# Lifecycle Messaging

Designs automated email and SMS programs, welcome and onboarding sequences, nurture...

- Repository: https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount (2554 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-18
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill lifecycle-messaging -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill lifecycle-messaging -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill lifecycle-messaging -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill lifecycle-messaging -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add cbrock84/headcount`

## Description

Designs automated email and SMS programs, welcome and onboarding sequences, nurture, re-engagement, transactional messaging, and the timing and segmentation behind them. Use this to build or fix an email sequence, plan lifecycle automation, improve open or click performance, set up SMS flows, or decide what messages a customer should receive and when.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Lifecycle messaging

## Map the lifecycle before writing any message

For each stage, name what the person is trying to do and what would move them forward. Messages
written without that answer become announcements, and announcements get unsubscribed from.

The stages that matter: just signed up, activated but not habitual, habitual, at risk, lapsed.
Most programs over-invest in the first and neglect at-risk entirely, which is where the money is.

## The welcome sequence

The highest-engagement messages you will ever send. Do not waste them on company history.

1. **Immediate**, deliver whatever was promised, plus the single next action.
2. **Within days**, the fastest route to first value, one step.
3. **After that**, the use case most people miss, or the objection most people have.

Set expectations early: what you send, how often. It reduces unsubscribes more than any subject-line
technique.

## Timing and cadence

Trigger on behavior, not the calendar, wherever possible. A message sent because someone did
something is many times more relevant than one sent because it is Tuesday.

Cadence sustainable at your worst week. Every message should be one the recipient would miss.

## SMS is a different medium

Higher consent bar, higher intrusion, higher cost. Reserve it for time-sensitive and transactional
messages, delivery, appointment, security, an expiring window. Marketing SMS at any volume trains
people to opt out.

Explicit opt-in, honored opt-out, sending hours respected in the recipient's timezone. These are
legal requirements in most jurisdictions, not preferences.

## SMS compliance is not optional

> Consult qualified counsel before launching an SMS program. The exposure here is statutory damages
> per message, which is how these become class actions.

The rest: https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount/blob/HEAD/plugins/demand-generation/skills/lifecycle-messaging/SKILL.md