ConvertKit have just released a new feature that I know many, myself included, have been waiting a long time for – the ability to send a subscriber through a sequence more than once. This means they’ll get all the emails in the sequence again, from the beginning.
Why is this cool?
In the past, you could only send subscribers through a sequence once. If they were added to the sequence via an automation rule, they’d get new emails added to the sequence, but you couldn’t restart the sequence for them. If they were added to the sequence via a visual automation and completed the sequence, then you couldn’t add them to the sequence again. So there was simply no way to restart sequences for subscribers so that they could get the emails again from the start.
But hold up, why would you want to send someone through a sequence more than once? Here are a few scenarios where you’d want to do this:
Client onboarding
You can onboard clients with a series of emails set out in a sequence. This works perfectly for one-off clients. But what about repeat clients? If you wanted to send them through the onboarding sequence in the past, you’d be stuck. Now you can happily send them through the same sequence again to onboard them.
Call prep
For some types of calls, you might want to send an email or two to the other person before the call to prepare them. For example, if it is an introductionary call for a potential client, you might want to give them a rough agenda so they are prepared for the call.
In the past, if someone wanted to book more than one call, you wouldn’t be able to send them through the sequence again. Now you can!
Monthly webinar
If you run a regular event like a monthly webinar, you’d no doubt have some emails you’d need to send to participants before the webinar starts.
Without repeat sequences, you’d need a new sequence for each event. Now you can use the same sequence.
Re-engagement campaign
A re-engagement campaign is used to try and warm up cold subscribers (people who haven’t opened or clicked in the last 90 days). There are a few ways to do this. One option is to send them a serious of emails to encourage them to re-enagage, and if they don’t, then delete them from your list. Without repeatable sequences, you’d need to rely on broadcast emails to do this. Now you can have a set of emails in a sequence, and send subscribers to it to re-engage them. It no longer matters if they have already been through it once.
Someone just wants to go through the sequence again
Sometimes you get people who just want to go through a sequences again. In the past, the only real way to do that was to duplicate the sequence and send them through the duplicate. Now you can send them through the same sequence again.. and again and again if they want!
How to set it up
It’s straightforward to set this up to allow people to restart sequences. You just tick the checkbox in the sequence settings.
On the settings for each sequence, you’ll now see a sequence behaviour field.
By default it is set to “No, only allow subscribers to receive emails once”. If you leave it as the default, then nothing changes – subscribers will only be able to go through a sequence once.
To enable repeat sequences, select “Yes, enable the ability to restart the sequence multiple times”.
With this enabled, you’ll want to add subscribers to the sequence again. You can do this in exactly the same way that you add subscribers to sequences now:
- Visual Automation
- Automation Rule
- Bulk Action
- Import (add to a sequence when you bulk import subscribers)
If a subscriber is part way through a sequence and you add them to the sequence again, they’ll restart the sequence from the beginning.
Summing up
Restarting sequences is a long awaited feature that is going up open up lots of new possibilities when using ConvertKit. You’ll be able to use it to restart sequences for purposes such as:
- Client onboarding
- Call prep
- Monthly webinar
- Re-engagement campaign
- Someone just wants to go through the sequence again
- And many more!