I booked over 90+ demo calls with SaaS companies with 11-50 employees in May. This sequence got an 18,4% reply rate and a 9,5% positive reply rate.

Below, you can see the 3-step sequence I used (with copies).

I marked all the personalized elements in bold, and an arrow pointed to the software I used to get them.

Step 1 - the inital copy

  • Kept it to plain text to ensure good deliverability
  • Kept it short to optimize it for phone users
  • Personalized the first sentence to stand out and get people to read the email. I used Clay x Open AI integration to automate the personalization.
  • Used a soft call to action to reduce friction as much as possible. Often when you ask for a call directly, you demand too much from your prospects to enter the next step of your sales funnel, which causes a friction point.
  • When someone responded positively, I marketed the lead as interested, moving them to a subsequence where the personalized demo video was sent automatically (using Vinna.ai), followed by 7 follow-ups.

Step 2 - the first follow-up

  • Started the email with “you” to capture attention.
  • Quickly summarize my last email in the first sentence.
  • Embedded a personalized video with a custom thumbnail cut through the noise. (I used Vinna.ai to create the personalized videos automatically).
  • Gave social proof to back up my claim.
  • Asked for a meeting

Step 3 - the final email

  • Started the email with a question.
  • Gave a quick summary of the video and my value proposition.
  • Reused personalization to capture attention.
  • Did not ask for anything, the goal of this email is simply to get them to watch the video I sent.