Purpose: 

The purpose of this article is to provide information to Outreach Users regarding best practices for building sequences. 

Sequences aren't just for sales people. Customers in various roles, including Customer Success, Marketing, etc. utilize sequences to enhance their ability to address large volumes of prospects or customers and streamline their workflow. One such example is "event sequences", which are sequences built around a scheduled event.

Example event sequences:

• Webinars
• Field marketing events
• Contract renewals
• Company announcements

Best Practices

Use the "Steps by exact date/time" sequence type instead of "Steps by day interval" 

• Customers that use sequences for webinars, field marketing events or other time-sensitive campaigns often choose the "Steps by exact date/time" sequence type to ensure that prospects get their messaging at a specific date and time in the future. However, prospects cannot move through any sequence step in the past, so "Steps by exact date/time" sequences are typically used just once. The time zone used to send is based on the user that is editing/creating that step for the date/time to be sent, and not the prospect's time zone.

One invite, multiple reminders

• Outreach allows you to build "reply" email steps into sequences so you only need to send one email to invite the prospect to your event and then automatically follow up in the same email chain. Customers often see success using one initial email invite with 2-5 follow-up emails, depending on how far out the event is.

Collaborate with marketing

• Sequences built for events are an excellent opportunity to partner with the marketing department and leverage persona-based content or insights that enable relevant, personalized messages from the sales or field marketing teams.