"Twilio SendGrid is a cloud-based email marketing tool that assists marketers and developers with campaign management and audience engagement. Its key features include A/B testing, mailing list management, predefined templates, image library and reporting."
In simpler words, it is the integration that we use together with Apollo to increase the limit of prospects that we can contact by email on a monthly basis. And since we already exhausted Apollo's annual credits for internal lead generation, we decided to hire SendGrid's internal marketing service to continue this work.
This guide explains all the steps needed to generate automatic email sequences on a temporary basis while our Apollo plan renews, with some steps requiring the use of both platforms. NOTE: WE ARE NOT EXCHANGING ONE SERVICE FOR ANOTHER. WE NEED THE APOLLO PLAN TO BE ABLE TO HAVE ACCESS TO LINKEDIN PROSPECTS THAT WE CAN DOWNLOAD AND CONTACT.
Step 0: Sendgrid requires a Two-Factor identification code that currently is being sent only to Jean Carlo Nunes' phone via SMS, so, in order to access the platform you'll need to make him know that you'll be logging in so he can be on the lookout to give you said code. Since the website doesn't allows for more than one phone to be the verification code recipient, it's on Jean at the moment. Please make sure you finished your work on the platform correctly before logging out, since re-logging would require a new access code and it could take several minutes for him to answer you with it if he's busy during a presentation or else.
Username: pinvestor@equityandhelp.com
Password: EquityEquity780##
Step 1: Setting up Your Sender Email
Once you successfully logged into Sendgrid, check the left bar and look into the Marketing section.
Click on it so the dropdown menu comes up. Look for the "Senders" option and click on it, then to the top right corner look for the "Create New Sender" button. Click on it.
Fill out all the required information using your E&H email and remember to put it on the "Reply to" section as well:
You'll need to give yourself a nickname or else the website won't allow you to save the sender. After you are done, click on "Save".
Step 2: Setting up your Automation
If you are already familiar with Apollo's sequence, this section will result familiar for you. First, go to the Marketing tab again and locate the "Automations" button. Click on it.
You'll see a list of the current automations being used. Please don't click on them or change anything. Instead, go to the top right corner button and click on "Create an Automation".
You'll be asked to select an automation type. Just go with the Custom option and click on the "Select" button.
And then you'll be prompted to edit your whole Automation, so please follow these steps carefully as the image shows:
1. Name your automation. Start it with your name so it'll be easier for you to find it later, followed by it's purpose. IE: Jean PI Leads - ENG, Jean PI Leads Spanish, etc.
2. When will your contacts enter the automation?: Leave the entry criteria as it is: "The first time a contact is added to" and click on the "Select list or segment" button for the dropdown menu to appear. Here, you'll be asked to select an existing contact list or create your own, so go on and click on the "Create New List" button and give it a name, then click save.
3. When will the contacts leave the automation?: Click on the first option that says "Contacts have received all the emails in this automation"
4. Unsubscribe Group: Click on the first option and select "E&H Unsubscribe Group"
5. What email(s) are included in your automation?: This is what we called Sequences on Apollo, and they work almost the same here.
As you can see, it says "EMAIL 1" on the left side. This will be the first email your prospects will receive from you, so it works both as a cold email campaign and an introduction. Make sure to have everything you need to cause the best first impression. Click on "Add Email Content".
Then, when prompted to select a design, click on the "Blank Template" option.
And then, go with the Design editor option:
And from here, it's just about designing your whole email. You'll have something that looks like this (the right side will be in blank):
On the Settings tab on the left, create your email subject and you can put and email preheader, which is completely optional. After that, make sure that you select yourself as the sender in the following section so all responses go straight to your email instead of the pinvestor account as we had on Apollo.
After this is all done, you can click the "Build" tab and drag any type of content you want to use. Since this is an email campaign, just to with text, mostly. Click and drag the "Text" option to the right where you want it:
Remember that personalized emails is what the experts recommend on these cases, so make sure you open ALL your emails with "Hello, hi, etc" or whatever greeting works best for you followed by {{first_name}} (you can copy an paste it on your email so the code is replaced by the contact's first name.
After this, put all the text, images, links and info you find necessary and don't forget to add your signature. You can go back to the Settings tab and send yourself a test email under the "Test Your Email" option. It won't say your first name since it's a test, but the code we pasted will work (it was already tested).
Once your email looks how you want to, go to the top tab and click on "Save" and then go back on the left arrow.
You'll be back on the Automation page:
Click on the "Add New Email" under the one you just edited:
You'll be repeating the sub-step 5 until it's completion for the 2nd email and then a 3rd one. You can add more if you want, but we think that after three attempts we shouldn't be pushing it further with a lead.
Once all your emails have been set, check that the 1st email will be sent instantly and then on the steps 2 and 3 on the image you can select how many days apart from each one they will be sent. I'd recommend a follow-up after 5 days have passed since the previous email, but you can set it up however you want to.
6. Once everything is set and done, scroll up and click on the "Automation Options" button on the top right corner and then select the "Set Live" option only after checking that you have successfully selected your own contact list on sub-step: 2. When will your contacts enter the automation?:
7. Click on the "Save" button and your automation will be completed.
NOTE: The way automations work in SendGrid is that they need to be configured and set live BEFORE adding contacts to a specific list. If this is done the other way around, the contacts wont enter the automation and you'd have wasted imported contacts credits for nothing.
STEP 3: ADDING CONTACTS
We'll be going to Apollo for this, and log in using the same username and password as we used for SendGrid, with no need of a Two-Factor code.
To find your prospects, just follow the steps from 12 to 14 on our APOLLO GUIDE.
But instead of going for step 15, and adding them to an Apollo sequence, we'll be downloading them like this:
Leave everything like the image below and then click save. You'll receive an email on the pinvestor@equityandhelp.com inbox when the CSV is ready to be downloaded, and after clicking it, you'll have your contacts on your computer.
NOTE: We can ONLY download 12,760 contacts PER YEAR on Apollo, and our current count is 1,442 (at the time this article was made), so that leaves us with only 11,428 remaining credits to work with until november. SendGrid allows us to add 10,000 contacts on a monthly basis, BUT if by any mistake you upload them on the wrong list and need to delete and add them again, they'll count as new and fastly deplete your credits. So please BE CAREFUL when uploading your contacts to the right list.
1: On SendGrid, go to the left taskbar and under the marketing button, click on Contacts.
2: Then on the contacts tab, go to the top right corner and select "Add contacts" which will give you a dropdown menu, select the Upload CSV option.
Make sure that you select the "Add contacts and include in existing list" option as shown on the 1st step on the image below. Then make sure you add them to the right contacts list associated with the automation you created before, shown in the step 2. Then click and select your Contacts csv as shown on step 3 and finally go to Review CSV Upload as shown on step 4.
On the review section, make sure that the First Name, Last Name and Email fields are mapped. Once this is done you can go on and click on the "Skip Unmapped Fields" option above:
And then click on the Add Contacts button. If it was done correctly, by adding them to the proper list associated with your Automation, they'll start receiving the automated emails as you scheduled it to work. Remember: The automation must be set live BEFORE adding contacts to it.