email-lifecycle-sequence
Email Lifecycle Sequence
Build the automated emails that carry a user from signup to habit to expansion — and remove the ones quietly costing you. Lifecycle email is the highest-leverage owned channel most startups half-build: a welcome sequence written once in year one, an onboarding flow nobody has opened since, and no win-back at all.
Two failures dominate. The first is gaps — no win-back means lapsed users are simply lost, and no expansion sequence means NRR depends entirely on sales. The second is stacking — three sequences that each look reasonable alone firing at the same new user, producing eleven emails in two weeks and a spike in unsubscribes.
Both are visible in about a minute. Run the audit before writing anything.
When to use
The user is building, fixing, or auditing automated email — sequences, flows, drips, or triggered campaigns. For diagnosing whether churn is the problem, use lifecycle-and-retention first; this skill builds the fix once the diagnosis points at communication.
Before you start
- Read the brand/product context (
.agents/product-marketing.md) for voice, audience, and the offer sequences should route toward. - Find the activation moment. The specific action that predicts a user sticks — the second project created, the first teammate invited, the first report run. Onboarding email that doesn't drive toward a named activation moment is just a product tour.
- List what already fires, including anything transactional. Users don't distinguish between your marketing automation and your product notifications; the inbox is one place.
- Get volume and value. Monthly signups and value per conversion decide which sequences are worth building at all.