Sequence Steps

Overview

Once you've created your sequence in graph8, you can leverage four powerful step types to automate and optimize your outreach efforts. Each step type serves a specific purpose in your lead generation workflow:

  • Email - Send personalized email outreach at scale.

  • Phone Call - Schedule and track calling activities.

  • Manual Step - Add human touchpoints for personalized engagement.

  • VoiceAI - Deploy AI-powered voice interactions for automated conversations.

This comprehensive guide explores how to configure and optimize each step type, helping you build sophisticated sequences that combine automation with human insight. You'll learn best practices for sequencing these steps effectively and discover how graph8's AI capabilities can enhance your outreach performance across every touchpoint.

Email Steps

Email steps form the backbone of most outreach sequences, allowing you to deliver personalized messages at scale while maintaining authentic communication with your prospects. Graph8's email functionality combines flexibility with AI-powered automation to help you craft compelling outreach campaigns.

Setting Up Email Steps

When adding an email step to your sequence, you'll first configure the timing and delivery settings:

Step Timing Options:

  • Send immediately after previous step - Perfect for welcome sequences or immediate follow-ups

  • Delay delivery - Set a specific number of days, weeks, or months to wait before sending

  • Weekend delivery control - Choose whether to send emails on Saturdays and Sundays, or automatically skip to the next business day

Email Creation Methods

Graph8 offers multiple approaches to email creation, giving you complete control over your messaging strategy:

Write from Scratch - Build custom emails tailored to your specific campaign needs with full creative control.

Templates - Create, save, and reuse proven email formats across multiple sequences, ensuring consistency while saving time.

AI-Generated Samples - Generate three unique email variations instantly, providing inspiration and starting points for your outreach.

On-Demand AI Models - Leverage industry-leading AI models to craft personalized emails.

Email Customization Features

Dynamic Variables - Personalize both subject lines and email body content using dynamic variables that automatically populate with prospect-specific information like names, companies, job titles, and custom data fields.

Thread Management - For follow-up emails, enable the "Reply in Thread" option to maintain conversation continuity and improve deliverability by keeping all messages in the same email thread.

Visual Formatting - Enhance your emails with professional presentation options:

  • Font customization - Adjust typefaces, sizes, and styling to match your brand

  • Image insertion - Add logos, product screenshots, or visual elements to increase engagement

  • Hyperlinks - Include clickable links to landing pages, calendars, resources, or social profiles

These formatting and personalization tools ensure your emails look professional while feeling personal to each recipient.

AI Content Generation

This feature will generate AI-powered suggestions for your email content. Here's how it works:

  • Click "Generate AI Content" to create multiple content variations

  • Review the generated suggestions

  • Select your preferred content to use in your message

  • Edit and customize the chosen content as needed

Try it out to enhance your email and save time on content creation!

On Demand Email Generation

Dynamically generates personalized content using AI technology.

  • Customizes content for each recipient

  • Creates unique emails in real-time

  • Adapts to recent context and data

  • Flexible to strategy changes

  • Improves over time with feedback

Available Models:

  • Anthropic Claude models: 2.7 Sonnet, 3.5 Haiku, 3.5 Sonnet, and 3 Opus

  • OpenAI models: GPT-4o and GPT-4o Mini

Each AI model offers different strengths in tone, creativity, and personalization, allowing you to match your email style to your audience and campaign objectives.

AI Prompt Tips for On-Demand Mode

To get the best results from AI-generated emails, follow these prompting best practices:

Be Specific About Tone and Style

  • Specify desired tone: "professional but friendly," "casual and conversational," or "formal and direct"

  • Include style preferences: "short and punchy" or "detailed and informative"

Provide Context and Purpose

  • Clearly state the email's objective: "schedule a demo," "introduce our service," or "follow up on previous conversation"

  • Include relevant background information about your product, service, or previous interactions

Define Your Audience

  • Describe your target recipient: "C-level executives," "marketing managers," or "small business owners"

  • Mention industry or company size when relevant

Include Key Elements

  • Specify required components: "include a clear call-to-action," "mention our recent product update," or "reference their LinkedIn post"

  • Request specific formatting: "use bullet points for benefits" or "keep under 150 words"

Example Effective Prompt: "Write a friendly but professional follow-up email for a marketing director at a mid-size SaaS company. The goal is to schedule a 15-minute demo of our analytics platform. Mention that we connected on LinkedIn last week and reference their recent post about data challenges. Keep it under 100 words with a clear call-to-action."

