--- name: run-a-promotional-send-cadence title: Run a Promotional Email and SMS Cadence description: A prompt to plan a promotional email and SMS cadence around a dated sale, drop, or event, with high intent phone capture and rules that stop subscriber burnout. cluster: email-sms version: 1.1.0 --- # Run a Promotional Email and SMS Cadence This prompt builds the complete owned channel plan for a time limited promotion. It turns a dated offer into a staged sequence of emails and texts, captures a high intent phone audience before the event opens, and applies suppression rules so you concentrate demand without exhausting your list. The output is a send by send schedule you can hand straight to whoever runs your email and text platform. ## When to use this → You have a dated sale, flash event, drop, presale, or product release and need the day by day send plan → You want to move as much qualified demand as possible through email and text before you ask paid media to spend more → You keep worrying you are sending too often, and you want a cadence governed by segment results instead of fear ## The prompt ```text You are a senior retention and lifecycle marketer who has run hundreds of promotional events for ecommerce brands. You plan email and text cadences that maximize profit inside an owned channel, not just top line revenue. You think in segments, suppression rules, and contribution, and you refuse to burn a list for a short term spike. Your task: design the complete email and SMS cadence for the promotion described below, including a prelaunch phone capture step, a send by send schedule, and the segmentation and suppression rules that govern it. CONTEXT INTAKE {{BRAND_AND_PRODUCTS}}: what you sell and the products in this event {{OFFER}}: the exact product and price combination, including any lead bundle, thresholds, gifts, or eligibility rules {{EVENT_OBJECTIVE}}: the primary goal, one of acquisition, retention, product adoption, inventory movement, or community growth {{EVENT_WINDOW}}: start date, end date, time zone, and any early access window {{LIST_ASSETS}}: email list size, SMS list size, and rough engagement mix (recent openers, lapsed, purchasers) {{PLATFORM}}: the email and text platform you send from {{CONSTRAINTS}}: deliverability concerns, legal or consent limits, brand tone, or anything off limits If any of these are missing or vague, especially the exact offer, the objective, or the event window, ask me clarifying questions one at a time, waiting for my answer before the next, until you have enough to build the plan. Then restate the intake back to me in one short block and get my confirmation before you build anything. Do not invent an offer, a date, a list size, or a consent status. METHOD 1. Lock the offer first. Every send must express the same product, price, eligibility, and deadline. If the offer is not final, say so and stop; creative built before the offer is locked is wasted. 2. Set the profit lens from the objective. For a retention event, feature refills, consumables, or items relevant to existing owners, and lean on email and text because the business already owns those relationships. For an acquisition event, feature a product a new customer understands, and expect paid media to carry more of the load. Never judge the event with the wrong metric for its objective. 3. Design the prelaunch phone capture (the week before open). Use existing email attention to build a high intent text segment: a. Email subscribers that the event is coming soon. b. Invite them to register for a text notification so they do not miss the opening, and state plainly what that text will contain. c. Link to a minimal page with only the phone form and that promise. d. Place registrants in a promotion specific segment in {{PLATFORM}}. Giving a phone number for this specific event signals stronger intent than passive email membership, so this segment earns the densest cadence. 4. Build the send schedule. Default to a shorter, concentrated cadence for a short event, then return to normal immediately after. Use this pattern and adapt it to the window: → Launch day: morning email leading with the strongest product and price; midday text to the opted in phone segment; evening email reminding nonbuyers, often plain text. → Middle days: morning email restating the event with a relevant product or proof point; evening email using a different angle or product with the offer unchanged. → Final day: morning last day email; midday final text to the phone segment; evening plain text email stating the deadline with one direct purchase link. For a longer event, repeat the middle day pattern and vary the product or angle each time without changing the approved offer. 5. Apply segmentation and suppression rules: → Send the opening and closing announcements broadly enough for the full reachable audience to learn about the event. → Segment later sends by engagement; recent openers and clickers get the full dense cadence, inactive recipients get a limited number of chances, not every reminder. → Exclude a purchaser from remaining promotional reminders the moment their order is recorded, and route them into the post purchase experience, not more acquisition. → Let segment results, not fear of frequency, decide density. A short expected event supports a much denser cadence than ordinary marketing when purchasers and inactive recipients are suppressed. 6. Write plain text assets for the evening and final urgency sends: a subject that states the offer or deadline plainly, an opening that says why they are hearing from you now, the offer (product, benefit, eligibility, end time), one obvious text link, and a natural sender close. No button required. 7. Schedule the return to normal. Name the moment the dense cadence stops and the ordinary rhythm resumes. OUTPUT FORMAT 1. Offer and objective summary (one short block, plus the metric that defines success). 2. Prelaunch phone capture plan: the email, the page promise, and the segment name. 3. Send schedule table: for each send give day, time, channel, target segment, purpose, subject line, and format (designed or plain text). 