Playbook Email Funnel

Email Funnel Operations Playbook

Use When

• Build or improve a repeatable Email Funnel workflow for a client or delivery team.
• Turn an approved objective into roles, controls, handoffs and measurable actions.

Do Not Use When

• The task is a single-channel presence plan; use the closest platform-* skill.
• The task is upstream positioning or channel choice; use the closest strategy-* skill.

Required Inputs

Capability and Permission Boundaries

Read supplied artefacts and search relevant evidence. Treat review, audit and planning as read-only. Editing the requested draft is allowed; publishing, messaging, production changes, personal-data processing, spending, destructive actions and certification claims require explicit authority. Use network access only for authorised verification.

Degraded Mode

If accounts, files, network, rendering or current evidence are unavailable, return the narrowest useful qualified Email Funnel playbook plus an evidence-gap list. Mark each unavailable check not assessed; never convert it into a pass.

Decision Rules

Workflow

1. Confirm the consumer, objective, market, decision owner and permission boundary; stop if the objective or owner is missing.
2. Inspect supplied evidence and verify volatile claims; record missing inputs rather than filling them with assumptions.
3. Apply the decision rules, preserve useful existing material and draft the Email Funnel playbook.
4. Test each action against platform, privacy, safeguarding, brand and approval constraints; stop and escalate a blocking risk.
5. Run the quality and anti-slop gates. If a check fails, correct the draft and rerun it before handoff.

Outputs

Evidence Produced

Quality Standards

Use British English and the specified market context. Recommendations must be executable with the stated capacity, current claims must be verified or qualified, and acceptance conditions must be observable. A worked example must use a labelled scenario, not fabricated client evidence.

Anti-Patterns

• Inventing a client fact, benchmark, budget or approval. Fix: cite the source or label the assumption and its effect.
• Copying one channel or client pattern unchanged. Fix: tie each choice to the named audience, objective and evidence.
• Stating volatile platform or legal details from memory. Fix: verify the current official source or omit the claim.
• Treating an inaccessible account, file or metric as healthy. Fix: mark it not assessed and bound the conclusion.
• Publishing, spending, messaging or changing production state from planning authority. Fix: obtain explicit action authority.
• Delivering actions without owner, timing or acceptance. Fix: assign all three or return the item as an unresolved gap.

References

• Anti-AI-slop production gate
• East African English standard
• Use the directly cited sources and companion skills in the domain guidance below; verify time-sensitive claims before use.

Required Inputs

Ask for the following before generating any output:

1. Business name — trading name of the client
2. Industry — sector and niche
3. Country / city — default is Uganda/East Africa
4. Primary goal — what the email programme is ultimately driving (sales, bookings, enquiries, event registrations)
5. Current list size — number of subscribers and platform in use (Mailchimp, Brevo, etc.)
6. Sending frequency — how often the client currently sends (if already established)
7. Lead magnet in place — yes/no; if yes, describe it (links to playbook-lead-magnet-system)

The 90/90 Rule

Bly (2018) establishes a critical operational principle: 90% of email list subscribers who will ever purchase do so within 90 days of joining the list.

This means the welcome and early nurture sequence — the first 12 weeks — is the highest-value section of the entire email programme. Front-load the best content, the most compelling case studies, and the clearest offers into weeks 1–12. Do not save the strongest material for later; most subscribers will have made their purchase decision before they reach it.

Welcome Sequence Structure (Weeks 1–4)

Design this sequence before the lead magnet is promoted. A subscriber who joins before the sequence is live will receive no onboarding and will disengage.

After day 30, the subscriber transitions to the steady-state nurture cadence.

Steady-State Cadence

After the welcome sequence, maintain a consistent sending rhythm. Frequency should be set based on content capacity and audience expectation — and held without interruption.

Recommended cadence by list size and resource:

Content-to-sales ratio: A minimum of 50% of all emails sent must be pure content — education, insight, entertainment, or community — with no promotional intent whatsoever. If more than half of sends are promotional, unsubscribe rates rise and list health deteriorates. The ratio enforces trust, which is the precondition for conversion.

