You will be able to pick the two or three flows that suit your business model and know what each one does.
Open the automation section of almost any email tool and you will find a library of ready-made flows: abandoned cart, browse reminder, post-purchase, win-back, birthday, review request, replenishment, sunset, and more. It is easy to feel you need all of them. You do not. A small business with two or three flows that suit how it actually makes money will get more from email than one with ten half-finished ones.
This lesson goes through the flows that usually matter most, sorted by business model, so you can pick the next two for yours.
First, a reminder. Every business needs a welcome flow, and you built yours in module 4. It is listed here because it is the first automation for any business model, and if it is not live yet, finishing it comes before anything else in this lesson. A new subscriber who hears nothing is lost before any other flow gets a chance.
If you sell products online, four flows are worth knowing.
An abandoned cart flow emails someone who added items to their cart and left without paying. It reminds them what they left, answers common hesitations such as delivery times or returns, and links straight back to the cart. Mei Ling's version goes to customers who started a custom cake order and stopped at the date selection. Often they were waiting to confirm a party date, and a reminder the next day brings them back. A browse reminder is a lighter cousin, sent to known subscribers who viewed a product without adding it to the cart.
A post-purchase flow looks after people after they buy. It confirms the order, explains what happens next, and gives advice on using or caring for the product. Mei Ling sends a short note the day after collection about storing the cake and serving it at its best, and a week later asks for a review.
A replenishment flow reminds people when they are likely to need more. It suits products that run out, such as coffee, skincare or pet food, and the timing comes from how long the product usually lasts. Mei Ling's equivalent is an anniversary reminder: a few weeks before the date of last year's birthday order, she emails to ask if another celebration is coming up.
These flows need your shop and email tool to share data about carts, orders and products. Many shop platforms connect directly to common email tools, so check your own tools' integration pages.
Service businesses such as tuition centres, clinics, salons, consultants and trainers have a different set.
An enquiry follow-up flow responds to someone who asked about your service and makes sure they never wait or slip through. Priya's flow from lesson 7.1, Every automation is a trigger, a condition and an action, is this kind.
A booking reminder flow cuts no-shows. It confirms the booking, sends a reminder shortly before with the time, place and what to bring, and sometimes follows up afterwards.
A review request flow asks satisfied customers to leave a review, timed for when they have just had a good result. For Priya, that might be a few weeks into the first term, rather than the day after enrolment.
A referral ask invites happy customers to tell a friend, sometimes with a reward for both. It works best after a review request has shown who is happy.
Whatever you sell, a re-engagement flow, sometimes called a win-back or sunset flow, protects your list. It is triggered when a subscriber has gone quiet for the window you chose in lesson 3.4. It sends one or two emails asking whether they still want to hear from you, with a clear button to stay. If they click, they stay and the quiet tag is removed. If they do not, the flow unsubscribes or suppresses them.
This is the re-permission email from lesson 3.4, running by itself. Once it is set up, list hygiene stops being a quarterly chore and simply happens.
Every tool named in this course has a flow builder. Klaviyo is built around e-commerce and has close connections with shop platforms, which makes it a common choice for online shops. Mailchimp, Brevo, Kit and MailerLite all offer flow builders too, with different strengths, plans and limits. Check what your own tool's current plan includes before designing anything ambitious, since some features, such as multi-branch flows, sit on paid plans in some tools.
To choose, ask where your business loses the most people today. For Mei Ling, it was customers who started an order and never finished it, so abandoned cart came first, with post-purchase care second. For Priya, it was enquiries that went cold and trial classes with no follow-up, so the enquiry flow came first and booking reminders second.
In the activity below you will choose the next two flows for your business, after the welcome flow, and write the trigger, number of emails and goal for each.
Choose the next two flows for your business and write the trigger, number of emails and goal for each.
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