When people subscribe to your list, you’re inviting them into your community, your tribe.
But the mistake that people make (a lot) is leaving your reader to figure things out for themselves.
What should they do first?
Do they know why they’re there?
What should they do next?
What’s in it for them?
Leaving your reader without a clue will only make them frustrated, confused…and probably a little pissed off.
Many just let their email service provider do the job with the automated “welcome” and “please confirm by clicking the link.” (You know the emails.)
I was really surprised to learn that most didn’t go beyond this step.
People that decide to join you in your business adventure are your advocates in training!
When people give you their precious email address, they are saying “I give you permission to enter my life.”
That’s a big deal!
So, the best way to start the conversation and really engage each person that joins your list is to start with an email WELCOME sequence.
Resources:
Your Welcome Sequence – Nothing says “I’m glad you’re here” better than a big welcome.
Transcript (unedited)
Hey there, it’s Christine.
Today, I’m going to be talking about writing your email, welcome sequence.
And the first way to do that is to start out when people subscribe is really inviting them into your community, your tribe. And the best way to do that is to start by an email sequence.
Now, I’m going to draw also drop the link after we’re done here, I’ll drop the link to a blog post I wrote about setting up your emails. So that has some information in there for you as well. But I really want to talk about how to actually do that.
So you have your opt in, you have the join my newsletter, which we talked about, in using something other than the word join my newsletter, some kind of a lead magnet, something that your audience wants to opt into read and not just a discount, but something that’s a value to them that they can use, whatever it is that they’re going through.
And if it’s for skincare, maybe give them a skincare guide, if it’s candles, how to light your woodwick candle, valuable piece of information when I get my woodwick candles. So you know, and rather than, again, just calling it your your newsletter, it can be a checklist, it can be a guide of some sort, it can be anything short, but substantial and valuable to your reader.
Because again, they’re giving you their sacred email, they’re saying, yes, they want to be part of your tribe, and that they need to be helped out in some way that they want something that you have.
So let’s give them something of value.
So when we do that, and it depends on your email service provider, how you set that up, I have MailChimp, there’s a lot out there, there’s klaviyo, I have that too.
So we want to make sure that we’re setting up that email sequence. Rather than just having when people opt in, and you see the opt in form, it may just say, success, or it may look like the same opt in form, just the name and email lines go away.
We want to do something much more than that, because we’re inviting people into the community, it’s time to help build a know like and trust factor.
Now I know a lot of people think, oh, I don’t want to send too many emails to my list. And I’ve heard that a lot.
But here’s the thing, you’re not sending too many emails, and you’re not sending too many sales emails or emails that people tend to go blind to, again, offer after offer sale after sale, what you’re doing in the email sequences, and your welcome email sequence is you’re building you’re showing them how to come into the community, you’re showing them how to engage with you, you’re showing them what to expect from you once they’re there and kind of setting those guidelines for them once they’re there.
So what I want you to do is start out by in your will go MailChimp and Klaviyo do the same, a lot of them do the same, where when you set up that opt in form, have them go to an actual thank you page.
Now in the article that I wrote, I actually put put a little flow chart together for you. So you can see that how to do that, but have them go to a thank you page.
I know in MailChimp, they kind of have the sequences all set up for you and they’re very generic, what we want to do is we want to get away from the generic, we want to start creating that communication with our list right away.
So I want you to, um, if you have an ecommerce store, it may not be as easy, easy to send them to a completely separate, separate thank you page. So what I want you to do is go into the automation that you’re setting this up with, because this will be set up in the automation or the autoresponder area of your email service provider, they will not be just totally separate emails. So this way, you’re going to be able to just set it and forget it. So every time someone subscribes, they’re going to get a series of emails welcoming them in.
So if you cannot going back to the thank you page, when someone opts in MailChimp has a section where where once you start once you go in, you can actually send them to your own branded thank you page, I recommend that so what you do is you set that up in the forums area of MailChimp, where you can rewrite that email so that that first email that they get will be say thank you, you’ve probably seen it in the dropdowns it’ll say thank you write something really nice in there and right there experts what they can expect.
Okay, so let me give you a couple of examples on that in just a second. I just kind of want to write through that goes through the sequence quickly for you, before I tell you exactly what to write in those sequences.
04:43
So you’re going to do three or four emails within that automated sequence.
Okay, so this way, again, they’re being set up so you’re you’re not selling yet you’re just introducing yourself, tell them what they can expect and what will happen down the road. So let me tell you a little bit about this.
And you guys know still, that email is still still 40 times and not 40%. But 40 times more effective than using just social media alone.
So as you gather people and have them subscribed to your list, again, they’re very important people that are on your list.
So we want to make them feel welcome. So in your series, you’re going to start by this invitation, which is that opt in or that lead magnet, not just your newsletter, and again, I know a lot of them, especially on e commerce are set up to be like that 10% discount, let’s give them something more than that.
I was actually talking to one of my clients about that. And she was like, you know, nobody’s using the discount, they want to pay full price. Isn’t that interesting? Most people do want to pay full price, especially as a maker, and they’re seeing how hard you work.
So again, that discount, you know, it’s a nice little trigger, we’re not going to use that in the email sequence right away, especially.
But again, finding something that that valuable piece of information that you can give them right away that they can use, whether again, it’s a skincare routine, or how to light a candle or anything like that, that you can give them.