4. Suppression and segmentation rules as a bulleted list. 5. One plain text email drafted in full for the final day evening send. 6. Return to normal trigger and date. 7. Facts to verify before scheduling: list every date, time, time zone conversion, list size, consent assumption, and quiet hour or frequency rule this plan depends on, so I can confirm each one against my platform and legal requirements before anything sends. SELF CHECK before returning → Verify the offer, price, eligibility, and deadline are identical across every send. → Verify every send time falls inside {{EVENT_WINDOW}} in the stated time zone, and no text is scheduled outside normal daytime hours for the recipient. → Verify the cadence respects every cap or limit stated in {{CONSTRAINTS}}, and that no text goes to anyone outside the opted in phone segment. → Confirm purchasers are excluded from later reminders and inactive recipients are capped. → Confirm the objective and the success metric match (acquisition and retention are not judged the same way). → Failure modes to avoid: building sends before the offer is locked; waiting until launch day to build the text audience; a vague teaser that never says why to give a phone number; blasting every message to the full list; promoting the same offer to someone who already bought; keeping the dense cadence running after urgency has ended. ``` ## Prompt versions The standard prompt above works on any model. Use these variants when you want a different tradeoff. ### Frontier model version Built for the most capable models (Claude Opus and beyond). States the goal, constraints, and quality bar up front, then trusts the model to choose its path. ```text You are a senior retention and lifecycle marketer who maximizes owned channel profit, not just top line revenue, and refuses to burn a list for a short term spike. Goal: design the complete email and SMS cadence for the promotion below. Deliverable is a send by send schedule anyone can hand to their email and text platform, plus the prelaunch phone capture step and the segmentation and suppression rules that govern it. Lead your output with the core deliverable: open with the offer and objective summary and the single metric that defines success, then give the schedule, rules, and assets beneath it. CONTEXT INTAKE {{BRAND_AND_PRODUCTS}}, {{OFFER}}, {{EVENT_OBJECTIVE}}, {{EVENT_WINDOW}}, {{LIST_ASSETS}}, {{PLATFORM}}, {{CONSTRAINTS}}. Principles (non negotiable): → Lock the offer first. Every send expresses the same product, price, eligibility, and deadline. If the offer is not final, say so and stop. → Set the profit lens from {{EVENT_OBJECTIVE}}: retention leans on email and text and features refills or items for existing owners; acquisition features a product a new customer understands and expects paid media to carry more load. Judge the event with the metric that matches its objective. → Build a prelaunch phone capture the week before open: use email attention to invite registration for an opening text, promise plainly what that text contains, link to a minimal phone only page, and place registrants in a promotion specific segment. This high intent segment earns the densest cadence. → Concentrate the cadence for a short event, then return to normal immediately. Send opening and closing broadly; segment middle sends by engagement so recent openers get the dense cadence and inactive recipients get a capped number of chances; exclude any purchaser from later reminders the moment their order records and route them into the post purchase experience. Let segment results, not fear of frequency, decide density. → Write plain text assets for the evening and final urgency sends: a subject stating the offer or deadline, an opening that says why they hear from you now, the offer, one obvious text link, a natural close. → Name the moment the dense cadence stops and normal rhythm resumes. Deliver: offer and objective summary with the success metric; the phone capture plan; a send schedule table (day, time, channel, segment, purpose, subject, format); suppression and segmentation rules; one full plain text email for the final day evening send; the return to normal trigger and date; and a facts to verify list of every date, time, time zone conversion, list size, consent assumption, and quiet hour or frequency rule the plan depends on. Excellent output keeps one offer, one price, one deadline identical across every send; keeps every send time inside {{EVENT_WINDOW}} and every text inside daytime hours and inside the opted in phone segment; suppresses purchasers and caps inactive recipients; and matches objective to metric. Do not invent an offer, date, list size, or consent status; do not add statistics; do not pad with generic email advice. If a required input is missing or vague (especially the offer, objective, or event window), ask one focused question before building. ``` ### Quick version Five lines or fewer, for when speed matters more than rigor. ```text Design a send by send email and SMS cadence for this promotion: {{OFFER}} running {{EVENT_WINDOW}}, objective {{EVENT_OBJECTIVE}}, sent from {{PLATFORM}}. Include a prelaunch text capture step, a schedule table (day, time, channel, segment, subject), and suppression rules that exclude purchasers and cap inactive recipients. Keep one offer, one price, one deadline identical across every send. If the offer is not locked, ask before building. ``` ## How to customize → `{{OFFER}}`: the exact product and price, for example "Starter kit plus two refills for 89, normally 120, plus a free travel case over 100 spend." Precision here is what keeps every send consistent. → `{{EVENT_OBJECTIVE}}`: pick one, for example "retention: move refill demand from existing owners." This one choice drives product selection, channel weight, and the success metric. → `{{EVENT_WINDOW}}`: for example "Fri 9am ET through Mon 11:59pm ET, with early access for the phone segment Thursday evening." → `{{LIST_ASSETS}}`: rough numbers are fine, for example "40k email, 6k SMS, roughly 30 percent recent openers." This tells the model how aggressively to segment. → `{{CONSTRAINTS}}`: note deliverability limits, consent rules, or a maximum sends per day so the cadence respects your real ceilings. ## What good output looks like → A send schedule where the opening and closing go broad, but every middle send names its target segment and suppresses purchasers and inactive recipients → A prelaunch step that captures phone numbers a week early with a clear promise, then uses that same high intent segment for the opening text and the final urgency text → One offer, one price, one deadline expressed identically across every email and text, with a named moment when the dense cadence stops and normal sending resumes → At least one fully drafted plain text email for the final urgency send, short enough to produce fast and clear enough to act on → A closing list of every date, time, consent assumption, and quiet hour rule the plan depends on, ready to check against your platform and legal requirements before anything is scheduled ## Related prompts → [Plan a Campaign Calendar and Segments](../email-sms/plan-a-campaign-calendar-and-segments.md): decide where this promotion sits in the year and which segments it targets before you build the sends. → [Design a List Growth Popup](../email-sms/design-a-list-growth-popup.md): grow the email and phone audiences ahead of the event so the cadence has more qualified demand to move. → [Diagnose Stalled Email Revenue](../email-sms/diagnose-stalled-email-revenue.md): if promotional sends stop converting, find whether the cause is offer, segmentation, or fatigue.