📧 Life Sciences Email Outreach — With Follow-Up Sequence

An n8n workflow that automates personalised email outreach to life sciences contacts (pharma, biotech, CRO, HEOR) with an intelligent follow-up sequence. The workflow reads contacts and drug/indication data from Google Sheets, selects the right email template based on recipient designation and follow-up stage, sends via Gmail, and updates tracking status automatically.

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What this workflow does

1. Triggers daily at a set time (weekdays only — skips Saturday and Sunday automatically)
2. Reads contacts from a Google Sheet — including drug name, indication, phase, and follow-up history
3. Routes each contact through a Switch node based on their follow-up stage and last contact date:
   • Follow-ups 1–2 → waits 3 days between emails
   • Follow-ups 3–5 → waits 5 days between emails
   • Follow-up > 5 → contact is marked as exhausted and skipped
4. Throttles volume randomly to 40–50 emails per run to avoid spam triggers
5. Fetches the right template from a second Google Sheet, matched by designation and follow-up number
6. Personalises the template by injecting {FirstName}, {Company}, {DrugName}, {Phase}, {TherapeuticArea}, and a custom HTML signature
7. Sends via Gmail with a 15-second delay between each email
8. Updates the tracker sheet with the new status, incremented follow-up count, and today's date

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Workflow diagram

Schedule Trigger (daily)
  └─► Weekday check (If node)
        └─► Read contacts from Google Sheet
              └─► Map fields + build signature (Code)
                    └─► Route by follow-up stage (Switch)
                          ├─► [Stages 1–5] → Merge2 → Random batch (40–50)
                          │     └─► Loop Over Items
                          │           ├─► Fetch matching template (Google Sheets)
                          │           │     └─► Format HTML (Code1)
                          │           │           └─► Merge with contact data
                          │           │                 └─► Personalise subject + body (Edit Fields)
                          │           │                       ├─► Send email (Gmail)
                          │           │                       │     └─► Wait 15s → loop back
                          │           │                       └─► Merge1
                          │           │                             └─► Wait 1s → Update sheet
                          └─► [Stage > 5] → skip (no email sent)

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Nodes used

Node	Purpose
Schedule Trigger	Fires the workflow daily via cron expression
If	Blocks execution on weekends (Saturday = 6, Sunday = 0)
Google Sheets (read contacts)	Pulls all contact rows from the outreach tracker sheet
Code (field mapping)	Parses dates, maps columns, builds HTML email signature
Switch	Routes contacts by follow-up number and days since last contact
Merge2	Consolidates the 3 active follow-up routes into one stream
Code2 (batch throttle)	Randomly caps the batch at 40–50 contacts to protect sender reputation
Loop Over Items	Iterates one contact at a time
Google Sheets (read templates)	Looks up the correct template by follow_up_number + designation
Code1 (HTML formatter)	Wraps template in HTML div, converts line breaks, appends unsubscribe link
Merge	Combines contact data with fetched template
Edit Fields (Set)	Replaces all {placeholders} in template body and subject line
Gmail	Sends the personalised email
Wait (15s)	Adds a 15-second gap between sends
Merge1	Combines send output with contact data for status update
Wait1 (1s)	Brief pause before writing back to sheet
Google Sheets (update)	Appends/updates status, follow-up number, and date in the tracker

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Google Sheets setup

Sheet 1 — Contacts tracker

Column	Description
First Name	Contact's first name
Last Name	Contact's last name
Title	Job title (e.g. Senior Director, VP)
Company	Company name
Company Link	Company website URL
Email	Contact email address (used as match key)
Person Linkedin Url	LinkedIn profile URL
Company Country	Country of the company
designation	Role category used to select template (e.g. KOL, Payer, HEOR)
drug_name	Drug or product name to personalise the email
indication	Therapeutic area or disease indication
phase	Clinical trial phase (e.g. Phase II, Phase III)
status	Current email status (e.g. SENT, INBOX) — auto-updated by workflow
folow_up_number	Integer tracking which follow-up this contact is on (starts at 1)
date	Date of last email sent (dd/mm/yyyy format) — auto-updated

