reply to your email syncs with Nutshell. 

To begin sending personal email sequences, start by connecting your email with Nutshell. 

Jump to:

• Creating a new sequence
• Send automated emails using your sequences
• Stop an in progress sequence
• Report on sequence performance
• FAQ

Creating a new personal email sequence

The first thing you’ll want to do is access your email inbox by clicking your Your email (the envelope icon in your sidebar). Once you’re in your inbox, click the Templates button on the bottom right.

Start with a template

Click the blue + Add new template button on the top right to begin! We’ll give you some pre-written ideas to choose from, or you can start a new template from scratch. You can tell which pre-written options are sequences by the multiple-emails icon.

Next you’ll want to fill in the sequence name. Begin with the first email’s subject line and template body.

Click here to learn more about creating and using individual email templates.

Psst: please note that it is not possible to attach files to email templates in Nutshell. Files can only be attached to individual emails sent from a company, person, or lead page.

Add your automatic follow-up templates 

Once you’ve created the first email in your sequence, click the blue Add follow-up email link on the bottom left to schedule out your next email. Add a new subject line or check Send as reply to send the full thread of both emails. With this option, your original email will appear at the bottom as a reply.

Right above each email, you’ll schedule the date that the next message will be sent. Choose the number of business days that you’d like to wait before sending this second email. These business days will always be based on the send date of the last email, not the date that you started sending the sequence.

Remove an email from your sequence by hovering over the dot on the left side of any email. You’ll see it turn into a red X and you can click that to remove that specific email from the sequence.

Share your sequence 

Is this an awesome sequence that you want to share with all of the colleagues in your Nutshell account? Check the box underneath your template that says Shared with everyone. If you want to automatically send your email sequence as a part of your pipeline, you will need to share the template with your team. 

Finally, save your new sequence using the green Save button on the bottom right corner of the pop-up.

Archive a sequence

Archive a sequence just like a template to take it out of commission. Sequences can only be archived in Nutshell, just in case you decide later that it was a good sequence all along and want to bring it back. Archived sequences will be stored at the bottom of your email templates page and can be restored using the three dots next to the archived sequence.

Please note: Any sequenced emails that are already scheduled when you archive will still send to your contacts and those sequences will finish as expected.

Send automated emails using your sequences

Personal email sequences can be used from a Company, Person, or Lead page in Nutshell that has an email address associated with it. Click Send email on a Company, Person, or Lead page to begin using templates. 

You'll see an email composer pop-up where you can create a new email from scratch or choose your templates and sequences:

How do I know if someone is already in a sequence?

If one of your Nutshell contacts is already in a sequence, you’ll see it listed directly above their timeline. The number of green lines next to the sequence name indicates how many emails they've already received, and how many are left. 

Click the subject line of the next email to preview it.

If you want to make changes to any upcoming emails (put the "personal" in "personal email sequence" 😉), or review all emails in the sequence, click on the sequence name on the left-hand side. 

Stop an in progress personal email sequence

As soon as you receive an email from a contact, they will be taken out of your sequence and Nutshell will stop sending them automated follow-ups. If they reply after your first email, great! Your outreach worked and we won’t bug them again by sending emails 2, 3, 4 . . . you get the idea.

Say you're able to connect over the phone or on Zoom, and you have no need to send them the rest of the messages. The easiest way to cancel the rest of a sequence for an individual is to click the red X next to the upcoming email:

You can also remove someone from a sequence from your Scheduled email outbox. Click the three dots to the right of the next email in your sequence to delay that email or click Cancel to remove this person from the rest of this sequence immediately.

Report on sequence performance

We love data here at Nutshell and we’ve added some snazzy information to your email templates and sequences. The first is the “last sent” date, which will update every time you send a new email using this template. You can sort your templates by to see the oldest or most recently sent. Click on Last sent to see that blue arrow appear and click again to change the order.

The second is the reply percentage. When you send a personal email sequence to someone and they send you an email back, Nutshell will count that email from your contact as a reply. This number will always reflect the percentage of people who are replying to any email you send using that specific template. You can sort your templates by these percentages too. Click on Reply % to see that blue arrow appear and click again to change the order.

FAQ

Can I edit the specific time of my email follow-ups?

The exact follow-up time itself is not editable. Subsequent emails in a sequence should be sending at the time of day that you initiate the first email - so, if you send the first email at noon, the rest of the emails will also send at noon. 

The timing becomes a little more nuanced if you send emails outside of the business hours in your General Settings. If you send outside your first email in a sequence outside of business hours, we send your follow-ups at the beginning of your business hours. 

What happens if I receive an auto-reply or out of office message to one of my sequences? Will Nutshell stop the rest of the sequence?

Nutshell will not stop an email sequence if an auto-reply is detected. Some of the popular phrases that our detector uses in trying to filter out auto-replies are: ‘autoresponder’, ‘auto reply’,  ‘absence notice’, ‘did not answer the computer’, ‘auto response’, ‘automatic response', 'absence’, ‘automatic response.’

Can I edit the email templates in a sequence after I have already scheduled it to send to people? 

Any edits you make to an email sequence on the templates page will only apply to sequences you start sending after the change. If you change the second or third email in a sequence, for example, but have already begun sending that sequence to some of your contacts, the contacts who have already received your first email in the sequence will still receive the original version of your template. 

To make edits and further personalize an in-progress personal email sequence to a specific person, go to their profile in Nutshell, then click on the sequence name above their timeline. 

Click "Edit", make your changes, then click "Save". 

Can I change the time between follow-up emails after a sequence has been initiated? 

You can change the time frame between follow-up emails in a sequence at any time. However, these changes will only apply to sequences that are initiated after the edit is made. It will not be retroactively applied to email sequences already in progress.

Say you receive an auto-responder letting you know your contact is on vacation. To change the timing for an in progress personal email sequences, go to their profile in Nutshell, then click on the sequence name above their timeline. 

Using the drop-down menu on the right side, click to delay the sequence by a business day or a week.

I'm getting a pop-up message when I try to send a sequence. What does it mean?

If you're receiving this pop-up, you do not have a two-way email sync enabled in Nutshell. Not to worry! You can still send these sequences to your contacts. 

If you're a Google or Office 365 user, you can enable your two-way email sync to add replies automatically and stop these pop-ups.

If you are using SMTP configuration, or you are a Gmail or Office 365 user who does not want to sync replies into Nutshell automatically, you will need to forward replies to bcc@nutshell.com to stop your sequences. You can learn more about adding emails to Nutshell with BCC in this article. 

Can I send personal email sequences in bulk?

If you are looking for a way to send drip sequences to a large audience, check out Nutshell Marketing!

Nutshell designed personal email sequences with a focus on how important it is to personalize messages. Nutshell seriously believes you will be more successful (in generating both replies and sales), if you give some consideration to the personalization of a note. Nutshell helps by automating the follow-up of those messages in your personalized thread. 

Can I automate the sending of email sequences in my pipeline? 

Yes! Never drop the ball on your outreach to new leads. Click here to see how to set up your automated email sequences.  

Do you still have questions about email templates? Send us an email at support@nutshell.com. We’ll be glad to help.