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I’ve written articles in the past relating to the importance of building an email list and using a lead magnet as a vehicle to attract subscribers. I’m a fan of using this approach instead of trying to get people to subscribe to a boring newsletter.
The key to your success in these modern times where we all have very short attention spans and constant distractions is to offer your ideal audience something that is of benefit to them, from which they can gain a quick win.
Unless you’re Brad Pitt or a household brand I doubt that a newsletter will be very enticing to them and they’ll quickly move on.
Your Welcome Email Series?
It’s a great feeling when you put together a lead magnet which hits the mark and gains good numbers of subscribers. So what’s next?
Amongst other things, what you send your new subscriber needs to do the following:-
- Start building rapport and relationships with them
- Begin the process of establishing you as a credible expert
- Provide them with great value
- Prime them to look forward to reading your future emails
The recommended way to go about achieving this is by the use of a welcome email series. This is a series of emails that are pre-written and loaded into your email service provider to be sent automatically at preset intervals. The number of emails sent in your welcome email series varies but is often around 5 emails.
Why Use a Welcome Email Series?
Why not just send a single welcome email you ask? Well your welcome email series needs to achieve too much to be viable as only one email.
Look again at the listing I shared earlier of what you need to achieve to hit the mark and engage with your subscribers. It’s over ambitious to expect to do this in a single email.
This article provides a number of tips on how to put together your welcome email series to help you get started.
1) Make Sure They Actually See Your Email!
I realise this will probably get a “doh” response and sounds like common sense but it’s important and needs to be reiterated! Don’t just assume that your emails are going to get seen and read.
As I explained in my 10 Ways to Improve Email Deliverability article you face many hurdles and one of the biggest is the tendency for emails to be delivered into your subscriber’s spam/junk or Gmail promotions folder.
I recommend priming your new subscriber during your welcome email series, by telling them exactly what they need to do to ensure that your emails are delivered to their inbox. You can do this on your website’s confirmation page which is displayed when they subscribe to your list. Simply add a section that reads something like this …
Add me to your contact list or drag this email away from the promotions tab. This ensures that you receive all of the tips that I’ve prepared for you!
If you’re on Gmail, next to the reply button, there is a drop-down arrow. If you click that, the 5th option down says to “Add [Your Name] to Contacts List.”
2) Tell Your Subscribers About You
People will feel connected to you when you tell them about you and your journey. How did you start out? So for example if you are a photographer you might talk about how you started as a casual Android smartphone user to becoming a professional photographer.
This also gives you the opportunity to share information including:-
- What were the external and internal struggles you were dealing with? If you know your audience well then you can hit on the ones they are thinking inside but would never tell anyone about.
- What new opportunities you discovered.
- What significant barriers did you face that motivated you to change direction? Talking about your failures and being vulnerable brings an authenticity that attracts subscribers and customers.
3) Get Your Subscribers to Engage With Your Freebie
Yes, it was your lead magnet freebie that peaked their interest and got them on your list. However, with short attention spans and constant distractions you need to ensure that you both deliver your freebie and get your new subscriber engaging with it. Otherwise they may never even take the time to check it out!
This is also another opportunity to get them to download it if they haven’t done so already. In your welcome email series, remind them again why your freebie is awesome and make sure you elaborate on it, so they take the time to view and action it.
Your freebie needs to be well aligned with whatever you are planning to offer for sale, so it is crucial that your subscribers take the time to view your freebie.
4) Give Them A Teaser of What’s In the Next Email
Subconsciously priming your subscribers of what to expect in your next email is another great way of building the relationship. This is an example from a welcome email series I recently received.
Oh by the way! I mentioned there were two bad habits.
Tomorrow I’ll reveal the second one.
I’m now far more likely to look at the next email to find out all about the other bad habit.
5) Encourage Interaction With Your Subscribers
A good way to get interaction and build rapport with your subscribers is to encourage them to give you feedback. This is simple to do by including a question on the topic and a request.
This is an example I recently received.
What’s your biggest struggle right now with e-mail marketing?
Hit reply and let me know. I read and reply to each email.
6) Don’t Interrupt Your Welcome Email Series
It is extremely important that you do not interrupt your welcome email series by sending other emails at the same time. What do I mean by this?
Your email welcome series is all about introducing yourself and building a relationship, trust and rapport with your subscribers. For this to be effective, it is extremely important that they do not receive other emails from you whilst this is being sent.
Think about it, how would you feel if 2 days after signing up for my freebie whilst receiving my email welcome sequence, you received an email offering 25% off my newest shiny widget! I wouldn’t be happy and might even feel inclined to hit the unsubscribe link.
I still haven’t gotten to know or trust you and I may not have even checked out your freebie yet. So attempting to sell to me is far too premature.
Do not make the mistake of sending weekly (or other frequency) correspondence that goes to your existing subscribers to those in your welcome email series. You’ll do harm to your reputation and put a serious dent in that trust and credibility you are working to build!
All you need to do is segment your email list delivery or use the automation tools available in the various platforms to ensure this does not occur. I regularly read conflicting views on what period to send your welcome email sequence over and how many days gap to leave.
Some say do it daily whilst others suggest every few days and both camps will give you plenty of justification for why they do it that way! Who’s right, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s something to test and see how the results compare.
SleekNote have written this excellent article on welcome email series which will also help you further with this topic.
Do you currently use a welcome email series and if so how has it performed for you? Please share your experiences in the comments below.
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