Sheet 2 — Email templates

Column	Description
follow_up_number	Which follow-up this template is for (1, 2, 3 …)
designation	Role category this template targets (must match Sheet 1 designation values)
Subject	Email subject line — supports placeholders
Template	Full email body — supports all placeholders listed below

Supported placeholders

Placeholder	Replaced with
{FirstName}	Contact's first name
{Company}	Contact's company
{DrugName}	Drug or product name
{DrugName/TherapeuticArea}	Drug name (alternate placeholder)
{Phase}	Clinical phase
{TherapeuticArea}	Disease indication
{YourName}	Your HTML email signature block
{Email}	Contact's email address

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Follow-up logic (Switch node)

Condition	Output	Action
Follow-up 3–5 AND last email > 5 days ago	Output 0	Send next follow-up
Follow-up = 2 AND last email > 3 days ago	Output 1	Send follow-up 2
Follow-up = 1 AND last email > 3 days ago	Output 2	Send follow-up 1
Follow-up > 5	Output 3	Skip — sequence exhausted
Otherwise	Output 4	Skip — too soon to follow up

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Setup instructions

Prerequisites

• n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
• Google account with Sheets and Gmail access
• OAuth2 credentials configured in n8n for both Google Sheets and Gmail

Step 1 — Set up your Google Sheets

1. Create Sheet 1 (contacts tracker) with the columns listed above
2. Create Sheet 2 (email templates) with your copy for each follow-up stage and designation
3. Copy the Sheet IDs from the URL of each sheet (the long string between /d/ and /edit)

Step 2 — Import the workflow

1. In n8n, go to Workflows → Import
2. Upload email-outreach-followup-sequence.json

Step 3 — Connect your credentials

1. Open the Google Sheets nodes and select your Google Sheets OAuth2 credential
2. Update the documentId in each Google Sheets node with your actual Sheet IDs
3. Open the Gmail node and connect your Gmail OAuth2 credential

Step 4 — Update your signature

In the Code node, replace:

• YOUR_NAME → your full name
• YOUR_TITLE → your job title
• YOUR_EMAIL → your email address
• YOUR_COMPANY → your company name
• YOUR_COMPANY_WEBSITE → your company URL
• YOUR_LINKEDIN_URL → your LinkedIn profile URL
• YOUR_LOGO_IMAGE_URL → a publicly accessible URL to your logo image

Step 5 — Update sender name and unsubscribe link

• In the Gmail node → Sender Name: replace YOUR_SENDER_NAME with your first name
• In Code1: replace YOUR_UNSUBSCRIBE_URL with your unsubscribe endpoint URL

Step 6 — Set your send time

The Schedule Trigger is set to 0 30 22 * * * (22:30 UTC daily). Adjust to your preferred time.

Step 7 — Activate

Toggle the workflow to Active. It will fire at the next scheduled time on a weekday.

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Customisation tips

Change the batch size: In Code2, adjust the 40 and 50 values to set your desired min/max emails per run.

Adjust follow-up intervals: In the Switch node, change 5 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000 (5 days) and 3 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000 (3 days) to your preferred waiting periods.

Add more designation types: Add new rows to your templates sheet with a new designation value — the lookup matches automatically.

Extend the sequence: Add template rows for follow-up numbers 6, 7, etc. and update the Switch condition threshold.

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Industry use case

Built for outreach in the life sciences industry, targeting:

• HEOR (Health Economics and Outcomes Research) professionals
• Payers and market access teams
• KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) in specific therapeutic areas
• Biotech and pharma business development contacts

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License

MIT — free to use, adapt, and share. Attribution appreciated but not required.

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Replace README with full workflow documentation