Six Email KPIs

Track all six from the first send. Set client-specific targets before the programme launches — do not wait for data to accumulate before establishing benchmarks.

Review all six KPIs monthly. Do not report open rate in isolation — open rate without CTR and conversion is vanity data.

CTA Placement Rules

Every email must contain a call to action. No exceptions. Apply these rules:

• Minimum two CTAs per email — once after the first paragraph, once at the close
• Emails of 500+ words — include a third CTA in the middle of the body
• One CTA per placement — never include two different asks in the same CTA position; one email, one primary action
• Specific instruction required — "Click here to book a 30-minute call" or "Reply to this email with your biggest question about X" — not "Learn more" or "Get in touch"

CTAs must be written as hyperlinked text, a button, or both. In mobile-optimised emails, use a button for the primary CTA — minimum 44px height, high-contrast colour, centred.

Mobile Email Design Standards

In Uganda and East Africa, 85%+ of emails are opened on mobile devices. Design for mobile first; check desktop second.

Test every email on a mobile device before sending. Use a real device, not only a desktop email client preview.

Subject Line A/B Testing Protocol

Run an A/B test on every send where list size permits (minimum 200 subscribers required for statistically meaningful results). Test one variable per send only — changing two variables simultaneously makes it impossible to attribute the result.

Variables to test (one at a time):

1. Subject line length — short (under 40 characters) vs. long (60+ characters)
2. Question vs. statement — "Are you making this mistake?" vs. "The mistake most businesses make with email"
3. Personalisation — first name token vs. no personalisation
4. Emoji vs. no emoji — test with the primary audience demographic first
5. Benefit-led vs. curiosity-led — "How to double your email open rate" vs. "The counterintuitive truth about email open rates"

Record every test result in a testing log: date, variable tested, winning version, open rate differential, CTR differential. After 10 tests, identify the winning pattern and apply it as the default subject line formula.

List Health Review

Conduct a formal list health review every month. The review covers:

1. Bounce rate — flag any send above 1%; investigate the source of new subscribers if bounce rate spikes
2. Opt-out rate — flag any send above 0.1%; review the email content and subject line for that send
3. Inactive subscribers — identify contacts who have not opened any email in the past 90 days
4. Re-engagement sequence — send a 3-email re-engagement sequence to inactive contacts before removing them: "We miss you", "Here is our best content", "Last chance — shall we remove you?"
5. Hard bounces — remove within 24 hours of the bounce notification; never send to a confirmed hard bounce

A clean, engaged list of 500 subscribers will generate more revenue than a dirty list of 5,000 unengaged contacts.

Platform Recommendations for EA Clients

All platforms above include basic automation (welcome sequences, trigger-based sends) on their free tiers. Recommend the platform based on the client's technical confidence and list size, not personal preference.

Output: Email Funnel Operations Brief

Generate the following for the client:

1. Welcome sequence — 5 emails written in the client's brand voice, one per day as per the schedule above
2. Steady-state calendar — 4-week rolling content plan with content-to-sales ratio marked for each send
3. KPI dashboard template — six KPIs with client-specific targets and a monthly review schedule
4. Subject line testing log — blank template for recording A/B test results
5. List health review checklist — monthly actions in a tickable format
6. Platform recommendation — one recommended platform with setup notes

Quality Criteria

Output meets the standard when:

1. The 90/90 rule is applied — the welcome sequence is fully written and tested before any list promotion begins, and the first 12 weeks of content are outlined
2. All six KPIs are tracked from the first send, with client-specific targets set before launch — not after results arrive
3. Content-to-sales ratio is monitored monthly and maintained at a minimum of 50% pure content sends
4. Every email contains a minimum of two CTAs, each specific and actionable — no generic "learn more" instructions
5. All emails are tested on a mobile device before sending — mobile design standards are non-negotiable
6. Subject line A/B testing protocol is established and logged from the first send
7. List health is reviewed monthly — bounce rate and opt-out rate are within targets before the following month's sends begin

Reference

Bly, R.W. (2018) The Digital Marketing Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Websites That Sell. Entrepreneur Press.