Testing with Dry Runs

Preview Before Sending - Use the dry run feature to see exactly how your emails will appear to recipients before they're sent. This powerful testing tool works with all email creation methods:

  • Dynamic Variable Preview - Select a specific contact enrolled in your sequence to see how their personal information populates in your subject line and email body

  • AI Template Testing - Preview how your saved AI templates render with real contact data

  • On-Demand Results - See the actual output generated by your AI prompts applied to specific prospects

Dry runs eliminate guesswork and ensure your personalization is working correctly, helping you catch formatting issues, variable errors, or prompt problems before emails reach your prospects.

Calls

Phone call steps add a powerful human touch to your sequences, creating opportunities for real-time conversations and deeper relationship building. Graph8's call functionality helps you organize, prioritize, and execute calling campaigns with structured scripts and efficient workflow management.

Important: To execute call steps, you must have already purchased a phone number. To find out how to do this, follow this article: Phone Number Purchase Guide.

Setting Up Phone Call Steps

Configure your call step timing and priority to optimize your outreach workflow:

Step Timing Options:

  • Call immediately after previous step - Perfect for hot leads or time-sensitive follow-ups.

  • Delay calls - Set a specific number of days, weeks, or months to wait before the call becomes due.

  • Weekend calling control - Choose whether to schedule calls on Saturdays and Sundays, or automatically skip to the next business day.

Task Priority Management:

  • High priority - Urgent calls that require immediate attention

  • Medium priority - Standard follow-up calls in your regular workflow

  • Low priority - Nice-to-have calls that can be handled when time allows

Add Notes - Include context, talking points, or special instructions that will help you or your team when making the call.

Call Script Creation

Graph8 provides multiple ways to create effective call scripts that guide your conversations:

Write from Scratch - Develop custom scripts tailored to your specific calling objectives and audience.

Insert Template - Use pre-built call script templates for common scenarios like discovery calls, follow-ups, or product demos.

AI-Generated Scripts - Leverage advanced AI models to create personalized call scripts:

  • AI Content Generation - Generate structured call scripts based on your specific prompts and requirements

  • AI Autopilot - Use ChatGPT and Claude models for dynamic, context-aware script creation that adapts to your prospect data

Call Script Features

Rich Text Formatting - Format your scripts with headers, bullet points, bold text, and other styling options to make them easy to follow during live conversations.

Dynamic Variables - Personalize your scripts with prospect-specific information that automatically populates when you're making the call.

Script Preview - Use the preview feature with a selected contact to see how your script will appear with real prospect data, ensuring personalization works correctly before you start calling.

Visual Organization - Structure your scripts with clear sections for opening, discovery questions, objection handling, and closing to maintain conversation flow.

AI Prompt Tips for Call Script Generation

To create effective call scripts using AI, follow these best practices:

Define Call Objectives Clearly

  • Specify the purpose: "discovery call," "product demo," "follow-up after email," or "closing call"

  • Include desired outcomes: "qualify budget and timeline," "book next meeting," or "identify decision makers"

Structure Your Script Request

  • Request specific sections: "include opening, discovery questions, objection handling, and close"

  • Ask for conversation flow: "provide natural transitions between topics"

  • Specify timing: "create a 10-minute script" or "plan for 30-minute conversation"

Provide Context and Background

  • Include prospect information: "calling a VP of Sales at a 500-person SaaS company"

  • Mention previous interactions: "following up on LinkedIn connection" or "second call after initial demo"

  • Add company context: "they're currently using [competitor] but facing [specific challenge]"

Request Interactive Elements

  • Ask for open-ended questions: "include 5 discovery questions about their current process"

  • Include objection responses: "provide comebacks for price and timing objections"

  • Add flexibility: "suggest alternative paths if they're not ready to buy"

Example Effective Prompt: "Create a 15-minute discovery call script for a marketing director at a mid-size e-commerce company. This is a follow-up to our LinkedIn connection where they mentioned struggling with customer retention. Include a warm opening, 4-5 discovery questions about their current retention strategies, how to handle 'not interested' and 'no budget' objections, and close with scheduling a product demo. Keep the tone consultative and helpful, not pushy."

Phone call steps transform your sequences from purely digital touchpoints into meaningful human interactions, helping you build stronger relationships and accelerate deal progression through direct conversation.

Manual Steps

Manual steps provide flexibility for personalized outreach activities that require human judgment and creativity. These steps pause your automated sequence to create tasks for custom actions that can't be fully automated, ensuring your outreach maintains a personal touch where it matters most.

