Australian businesses with good leads going cold after the proposal are not losing to competitors — they are losing to inaction, and a 5-touch follow-up sequence is what turns proposals into signed contracts

A post-discovery-call follow-up email sequence for an Australian B2B business typically consists of two to three touches triggered by the meeting being logged as completed in the CRM. The first email is sent within 24 hours of the call and covers three things: a brief summary of the discussion, the agreed next step (usually a proposal or a second meeting), and a confirmed timeline. This email should not be a sales pitch — it is a professional summary that keeps the conversation moving. The second touch, if the prospect has not responded within three business days, is a short check-in confirming the proposal is on track. In HubSpot, this is configured as a workflow triggered by the meeting outcome property, with a conditional branch that suppresses the second touch if the contact has already responded.

Start by filtering the HubSpot contact database for contacts with no email activity in the last 90 days and no open deals. Export this list and verify email deliverability before running the campaign — a high bounce rate on a re-engagement campaign will damage your sending domain reputation. Build a three-touch sequence: the first email references the original enquiry and states a specific reason to reconnect; the second email provides a value-oriented piece of content or a time-sensitive offer; the third is a short direct message asking for a one-word response to confirm whether interest still exists. Contacts who open but do not respond should receive a fourth touch from a personal email address rather than the automated sequence. Australian contacts respond better to re-engagement emails that feel personal and specific rather than broadcast.

HubSpot's native sequence tool does not include SMS as a step type; SMS is added via an integrated platform such as Sakari, MessageMedia, or Twilio connected to HubSpot through a workflow. The SMS step is configured as a workflow action triggered at a specific point in the sequence — typically after the contact has not responded to two email touches. The SMS message should be short (under 160 characters), reference the previous email, and include a direct call to action with a link. In Australia, SPAM Act compliance requires that the contact has provided their mobile number and has not opted out of SMS communications. The opt-out mechanism for SMS must be operational — typically a reply "STOP" instruction in the message — before the campaign goes live.

The setup requires a contact or deal property that records the service type the lead enquired about. This property is populated either by a form field on the enquiry form, by a sales team member when logging the lead, or by a workflow that infers the service type from the page the lead converted on. Each service type is then mapped to a specific sequence in HubSpot. The routing is configured in a workflow: when a new lead enters the pipeline, the workflow checks the service type property and enrols the contact in the corresponding sequence. Each sequence has different email copy, different timing gaps, and different conversion goals. The key configuration requirement is that a contact can only be enrolled in one sequence at a time — the workflow must include a condition that prevents duplicate enrolment if the contact already has an active sequence running.

A post-proposal follow-up sequence for Australian B2B professional services should run 5 touches over 10 to 12 business days, with gaps of 2 to 3 business days between each touch. Australian business communication norms sit between the US (more aggressive) and the UK (more reserved): weekly follow-up is generally acceptable, daily follow-up is not. The sequence should escalate from email to SMS to phone call across the 5 touches rather than repeating the same channel. A contact who has not responded after 5 touches should be moved to a lower-frequency long-term nurture sequence rather than being marked as lost — one contact per month for a further three months will catch prospects whose timing changes. Beyond that window, a quarterly re-engagement is appropriate.