So once we do that, once they subscribe, they’re going to get that your first email, again, you’re going to send them to a thank you page. At the same time, they’re also going to be sent to your first automation. So that again, that welcome email.
So the thank you page will say, Hey, thank you very much for subscribing. So glad you’re here, have a link to the download that you’re going to get. And in just a minute, by the way, you’re going to be getting some emails from me.
Okay, that’s all your thank you page really has to say you can certainly write more. When you go to your email service provider, you’re they’re going to be triggered off and you’re going to set the trigger points on that.
So the first email be triggered immediately upon subscription, then you’re going to set up the other emails to be triggered on different days. So first email is set up right away, that email that you’re going to be writing is really what they can expect, hey, how, you know, how are you, we’re really glad you’re here, it’s a little bit different than your thank you page,
you’re setting those expectations, you’ll get more acquainted, you’ll say,
Hey, you know, hopefully you got that lead magnet, how is it hopefully you downloaded it, maybe you want to start out by explaining it a little bit more and how they can use those tips in those strategies.
You can invite them to your Facebook group if you have one or a Slack channel or any other community that you have, or they can be part of that community.
And that’s really all you need to do in your first email sequence. Because your first email of the sequence because I forget, I can’t talk today. Again, we’re inviting them in, we’re not inundating them with a big long email right away, we’re giving them a little snippet so they can see what to do first what they can expect. And what happens next.
In the second email, you’re going to trigger that email to happen one day after the previous email or one day after your first email.
And in this email, I want you to show your reader that you understand their pains or pain points. And you can do that by starting to answer a couple of the top questions that you see clients and customers asking, it’s just a great way to start, it’s a great way to start answering objections and challenges and any other concerns that they have right away before they even think about starting to ask them. And again, this really helps build trust.
And it also helps to build that, again, that know like and trust factor. Because if you’re already answering their questions, like we talked about in writing copy, it feels like you’re already in their head, and really tapping into those issues that they’re feeling already.
In the third email, I want you to trigger that two days after the previous email, which would be your second email. In this. This is where your audience is really getting to know you and start to like you.
Again, we’re not telling your story in the first two emails, we want to make sure that that that we’re welcoming them that we understand them in your 30 emails where you can tell a little bit about your story.
Maybe something funny about you or some secrets about you, your origin story, how this all started. And again, as you’re writing that you still want them to feel that that you started that because you understand what people needed being your ideal customer.
And that’s why you started you started doing your business. So we’re really making those stories, your story relate to why they’re coming to you. The other thing is, too I want you to remember, you know, people are seeking you out.
So again, the more they can learn about you, the more they can learn what they can expect from you and what they can get from you again, and these emails is where again, we can we’re starting to build this know like and trust factor, and they can see that not every email already is you’re gonna be starting to sell because again, we don’t want every email to be a sales email. We talked about that before, because that’s where people start to go blind to your emails.
Okay, on email for this is going to trigger three days after the previous email, which is your third email. And this is where everyone really loves a good party story.
So talk about some customer success stories in here. Not necessarily even just throwing in a testimonial, but kind of make it a story, make it a little bit fun. You know, somebody came to you for something, and it really stood out to you.
And it was, it was kind of fun it you had conversations back and forth, maybe there was something funny going on, or something interesting or something that helped them transform.
So you want to share those in your fourth emails, you know that also that when we start to share stories like this, it’s really good social proof. So somebody else telling a story about you, your products, what they’ve done with them, how that’s transformed them as a lot better than you talking about your products.
Alright, in those emails, so you have those four, and whether it’s email three, or email for a lot of times what I’ll do so for example, in this fourth email that you’re writing, and you have those customer success stories, you can in the PS link a couple of products.
So you can say, Oh, well, you know, Jane was using such and such product, you know, PS in the PS By the way, this is what Jane used and do a link to the product. It doesn’t need to be salesy. And it doesn’t need to be a long sentence.
Again, you can use this in the PS of email number four. And if there’s if you have to customer success stories, you can write, okay, and Samantha use this product. And here’s the link to that. So it’s a way to soft sell.
It’s also a way to show your your subscribers that you will be at time to time selling them things and giving them off offers.
Now, that’s an important point I want to make as well, as you’re doing this email sequence.
We want our customers to understand that these are just not fun and fluffy emails that you’re in business. They want what you have, and this is where you you will have offered so explaining to them that from time to time, you will they will be receiving those sales emails from us special offers.
Maybe you have a Bogo sale, Hey Mark, your calendar, those kinds of things.
So they don’t need to sound real salesy. They don’t need to be a weekly sale. But again, you’re teaching your customers to expect that you’re going to be doing that for them.
Because I know a lot of times selling is hard. And especially if you haven’t been through any kind of sales training. It feels like a really tough conversation to have, but it’s really not as we’ve been through.
Some of you have been through and no like our writing templates, or writing formulas.
Selling is really the same kind of formula, that conversation that you’re having, understanding what their problems are and then solving them. So okay, so that is your email sequence, how to write your email sequence.
Again, I’m going to drop the link below for the article that I wrote. So you can grab that and remember that each email service provider might be a little bit different.
So it may be called an automation it may be called an autoresponder.
But remember, it’s that setup, it’s not just a straight plain email. It’s the setup where you’re going to have a triggered set of emails go off, then you set it and forget it.
So awesome. So that is today’s lesson how to set up your welcome email sequence and I will see you soon