Setting Up Manual Steps

Configure your manual step timing and priority to fit seamlessly into your workflow:

Step Timing Options:

  • Execute immediately after previous step - For time-sensitive manual actions that need immediate attention

  • Delay execution - Set a specific number of days, weeks, or months to wait before the manual task becomes due

  • Weekend scheduling control - Choose whether to create tasks on Saturdays and Sundays, or automatically skip to the next business day

Task Priority Management:

  • High priority - Urgent manual tasks that require immediate attention

  • Medium priority - Standard manual tasks in your regular workflow

  • Low priority - Nice-to-have tasks that can be handled when time allows

Add Notes - Include detailed context, specific instructions, or background information to guide whoever will complete the manual task.

Creating Manual Task Instructions

Manual steps center around clear, actionable instructions that guide the execution of personalized outreach:

Rich Text Instructions - Format your task instructions with headers, bullet points, bold text, and other styling options to make them easy to follow and execute.

Template Library - Create and save reusable instruction templates for common manual tasks, ensuring consistency across your team and campaigns.

Dynamic Variables - Personalize your instructions with prospect-specific information that automatically populates when the task is created.

Preview Functionality - Use the preview feature with a selected contact to see how your instructions will appear with real prospect data, ensuring all variables work correctly.

Common Manual Step Use Cases

LinkedIn Outreach - Craft personalized LinkedIn connection requests or messages that reference specific posts, mutual connections, or company news.

Social Media Engagement - Like, comment, or share prospect content on various social platforms to build awareness before direct outreach.

Research Tasks - Gather additional information about prospects, their companies, or recent developments to inform future sequence steps.

Custom Touchpoints - Send personalized gifts, handwritten notes, or other creative outreach methods that require human execution.

Manual steps ensure your sequences maintain authentic, human connections while still benefiting from the organization and timing of automated workflows.

VoiceAI Steps

VoiceAI steps represent the cutting-edge of automated outreach, deploying AI-powered voice agents to conduct natural, human-like conversations with your prospects. Graph8's Voice AI serves as your artificial voice SDR, capable of handling both outbound prospecting calls and inbound inquiries with sophisticated conversational abilities.

Important: To use VoiceAI steps, you must first create and configure an AI agent. For detailed instructions on setting up your AI agent, follow this article: AI Agent Creation and Configuration Guide.

Setting Up VoiceAI Steps

Configure your VoiceAI step timing to optimize your automated calling workflow:

Step Timing Options:

  • Call immediately after previous step - Perfect for hot leads or time-sensitive follow-ups where immediate AI engagement is crucial

  • Delay calls - Set a specific number of days, weeks, or months to wait before the AI call is initiated

  • Weekend calling control - Choose whether to make AI calls on Saturdays and Sundays, or automatically skip to the next business day

VoiceAI Capabilities

Graph8's Voice AI agents deliver sophisticated conversational experiences:

Natural Conversations - AI agents engage prospects with human-like dialogue that feels authentic and builds rapport naturally.

Lead Qualification - Intelligent questioning and conversation flow to identify qualified prospects and gather essential information.

Objection Handling - Pre-programmed responses to common objections, allowing the AI to navigate challenging conversations effectively.

Context Awareness - Integration with Graph8's Memory AI ensures each conversation builds on previous interactions and available prospect data.

Voicemail Management - Customizable voicemail messages when prospects don't answer, maintaining consistent outreach even when calls aren't connected.

Testing with VoiceAI Dry Runs

Important Safety Notice: VoiceAI dry runs should be used with extreme caution. When you select a prospect for testing, Graph8 loads their actual phone number. If you click "Call" during a dry run, it will place a real call to that prospect.

Recommended Testing Approach:

  1. Use Your Own Phone Number - Before testing with real prospects, temporarily replace a prospect's phone number with your personal number

  2. Test Conversations - Answer the call to experience how your AI agent conducts conversations and handles different scenarios

  3. Test Voicemail - Let the call go to voicemail to verify your AI's voicemail message sounds professional and delivers the right message

  4. Restore Original Numbers - After testing, make sure to restore the original prospect phone numbers before activating your sequence

This testing method allows you to safely evaluate your AI agent's performance, voice quality, conversation flow, and voicemail delivery without accidentally contacting prospects during the setup phase.

VoiceAI Integration Benefits

Memory AI Integration - Every VoiceAI conversation is automatically stored and analyzed, creating comprehensive interaction histories that inform future outreach steps.

Multi-Channel Coordination - VoiceAI steps work seamlessly with email, manual, and traditional phone call steps to create cohesive, multi-touch campaigns.

Scalable Personalization - AI agents can handle multiple conversations simultaneously while maintaining personalized interactions based on prospect data and previous touchpoints.

VoiceAI steps transform your sequences into fully automated, intelligent outreach systems that can engage prospects at scale while maintaining the personal touch of human conversation.