Any suggestions for designing a "Drip" email campaign?

[Jaymer]

So I have User-defined Email templates working now (so a user doesn't have to re-type over and over a similar email to prospects/leads).
And now they want to schedule 5 emails, 1 a week for the next 5 weeks, for example.

They may use filters to find a subset of the data, and add them to a user-defined list.
And that set of Leads is the basis for this email campaign.

Lets say they have 100 leads in their current list. 5 Emails per Lead, 1 week apart.
Q:
Do I want to go ahead and create all 500 OutgoingEmail recs NOW, and mark 400 of them with a future DeliveryDate (spread out a week apart)?
Because now I have the set of 100 recs available.
I can run a scheduled job each morning looking for Unsent Emails with a DeliveryDate = TODAY.

If I only create 100 of 500, then I have to remember exactly these 100 Leads, and repeat the process at 4 points in the future. Seems like this can get messy.

Anyone have some ideas for something like this?
thx
jaymer...

[PointsWell]

Do I want to go ahead and create all 500 OutgoingEmail recs NOW, and mark 400 of them with a future DeliveryDate (spread out a week apart)?
Because now I have the set of 100 recs available.
I can run a scheduled job each morning looking for Unsent Emails with a DeliveryDate = TODAY.

From a business process point of view I'd give that a hard no and then I'd caveat that with a depends.

If you create all the emails in advance and then schedule them for send what happens if the prospect converts to a customer? You'll need to create a process to convert that customer and then find all the emails and destroy them (or at least mark them as SENT). From a programmatic point of view you're unnecessarily generating records that potentially have no current or future value, from a Sh!t Happens point of view you are risking destroying a nascent relationship if after the first email the prospect converts to a customer by appearing as though the business doesn't know what they are doing.

The "depends" comes in if these are on boarding emails that signify steps that a user has to be prompted to do something, in which case the records have value immediately

I'd be more inclined to take an Status flag on the prospect record to indicate the step in the sales funnel that they are at and then run the mail out process against status on a weekly basis.

[Jaymer]

thx
all valid points.

i don't have any issue with writing some code to clean up 'un-needed unsent emails' if the need arise - the trick would be how to determine that need.
all of this is user-defined and multi-tenant.
1 person using it during recruiting and another for new-hires - no easy way to tell what condition might happen to need to eliminate future emails.

also, i can't guarantee that a lead/prospect/contact/etc. would only be in a campaign.
a 5-week might also need a 2-day email for a special need unrelated to their funnel status.
so i can't just go on a single field in that lead record.
thats part of the 'messy' stuff i was not wanting to get into.
pre-allocating all the emails may only have some small % of waste through the attrition you envision.

will discuss amongst ourselves - thx
jaymer...

[PointsWell]

I would set it up as
BOs:
Campaign
Prospects (as distinct from Customer)
TargetProspect - distinct object would allow a Prospect to be targeted multiple times for different campaigns
Customer

Campaign may have one or more Prospects - Campaign.om_TargetPropspects.ps_Prospects

Campaign.StepNo = 1..n

If TargetProspect.ob_Campaign = current campaign and TargetProspect.Status = Unconverted AND Campaign.StepNo=X THEN Mail DocumentX ELSE if TargetProspect.Status=Converted THEN CREATE Customer {from Prospect}

[Jaymer]

<bump>

[tford]

you are risking destroying a nascent relationship if after the first email the prospect converts to a customer by appearing as though the business doesn't know what they are doing.

I agree with this concern.

One way to address the concern while also creating the emails in advance would be to have the process that is sending the emails check the email address against the Customer database. The email sending process could NOT allow emails to be sent to a current customer unless the scheduled email has been reviewed by someone & an override flag turned on.

Having the emails scheduled in advance would also allow you to view the scheduled emails for any prospect.