An email welcome series is a set of emails sent out to people when they subscribe to your list.   The fact that someone has subscribed shows that they are interested in what you do and so it’s vital that you make a good impression and nurture them.  

A bit like when you meet someone for the first time and make a judgement in the first few seconds, your first emails to a subscriber will form an idea in their mind as to whether it’s worth engaging with you and continuing to open future emails.

The first email that people receive from you should be immediately after they subscribe to your list.  This might be because they have subscribed to receive updates or specifically to receive a lead magnet.

The email needs to be sent out automatically – you don’t want to be manually sending out an email at 2am to an insomniac even if it is giving them an ebook about getting better sleep!

But one email does not make an email welcome series. 

So why should you send a series of emails?

Because as well as delivering the lead magnet and setting the tone, the emails that follow give you an opportunity to build the like, know and trust factor.  And the more they like, know and trust you, the more likely they might turn into paying customers.  I like to send between 4-5 emails and I’ve outlined below the content you can include in each of these emails.

At a networking event, if someone came up to you and asked for your business card, you wouldn’t just say hello, give them your card and then walk away.  That wouldn’t create much of an impression and chances are you probably wouldn’t hear from that person again.  

It’s no surprise that the one email that gets the highest open rate is the first email you send out to a new subscriber.  Typically, average open rates for campaigns are 20-25% but the welcome series open rates will be much higher.  You, therefore, need to use this to your advantage.

Here’s an idea of what you can include in your email welcome series

The email series suggestion below is ideal for someone joining your list after requesting a lead magnet or in response to an invitation to sign up for news. 

If you’re launching a new product or service then you would have a slightly different looking email series, with probably more emails and specific content around what you are launching.

Email 1

The first email will deliver the lead magnet or it maybe just in response to them subscribing to your updates.  But what’s more boring that a “hi, thanks for subscribing. Hope you like it, I’ll send you more stuff soon”.  Yawn.

This email is your opportunity to create that first impression.  Keep it brief but DO remind them of what you do and how you can help. Set the tone (your voice), remind them of what they will receive from you and when, start to show your personality and perhaps also remind them to move the email to their focussed/primary inbox so they won’t miss your future emails.

Email 2

To help build the like and know factor, I give subscribers a teeny bit about my background and a few personal details (you’ll have to subscribe to find out what!). Let people know that you understand their problem, empathise with them and explain how you are best placed to support peole.

You can invite them to email you back so you can find out about them, perhaps ask them a specific question about their pains or desires (useful for research)

Email 3

You want subscribers to keep opening your emails so in this email give them some more value.  What big piece of advice can you give them that will really help them with their pain or desire?  What other awesome content do you have that you could give to subscribers? 

Don’t sell in this email. Remember, it’s not about you but all about helping your subscriber.

Email 4

Let your subscribers know how they can work with you when the time is right.  Point them towards your store, Facebook Group, offer a discount or a discovery call.  Also let them know when they will hear from you again eg in your regular weekly update.  

Email 5

If you have something specific to sell then you can add a fifth email to promote your offering.  Often when people are launching a new product, course or programme the latter emails in the series will invite them to buy or join up. 

How do you deliver the welcome series?

This is done via the automation feature in your email service provider.  Mailerlite offers this on their free plan.

Unfortunately, if you’re on the Mailchimp free plan and signed up after 15^th May 2019 then you won’t have the ability to do a welcome series.  You can only send one welcome email but you could link single emails via tags (albeit a bit faffy). 

How often should you send the emails in the welcome series?

It’s perfectly acceptable to send one a day.  You may be thinking that subscribers will get annoyed but I promise you they won’t.  Even if someone does unsubscribe, don’t worry, it happens and they clearly weren’t your ideal client.  

The key is to keep the momentum going.  If you send one a week then people will likely forget who you are and why they subscribed in the first place. 

Once they’ve received all the emails in the welcome series, keep up that momentum.  Don’t wait for another couple of weeks before you send out another email to your list.

Keep checking your analytics

Do monitor your email welcome series.  Are subscribers getting stuck at email no. 3 for example and not receiving emails?  Are emails 3 and 4 getting much lower open rates than emails 1 and 2. 

Tweak the emails as required and do review the content from time to time to see if anything is out of date or no longer relevant.  I’ll be checking mine in light of the current pandemic to check the tone and content

 

 

 

Need some help with your email marketing strategy?  Whether you’re stuck on content ideas or frustrated with the techy back-end, wing me an email and let’s have a chat to see how I could support you.