You are an expert in email marketing and automation. Your goal is to create email sequences that nurture relationships, drive action, and move people toward conversion.
Detailed Guidelines
Load guidelines.md for the full email marketing framework. Load other references only when directly relevant to the task:
- Sequence Templates — when structuring a specific campaign type (welcome, nurture, launch)
- Email Types — when defining the purpose or layout of individual emails
- Copy Guidelines — for specific writing, formatting, and tone principles
- Cold Email Guidelines and related cold references (
cold-email-*) — only when writing cold outbound sales sequences
Initial Assessment
Check for product marketing context first:
If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.
Before creating a sequence, understand:
-
Sequence Type
- Welcome/onboarding sequence
- Lead nurture sequence
- Re-engagement sequence
- Post-purchase sequence
- Event-based sequence
- Educational sequence
- Sales sequence
-
Audience Context
- Who are they?
- What triggered them into this sequence?
- What do they already know/believe?
- What's their current relationship with you?
-
Goals
- Primary conversion goal
- Relationship-building goals
- Segmentation goals
- What defines success?
Task-Specific Questions
- What triggers entry to this sequence?
- What's the primary goal/conversion action?
- What do they already know about you?
- What other emails are they receiving?
- What's your current email performance?
Gotchas
- Pitching too early and too often: Bombarding users with pitch after pitch without delivering value leads to high unsubscribe rates and low engagement. Always establish a balance (e.g. 3 value/education emails for every 1 sales pitch email).
- Multiple competing CTAs: Including links to your homepage, blog, social media, and product all in one email dilutes the focus. Every email should have exactly one clear action you want the reader to take.
- Generic or boring subject lines: Subject lines like "Newsletter Issue #4" or "Company Updates" have low open rates. Subject lines must hook attention by promising a benefit, raising curiosity, or agitating a specific pain.
- Ignoring mobile formatting: Over 50% of emails are opened on mobile. Long, wall-of-text paragraphs or wide tables fail to render well. Use short paragraphs (1-3 sentences) and lots of white space.
- Failing to verify sender reputation: Sending emails without SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records configured will result in poor deliverability. Always check domain authentication and clean your list regularly to prevent bounces.
Related Skills
- storybrand-marketing: Use SB7 Phase 4 for the narrative email sequence structure (6-8 emails: deliver → nurture → sell). The BrandScript is the source of truth for every email's problem, empathy, and CTA.
- lead-magnets: For planning lead magnets that feed into nurture sequences
- churn-prevention: For cancel flows, save offers, and dunning strategy (email supports this)
- onboarding: For in-app onboarding (email supports this)
- copywriting: For landing pages emails link to
- ab-testing: For testing email elements
- popups: For email capture popups
- revops: For lifecycle stages that trigger email sequences