How to make workflows wait for each other and run one by one?

[woody]

I have 7 ebooks and each ebook has 1 landing page. When someone fill out a form to download an ebook, it will trigger a workflow to send a sequence of 20 emails (each email is 2 days apart: email 1 -> delay 2 days -> email 2 -> delay 2 days - > email 3 -> delay 2 days -> ............ -> delay 2 days -> email 20)

With 7 ebooks, I have 7 different workflows like that and 140 different emails. 

Everything is fine when people only download 1 ebook then received 20 emails. However, if someone downloads 2, 3 ... or even 7 ebooks in a short time, these workflows will run together and the contact will receive too many emails in a short time. Something like today you recieve 7 emails, then 2 days later, you receive 7 more emails.... And I don't want that happens.

What I want is that only 1 of these 7 workflows can run at a time.

And I think of using property.

I will create a Dropdown select property, just name it "Running", this property only has one  value.
Then I will set workflows like this:

Workflow 1 has no delay, workflow 2 delay 5 minutes, workflow 3 delay 10 minutes, workflow 4 delay 15 minutes..., workflow 7 delay 30 minutes.

What I want is the "Go to other action" in workflows will go from A to C, but Hubspot doesn't let me do this because of loop, it only allows me to go from A to B. But that way, I can't get what I want.

Let's say someone downloads all 7 books for a short amount of time and workflow 1 runs first. After workflow 1 is completed, all the remaining 6 workflows in the YES branch will switch to the NO branch and run 6 email sequences at the same time. Obviously not what I want.

I thought about setting up more YES NO branches but that would get too complicated.

Question 1: Is there a better way than setting up a lot more YES NO branches in these workflows?

Question 2: Can I set up 2 consecutive delays like this? Will it delay more 5 minutes than when I only set the first delay?

[woody]

The difficult thing with this case is that visitors can download any ebook, any number of ebooks in any order at anytime.. It is not a fixed workflow that has to wait for another fixed workflow but depends on the case.

I think about enrollment in another workflow too, but which workflow? because the order is not fixed.

I have thought about the solutions with YES NO branches, delay until even happens, enroll in another workflow... but it seems like nothing is working.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hey @woody,

Currently, as I understand your setup, you want the ebook 1 email series to be followed by the ebook 2 email series if someone downloads both offers in short succession – correct?

I would argue that this might not be the ideal experience. There can be up to 40 days between the two email series – which means that the second email series could be out of context by the time it's eventually triggered. It's been almost 6 weeks after all. Downloading 5 whitepapers, a contact would still be receiving emails from you half a year later.

This is why I'd suggest approaching this from a different angle.

What goal are you pursuing with each email series? Instead of sending multiple series of 20 emails each, can you get your email recipients to take a qualified action (contacting sales, booking a meeting etc.), get to the next step of your buyer's journey before one series ends? If they haven't taken an action after 20 emails, would they not rather be a candidate for re-engagement than for sending another 20 emails?

Would it be an option to offer the content from additionally triggered email series in another format? For example, a BDR reaching out, "We noticed that you downloaded two of our whitepapers and instead of sending your 40 emails, I wanted to check-in and see if you'd like to discuss..."

Can you let the recipients choose what they'd like to receive, what cadence they prefer? "You recently downloaded two of our whitepapers and we'd like to send you additional resources. We want these to be as relevant and helpful as possible for you. Which topic are you most interested in?"

Hope this helps!

[TiphaineCuisset]

Hi @woody 

Thank you for reaching out and for that detailed explanation!

I want to tag some of our experts on this - @Anonymous @Dan1 @Kevin-C any suggestions to share with @woody on this? 

Thank you!

Best

Tiphaine