Email sequenceConcept project · fictional product

FlowLedger: five-email welcome sequence for trial users

FlowLedger is a fictional workspace for managing client work. This concept project presents five welcome emails for a 14-day trial. The sequence asks readers to work through a client project, review how the product fits their existing tools and choose a plan.

Product: A fictional workspace for proposals, projects, files, approvals and invoices, organised by client.
Audience: Designers working with clients.
Conversion goal: Help trial users test the workspace on an active client project and decide whether a paid plan fits.

The copy challenge

The sequence addresses a reader whose existing setup works. It describes the effort of moving between Gmail, Drive, Notion, proposals and invoices, and asks the reader to try the workspace with one active client project. The final email helps the reader compare plans and treats declining the product as a valid outcome.

My role and key writing decisions

Five-email welcome sequence for a self-directed concept project, supplied as one document. No client was involved.

The first four emails build the trial around active client work: add one client, create a current project, request an approval and use the workspace for that client during the rest of the trial.
The second and fourth emails describe the reader’s existing tools and the effort of moving between them. Email 2 follows the question “Where are we with this?” through the email thread, Drive, the deadline and the invoicing tool, and locates the cost in the moving between them. Email 4 states that the setup works, asks the reader to move nothing, and frames the trial as a test of whether one screen beat four, at the cost of one project’s worth of setup.
The fifth email says that everything the reader has set up stays where it is when the trial ends. It sets the two plans side by side with their prices, limits and features. The line between them is the setup work: templates and automated reminders for readers who rebuild project structures or chase invoices by hand, and Solo as the honest answer for readers who do not. It closes by asking for a reply if the answer is no.

Finished copy — the sequence

#EmailSend timingIntended action

1Welcome and first actionDay 0 — on signupAdd a first client

2Problem awarenessDay 1Create a first project

3Product educationDay 3Invite a client and request an approval

4Objection handlingDay 7Run one project through the product

5Trial conversionDay 12Choose a plan

Email 1 of 5, Day 0, sent immediately after trial signup

Intended action: add a first client

Subject: Start with one client
Preview: It takes about a minute, and it's the fastest way to tell whether this fits how you work.

Hi Sarah,

Your FlowLedger trial is live for the next 14 days.

The quickest way to find out whether it's useful is to add one client you're working with right now. Not your whole roster. One.

It takes about a minute: name, email, and what you're working on together. Everything else attaches to that client afterward, so the project, the files, the approvals, and the invoices all sit in the same place instead of four.

Pick the client whose emails you dig through the most.

Add my first client

If something doesn't work the way you expected, reply to this email and tell me.

FlowLedger

Email 2 of 5, Day 1

Intended action: create a first project

Subject: "Where are we with this?"
Preview: You know the answer. Getting to it is the part that takes fifteen minutes.

Hi Sarah,

A client sends that message on a Tuesday afternoon.

You know roughly where things stand. Confirming it means opening the email thread to find what they approved, then Drive for the current file, then wherever you keep the deadline, then your invoicing tool to check whether the last one was paid.

Each of those tools works fine on its own. The cost shows up in the moving between them, a few minutes at a time, several times a week, and again the next time someone asks.

A project in FlowLedger keeps those pieces under one client. Milestones, files, approvals, and invoices in the same place, so answering that question is one screen.

Set one up for the client you added yesterday. Use a project you're actually in the middle of, not a test one.

Create my first project

If you haven't added a client yet, the same link starts there.

FlowLedger

Email 3 of 5, Day 3

Intended action: invite a client and request an approval

Subject: The approval nobody said no to
Preview: It’s still sitting in the thread, waiting on the reply someone probably meant to send.

Hi Sarah,

Work rarely stalls because a client hates the work. It stalls because they opened the file on their phone, thought "I'll look at this properly later," and later turned into Monday.

Three days go by. Now you're writing the follow-up you'd rather not write, and the project sits where it sat.

FlowLedger handles that differently. You attach the deliverable to the project and request approval. The client sees what's waiting on them, approves it or leaves a comment, and the answer lands against the project. No thread to search, no version of the question that starts with "sorry to chase."

Their side stays limited to the work you're doing together: what needs approving, the files, the invoices. It isn't a system they have to learn to use.

Invite the client from the project you set up. Then request approval on something real that's currently waiting on them.

Invite my client

FlowLedger

Email 4 of 5, Day 7

Intended action: run one project through the product

Subject: Your setup probably works fine
Preview: So the test isn't whether it's broken. It's what it costs you to keep running it.

Hi Sarah,

Gmail, Drive, Notion, a doc for proposals, something separate for invoices. That setup works. Plenty of designers run entire careers on it, and there's nothing to fix in it.

What it runs on is you knowing where everything is. On a normal week that costs a few minutes. It costs more when a client asks about a project you closed in March, when you're away for a week, or when you hand part of the work to someone else.

So don't move anything. Take one active client and run that one client through FlowLedger for the rest of your trial. Proposal, milestones, approvals, invoice. Everything else stays where it is.

By the time the trial ends you'll know whether one screen beat four. If it didn't, the whole experiment cost you one project's worth of setup.

Run one project through it

FlowLedger

Email 5 of 5, Day 12

Intended action: choose a plan

Subject: Two days left on your trial
Preview: Here's what happens to what you've set up, and how to pick a plan without guessing.

Hi Sarah,

Your trial ends on Thursday. Everything you've set up stays where it is; picking a plan keeps you working in it.

You've now run a real client through FlowLedger for a week, which is the only way to answer this properly. If the answer is yes, the plan follows from how you work:

Solo, $19/month. Up to 10 active clients. Proposals, projects, invoices, and the client portal.

Studio, $39/month. Unlimited clients, plus project templates, automated invoice reminders, recurring invoices, and your own branding.

Working with 5 to 10 clients at a time, either plan holds you. The line between them is the setup work. If you're rebuilding the same project structure for every new client, or chasing invoices by hand, Studio removes both. If neither of those is your problem right now, Solo is the honest answer and you can move up later.

Choose my plan

If it's a no, that's a fine outcome too. Reply and tell me what didn't work. I read those.

FlowLedger

Concept scope

FlowLedger is a fictional product. Its workspace, 14-day trial, plans, limits and features are assumptions used for this portfolio project. The reader addressed as Sarah is invented.

Gmail, Drive and Notion are real products named in the sequence as the reader’s existing tools. The project has no client and no measured results.

Delivered

A five-email sequence over twelve days, with send timing
Subject line and preview text for every email
Full body copy with one call to action per email

Need a trial sequence that asks for one step at a time?

Tell me what a new user has to do first.

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