Client workflow automation for wedding videographers

What client workflow automation looks like in Hailo

An automation is the whole run of a job in one list. The builder shows the same run two ways, as a list or as a canvas, and every choice in it is picked from a dropdown, so a step can only name a template, a tag or a form that actually exists.

What can start a run:

• A new lead, from any source, or a particular inquiry form being filled in.
• A couple moving to a stage: proposal sent, contract signed, deposit paid, booked, in production, delivered or lost.
• A set number of days before or after the wedding.
• You, by hand, from the menu on a lead.

Steps, waits and checks

After the trigger, each step does one job: send an email template, send a questionnaire link, add a tag, change a status or stage, or drop a reminder in your own notifications. Waits hold the run for days, hours or minutes, or until a time of day, so the questionnaire lands in the morning rather than at midnight.

Checks are where a lead nurture email sequence gets smart. An If step lets the run carry on only when its check is true, and stops it there when it is not. It can check whether the couple has paid something or whether they carry a tag.

The run can also start from the couple's own choice: when a couple picks from your investment guide, the next step starts without you watching for it.

Eleven starters, from inquiry to anniversary

If you went looking for a client workflow template, these are eleven of them, already built and worded from the starter email library. Five recommended ones sit on screen and the rest open with one click, grouped by when they fire:

• Booking the job: Instant inquiry reply, Proposal follow-ups, and Just-booked welcome, your automated client onboarding: the welcome packet the moment they book.
• Planning the wedding: Pre-wedding questionnaires (90, 60 and 30 days out), Final payment reminder and Week-of note.
• Wedding day and production: Next-day wow and In-production updates.
• Delivery and growth: Delivery, review and referral, and Keepsake drive offer.
• Staying in touch: 1-year anniversary.

Stop when the couple replies

Turn on Stop if they reply for any automation and, the moment a couple answers one of its emails, everything still waiting for them is dropped. Steps that already ran stay on the record. A couple who wrote back yesterday never gets a checking-in nudge today.

This depends on Hailo seeing the reply, so set up reply capture once alongside your Gmail or other mailbox. Either partner's address counts, and only replies that arrive after that automation's own email stop it.

Know these before you go live

A handful of rules, each deliberate, each with a workaround:

• Nothing sends until you press Go live, and going live does not reach back to couples who passed the trigger earlier.
• Tags are added only by an automation's Add tag step; there is no tag control on a lead or client page.
• A reminder step lands in your notifications, not as a to-do on the lead.
• An automation cannot fill a merge field you normally type yourself, such as an amount or a passcode, so keep those out of automated templates.
• If you delete or rename a template an automation uses, that email is skipped. Open the step and pick the template again.
• A live automation that sends email needs a connected mailbox, and the Automations page shows a banner until one is.
• Each automation runs once per couple per trigger, and adding a starter you already have opens your copy, so nothing goes out twice.