Design Nurture Sequence

You're drafting a multi-step email sequence in the operator's voice. Each email is anchored to a verbatim customer pain from the synthesis, picks the help-center video that most directly addresses the concern at that point in the journey, and follows the canonical email shape.

This is a DESIGN skill, not a deploy skill. It produces drafts the operator reviews in chat. To push the drafts into a live auto queue, the operator then runs wire-nurture-sequence.

The source of truth for the method is knowledge/marketing-strategy-method.md — read its "Layer 4 — Designing a nurture sequence" section before starting.

A nurture email has to earn its open and hold the read, so it is engagement copy: read knowledge/storytelling-method.md before drafting for the subject-line hook, the curiosity gap that carries a reader from one email into the next, and the but/therefore connectors inside a single email. The sequence's own structure stays the method file's job; the attention craft is that one.

Prerequisites

The operator must have already authored:

• voice.md (how to write — built by build-brand-strategy)
• value-props.yaml (what to claim)
• content-pillars.yaml (themes)
• A customer-voice synthesis (verbatim pain to anchor each email)

If any of these are missing, STOP and ask the operator to run the prior skill. Don't invent the brand voice on the fly.

Step 1 — Confirm the sequence shape

Ask the operator:

1. Which auto queue? (Name or ID — they should already have it set up with stages, even if the email actions are empty.) Confirm the queue exists by running python ~/.claude/bos-run.py tool dump-crm-bundle --resources auto_queues and reading the result.
2. Audience + trigger. Who's enrolled and when (e.g. trial signups moving into a "Welcome" stage, Facebook leads via form submission).
3. Goal of the sequence. Drive conversion, drive activation, drive referral, etc. Map the goal to its doctrine before drafting:
   • Activation → the activation protocol (business-method.md §11.3): a felt first win inside the first days, plus a personal re-sell touch inside 48 hours (directional) — which may be a task for the operator rather than an email.
   • Conversion → the next-win timing (§9.4): each email sells the solution to the problem the previous win just revealed.
   • Retention → the retention cadence (§11.4): personal and specific, never a newsletter blast — a mass sequence may be the wrong tool here; say so.
4. The stages and their delays. Default to whatever the auto queue already has. Common shape: Day 0 (immediate) → Day 2 → 4 → 6 → 8 → 10 → 12.

Step 2 — Map a help video to each stage

The TrustPager help center is the canonical library. List articles via:

curl -s "https://api.trustpager.com/functions/v1/help-center-public?action=list" \
  | python -c "import sys, json; [print(f\"{a['slug']} | {a['title']}\") for a in json.load(sys.stdin)['articles']]"

For each stage:

1. Identify the customer concern that's MOST ACUTE by that point in the trial — i.e. the strongest unaddressed pain from synthesis §2 given what earlier emails have already covered. Every solved problem reveals the next one; the stage order follows the problem chain, not the feature list (business-method.md §9.4).
2. Find the help video whose title most directly addresses that concern.
3. Cross-reference against the canonical pain themes in synthesis §2.
4. If the chosen video is feature-led (e.g. "AI Needs Analysis"), check whether it actually cuts a real customer concern. Feature- showcase ≠ concern-cutting. If it doesn't, pick a different video.

Present the mapping as a table:

Wait for the operator to approve the mapping before drafting bodies. They'll often swap one or two videos based on knowledge you don't have.

Step 3 — Draft each email

For each step, follow the canonical shape:

Subject: <forward-looking, action-oriented verb the reader can agree to>

<HTML body with <p> tags>

<warm human opener — "Hi {{contact.first_name}}" or "Great to meet you ..." for Day 0>

<one paragraph: the core idea — the anchor (ONE verbatim pain or outcome from synthesis) informs it; the copy states the idea>

<one paragraph: what the video shows, why it matters>

<the link — raw URL as both href and visible text>

<warmest regards sign-off block>

Hard rules per email:

• Subject = a verb. "Let's streamline your operations" beats "Thanks for your enquiry". Don't lead with receipts of past actions.
• One core idea per paragraph. Don't stuff three customer pains into one sentence.
• Customer phrases are seasoning, not the meal. Use ONE verbatim pain anchor per email at most. Use the founder's voice for everything else.
• No banned register. No VC-bro, no Salesforce-enterprise speak, no AI-as-hero framing, no copywriter abstractions. See voice.md's "Watch out for" section.
• Words that are FINE. Streamline, facilitate growth, operations, strategy. These are normal business English.
• One soft CTA. The help video. No aggressive funnel pushes.
• Sign-off block, verbatim. Whatever voice.md says is the locked closer.
• Raw URL as href + visible text. Never breadcrumbs.
• HTML with <p> tags. Plain-text \n doesn't render right in Gmail.

Step 4 — Present all drafts in chat

Present the full set in chat, scannable. Per-email format:

### Day X — <stage name>

**Subject:** ...

<HTML body in a code block>

*Anchor: <synthesis quote + speaker + reason it lands>*

Two notes at the bottom of your output:

1. Open variables — anything you used a {{template_var}} for that isn't standard (e.g. {{assignee.first_name}} for the assigned team member). Flag for the operator to verify in TrustPager's automation builder.
2. Cross-references between emails — if Day 4's email references Day 2's video ("If you got Claude connected on Tuesday..."), flag it. Soft language is better than hard branching.

End with: "Edits welcome on any of these. When you give the green light, I'll run wire-nurture-sequence to push them into the auto queue via MCP."

Hard rules

• Content guardrails. Customer-facing copy uses no em dashes, invents no facts, quotes, or numbers, and names no third-party vendor. Write it in the owner's brand voice; the framing and the marketing psychology are the owner's choice. The rules are in knowledge/content-rules.md.
• The pain anchor is internal rationale (it picks the video and the idea). The anchor citation under each draft names the pain it's grounded in.
• Don't write to the auto queue from this skill. That's the next skill (wire-nurture-sequence). Stay in design mode.
• Iterate in chat, not in MCP. Voice corrections take 2-3 rounds. Cheaper to do them in markdown than in live automation actions.
• Quote the synthesis for every anchor. If you can't cite a specific quote for why an email lands, you're inventing pain.
• Default to fewer emails over more. A 4-step sequence done well beats a 7-step sequence with two filler emails. Almost all conversion and churn is decided early (business-method.md §11.3), so front-load the first-win emails.
• The convert-day email is special. It's the strongest "concern- cutting" video + the conversion close + an explicit out for "if it's not working, tell me what's missing". Don't soften this.