The emails a business sends
Eight types of email carry most of a small business's mail, each with one job. Start with a welcome sequence, add regular campaigns, follow up the people who click, and keep receipts free of selling.
Eight types of email carry most of a small business's mail. Each has one job, and the job decides everything about it: what goes first, what the button says, and what is left out.
The short version
- Start with a welcome sequence: 4 to 5 emails over 7 to 10 days, the first one at once. A new subscriber is never more interested than in the first minutes.
- Then a regular campaign, mostly useful, with offers in the mix.
- Follow up the people who click an offer and don't act: 2 to 3 emails over a week.
- Sell a promotion in three emails: announce, remind, last chance. Leave out people who've already bought.
- One email, one job, and one main button that names it.
- A sequence ends, and one person is never in two at once.
- Receipts stay receipts. No promotions inside an order confirmation.
The eight types
| Type | Its one job | When it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | Keep the sign-up's promise and start the relationship | 4 to 5 emails over 7 to 10 days, the first at once |
| Newsletter | Be worth opening next week | Your regular day |
| Promotional offer | Sell the offer before it ends | Announce, remind, last chance |
| Launch | Make the new thing wanted | Before, open, proof, close |
| Abandoned cart | Bring the shopper back to finish | 2 to 4 hours, 24 hours, about 48 hours after |
| Re-engagement | Stay, hear less, or go | After 90 to 180 quiet days; 2 to 3 emails over at least two months |
| Event | Get the person there | Invitation, confirmation, a week before, a day before, 15 minutes before, after |
| Receipt | Confirm it worked and say what happens next | At once |
Each type has one thing it must have, and one it must never have:
| Type | Must have | Never |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | The thing they signed up for, first | A sales pitch before the promise is kept |
| Newsletter | A lead item with its own headline and link | A long introduction at the top |
| Promotional offer | The offer, its end and its terms | An end date that isn't the real one |
| Launch | What's new, and when and how to get it | A list of features with no "so what" |
| Abandoned cart | The items, as they were left | A discount in the first reminder |
| Re-engagement | An easy way to leave | Guilt, or a hidden unsubscribe |
| Event | Weekday, date, time with its time zone, place, price | A join link or address the reader has to hunt for |
| Receipt | Order number, items, total, what happens next | Promotion |
The welcome sequence comes first
Welcome emails are opened and clicked more than any other type: 83.63% opens and 16.60% clicks in GetResponse's count across its own customers (2023 data). At Omnisend, welcome and abandoned-cart emails together brought in 76% of all the orders that came from automated email (2025 data).
What a welcome sequence does, in order:
Delivers what was promised, at once: the download, the code, the booking link.
Says who's writing and what's coming: how often, about what, and why it's worth opening.
Tells a story the reader can see themselves in: the problem, the moment it changed, what came of it.
Makes a first offer that suits a newcomer: small, low risk, clearly worth it.
Asks one question, such as "Which of these fits you?", so their click or reply tells you what they want.
After the last one, the person joins your regular campaigns.
Regular email: useful, with offers in the mix
The useful emails, a tip, a story, an answer, news worth knowing, earn the open next week. The offers earn the money. A list that only ever gets offers stops opening. A list that never gets offers never buys. "Little and often" beats "big and rare", and a sale told across several short emails beats one long pitch. How often: How often to send.
Follow up the people who click
Someone who clicked an offer and didn't act is the warmest person on your list. A short follow-up to the clickers, with the offer again, the main doubt answered and a real deadline, does better than sending the whole campaign again to everyone.
A promotion is three emails
Most sales come at the start and in the last hours. Announce it, remind people, and give a last chance before it ends, leaving out anyone who has already bought. A launch stretches the same idea: a few days of useful emails first, then the offer opens, then it closes on the date you said. The deadline must be real.
Sequences end, and never collide
A sequence is a set number of emails with an end. After it, the person goes on getting your regular campaigns. Two sequences at once means double the email and mixed messages, so a person is in one sequence for a campaign at a time, and a stronger action, a booking or a purchase, moves them on. Someone who buys leaves the sequence that was selling them that thing.
One email, one job
Write the job as one sentence before anything else: "This email gets Sam back to the basket." What does that job goes first, the button names it, and anything that doesn't serve it is cut. The sequence gives you room to make several points; each email doesn't have to make them all.
An email sent because of something the reader did opens with that: "You left these in your basket", "You're booked for Saturday", "Your order is in". A campaign opens with its news.
Receipts stay receipts
Google's sender guidelines say not to mix types of content in one message, and give the example: don't put promotions in sales receipts. The law treats a receipt differently from marketing, and enough selling inside one can make it marketing. Send the receipt clean, and send what goes with the order separately, when it helps.
Doing it here
- Each campaign is planned as one whole, with every email and its job, before a word is written: One plan, the whole campaign.
- A sequence starts from a click in a campaign you name, its landing page form, or a reply. A landing page's form can also start a welcome sequence for each new sign-up: What starts a sequence.
- A person is in one sequence per campaign at a time, and a stronger action moves them on: Sequences, one person at a time.
- A reply never stops a sequence. You answer it in the campaign inbox, where you can pause or stop their sequence yourself: Does a reply stop a sequence?
All eight types, each drawn on a phone screen, are in the free guide Everything you need to know about email marketing.