Retention Workshop — Email Sequence

E01 · Send

Jul 21

E02 · Send

Jul 29

E03 · Send

Aug 1

E04 · Send day

Aug 3

Mon, July 21

13 days before the workshop

Cold open · no ask

Goal

Get replies and build curiosity before any pitch exists. No mention of the workshop as a thing to buy, just a problem the reader recognizes.

Why

The single highest-open email in the June sequence was a pure anecdote with zero CTA. Leading with a pitch this early reads as generic; leading with an unresolved story earns the reply and primes email 2's reveal.

Subject line

The patient who never complained

No refund request. No angry call. Just gone.

Hey Dr. Cole,

Last month I was pulling the cancellation list for one of our locations.

A patient who'd been coming in every two weeks for three years was just gone.

No complaint on file. No refund request. No angry call. Nothing that would ever show up in a review or a staff meeting.

I asked around. Nobody remembered her leaving. Nobody remembered why.

Here's the math nobody wants to look at: it costs 5 to 7 times more to get a new patient than to keep one you already have.

We were spending real money chasing new patients that same month. Meanwhile someone who'd already chosen us three years ago walked out the back door and nobody noticed.

That's when I stopped looking at new patient numbers and started looking at exits. What I found across our locations wasn't a marketing problem. It was a systems problem. And it turned into something that added $400,000 in revenue without one more new patient.

Hit reply and tell me, when's the last time you pulled your own cancellation list and actually looked at it?

— Austin

PS. I've spent the last few months turning this into something teachable. More coming.

No CTA on purpose — reply-bait close

Reply-bait close Workshop teased, not pitched

Wed, July 29

5 days before the workshop

First real pitch

Goal

Make the actual pitch: name the workshop, the date, and what's inside, while earning the right to sell by admitting what didn't work first.

Why

The "I tried three things, none worked" structure borrows the proven pattern from the AI Workshop send (self-deprecating failures before the reveal), earning the pitch instead of opening with it.

Subject line

I tried three things. None of them worked.

The real fix wasn't a chiropractic idea at all.

Hey Dr. Cole,

When I first noticed the leak, I thought I knew the fix.

I was wrong. Three times.

Tighter cancellation policies. Made it harder to skip appointments. Patients resented it. Didn't touch the real problem.

Staff bonuses for rebooking. Turned care into a sales conversation. Patients felt it immediately.

More new patient marketing. The obvious move. Just replaced the ones leaking out the back with new ones who'd leak out the same door eventually.

Here's the shift that actually mattered. I stopped studying chiropractors.

I went and studied three companies that have nothing to do with healthcare, companies that are world class at one thing: making people never want to leave. Then I took what they do and translated it into our practices. Not theory. Actual systems we installed and tested across our locations.

Monday, August 3rd at 7 PM Eastern, I'm opening up that playbook. The three companies, the exact changes we made, and a Monday Morning Checklist you can run the very next day.

Before Monday, pull your own numbers. Count how many patients stopped showing up after visit 6, visit 12, visit 20, with no complaint on file. That number is exactly what we're fixing.

A/B test in progress — CTA copy only50 / 50 split

Variant ARegister for the workshop →Formal / explicit

Variant BCount me in →Casual, untested

Everything else in the email is identical for both groups. Half the list gets Variant A, half gets Variant B; Mailchimp declares a click-rate winner and the remaining recipients on this send get that winner automatically. There is no single fixed CTA on E02 until the test resolves.

PS. I have 14+ locations. I can't personally manage retention for any of them. Everything I'm walking through Monday is built to hand off.

Failed-attempts structure A/B test live — see CTA block above

Sat, August 1

2 days before the workshop

Guarantee + objections

Goal

Kill the two objections most likely to be sitting between interest and registering this close to the date: risk ("is this worth an hour") and fit ("I'm solo, does this even apply").

Why

Leads with the LP's worth-your-hour guarantee verbatim so the promise is consistent across every touchpoint. Short and direct because at 2 days out, the reader has already seen the pitch twice — this email's job is reassurance, not persuasion.

Subject line

If this isn't worth your hour, I'll refund it

Show up, take notes, no hoops.

Hey Dr. Cole,

Two days out, so let me be direct.

One hour, Monday, August 3rd, 7 PM Eastern. Show up, take notes, and if you don't walk away with at least one thing from the Monday Morning Checklist you can use the very next morning, email us and we'll refund it. No hoops.

Solo practice, no associates? This still applies to you. Every system I'm walking through was built to run without me micromanaging it across 14 locations. Works the same whether you're the whole staff or one of sixteen doctors.

Can't make it live? Register anyway. Your seat covers the replay too, we're sending it to everyone who signs up.

Before Monday, pull your cancellation list. Count the ones who left with no complaint on file. That's the number this workshop is built to fix.

PS. Not ready? No hard feelings. Reply and tell me what's holding you back. I read these myself.

Money-back guarantee Solo-practice objection handled Single CTA — takes E02's test winner once decided

Mon, August 3

Send day — workshop is tonight

Highest-converting slot

Goal

Convert last-minute stragglers on send day, the slot that historically carries the most clicks and orders of the whole sequence.

Why

Kept intentionally short: by tonight, nobody needs the pitch re-explained, they need a reason to act in the next few hours. Replay reassurance stays in to avoid losing the reader who's genuinely busy tonight rather than uninterested.

Subject line

Tonight at 7.

One hour. Bring your cancellation list.

Hey Dr. Cole,

Tonight, 7 PM Eastern.

The three companies we studied, the exact changes we made across our locations, and the Monday Morning Checklist so you leave with something to run tomorrow.

Got clinic hours during that time? No problem, I'll send the replay right after. But if you can make it live, bring your questions.

A/B test in progress — CTA copy only50 / 50 split

Variant AGet in here →Proven winner, Jul 13 send

Variant BCount me in →Casual, untested

Run as its own test, separate from E02's — day-of urgency traffic behaves differently than a mid-sequence send, so this result isn't assumed from E02's winner. Same mechanic: 50/50 split, click rate decides, remainder gets the winner.

See you tonight.
— Austin

Day-of urgency A/B test live — independent of E02's test

Why the CTA phrasing looks like this: pulled from actual click-rate data on this list, not generic marketing research. "Get in here →" (3.05% click rate) and "Grab your seat →" (2.89%) both beat formal phrasing like "Register for the workshop →" (1.95%) and "Save your seat →" (1.25%) across the two most recent Austin sequences. E02 and E04 each run their own live A/B test on CTA copy only, shown above as Variant A / Variant B — there is no single fixed CTA on those two sends until each test resolves. E03 carries forward whichever variant wins E02's test.

The $400K Retention Workshop — email sequence