How to Write an Effective Welcome Email Sequence.

I love email, said no business owner. Ever.

People don’t email us to say “Hey, I had some spare time and wondered if I could take something off your plate?” No. When our inbox pings it’s usually with a request for our time, or money.

Despite our own feelings about email it’s a critical component of achieving success from online marketing. It’s the only tool you have that gives you complete control and flexibility around how you connect and reconnect with people who’ve shown an interest in what you offer.

Why Do You need a Welcome Email Sequence?

Let’s assume that you’re regularly adding new subscribers to your list. What happens after they’ve handed over their name and precious email address?

Immediately after someone has opted is the time when they’ll be feeling their most motivated about engaging with you further.

What happens next is going to have a big impact on the likelihood of that person becoming a customer or client.

Let’s start by considering three ‘offers’ that someone might have chosen to opt in for.

1. Informational content EG eBook, Checklist, Case Study, Video Training, etc
2. Blog Updates
3. Discount or Free/Discounted Trial

First of all let’s considered immediately after they sign up.

Welcome Email Zero – Your Thankyou Page

The first thing in your welcome email sequence isn’t an email at all.

Your thankyou page is the first part of your welcome series. How well you engage a new subscriber on the thankyou page will impact on whether they bother to open and read your emails.

A thoughtfully crafted thankyou page can win you a highly engaged tribe of followers for life.

Informational content

Deliver the content to your new subscriber on the thankyou page.

By all means send it to their inbox too but the engagement rate with your content piece drops off if your new subscriber has to go and check their email to access it.

If you need them to confirm their subscription from an email they’ll have been sent then make sure you remind them of that too.

In addition to the content piece add links to related blog posts and/or other resources that you might have squirreled away in your archives. This adds even more value to your new subscriber and gives you an immediate opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and credibility. In turn, this builds trust.

Blog Updates

If you don’t have a piece of informational content that people can download then asking them to opt in to get a notification when you publish is an alternative. Even if you do have other opt ins you should still give people the opportunity to opt in for updates.

Adding an opt in at end of each blog post will help you catch a few people here and there that would otherwise slip through the cracks. If someone has clicked through to read one of your blog posts and they like what they found then give them an opportunity to read more if it.

Your welcome page for this kind of opt in is a good time to let people how and where to enagage with you on social media.

You might like to add links to some of your most popular content.

TIP: They don’t actually have to be your most popular, sprinkle in a couple of posts that would benefit from getting extra traffic to them.

Again, if your new subscriber needs to confirm their subscription make sure you let them know on the thankyou page.

Discount or Free Trial

This tactic of list building obviously more relevant if you’ve got a product to sell.

Again, your thank you page should take the person straight to the page where they can take the next steps.

If you’ve got a free or low cost trial let them sign up then and there, no mucking about checking email or navigating to yet ANOTHER page.

For eCommerce consider adding some add to cart images of your bestsellers or current specials on the thank you for signing up page.

There is absolutely no point making someone go to their inbox to confirm their subscription in this case. Attracting the sale is going to be far more beneficial for you because:

1. Hello, dollars in the bank!
2. You effectively get their email confirmation when they purchase or sign up for the trial

In a nutshell, the goals of your thankyou page are:

• Give more value
• Make things easy for the new subscriber to take the next steps
• Facilitate higher engagement

Welcome Email One – Welcoming your new Subscriber

Your welcome email is the first that a new subscriber will receive from you. Delivery should be automated using an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign and triggered to send as soon as the email subscriber has completed the subscription process.

This email only needs to be short. Here’s what it needs to include:

• The information promised in exchange for their email address. Yes, you’ve already delivered it to them but sending the link or code to their inbox gives your new subscriber an opportunity to share it with other people.
• A quick rundown on what your new subscriber can expect for you via email.
• If you cover multiple topics then consider allowing your new subscriber to self-segment and select the topics that they are interested in.
• Encouragement to share the resource with a friend who might benefit.

Your welcome email is also an opportunity to surprise and delight. Check out the HubSpot Blog for a few fun examples. Show off your personality and let your new subscriber know that your regular emails are worth receiving.

My recommendation to clients is that they don’t rely on images to convey information in email. This is because the default setting for most inboxes is to not automatically download images. However, your welcome email can be an exception to this rule.

If you decide to use an image in your welcome email (or any other email you send) make sure you add a descriptive Alt tag. Use the Alt Tag to provide a description that compels your reader to download the image.

Welcome Email Two – Introduce Yourself

I recommend sending your second welcome email on the next business day after someone joined your list.

Either 8AM or 3PM are good times to start your schedule with. Avoid scheduling an email for 8AM on Monday or 3PM on Friday. As you send more, weekly campaigns you’ll get a better idea of what days and times get the best engagement.

People like to know who they are talking to. The second welcome email is all about introducing yourself and telling your new subscriber a little about what you do.

This can be one of the more difficult emails to write and get right. Anything you write about yourself, actually needs to be about your audience. What I mean by this is, when you get to know some new there you are considering what’s in this new relationship for you.

The types of questions your new subscriber might be asking are:

• What points of common connection are there?
• Does this person entertain me/make me feel good/teach me?
• How will investing time into a relationship with this person benefit me?

The job of this email is to answer those questions.

A basic format for email two in your welcome series is:

• Start by addressing who they are and why they are here (Audience).
• Next talk about what problem(s) you can solve for them (Benefit)
• And how you do that (Feature).
• Now explain what it is make you different from other businesses that provide similar services.
• Establish credibility by briefly explaining how you got to here and the results you get for your clients.
• Add in a few titbits of personal stuff.
• Sign Off
• Add a post script asking people a relevant question, inviting them to reply.

You might be wondering why your new subscriber needs to know something personal about you. I don’t mean revealing your deepest, darkest secrets. Telling them that you love downhill mountain bike racing and going to the ballet is what I’m talking about here.

Injecting some personal information adds the ‘me too’ factor. It’s not related to what you do professionally but can establish credibility with another person faster and more deeply than all the qualifications and credentials in the world.

The postscript can be one of the most important elements of your emails. People often scroll straight to the bottom so if you can grab people’s attention here you’ve got a better chance of getting more people engaging with your whole email. In this email try asking where they get stuck most with the thing you can help with is a really good conversation starter and useful market research for you.

Welcome Emails Three & Four – Be Helpful

Welcome emails three and four are used to continue value adding to your new subscriber. Sharing additional resources and links to blog posts helps start cementing trust and credibility.

If you have a case study of client results email four is a great time to share it. Even better if that case study is related to the topic they subscriber signed up for in the first place.

If you have a success story that you can share to go with a resource go for it. Use the text in your email to provide context around why you’re sharing and how implementing whatever information is in the resource can benefit your subscriber.

If you offer a few different types of services you can use these emails to help get a deeper understanding of what your new subscriber is most looking for information on.

For example, we offer three different types of services… website design, SEO services and we’re also an inbound marketing agency. All three are closely related but each new subscriber will be closer to needing one thing more than the others.

ActiveCampaign allows you to add tags and trigger new email sequences based on how an individual subscriber engages with your emails.

If you’re an eCommerce business then case studies and stories about people using your products. Think how people have used your products and/or results they have gotten from them. Having a great Instagram marketing plan in place will help you out with building out both your welcome series and all your email marketing, blog and social content.

Grab your copy of our complete Instagram Marketing Planner here.

How you space these emails is up to you, there is no hard and fast rule. Avoid having them send on the same day(s) as your regular emails. I wouldn’t recommend spacing emails 2-5 any further apart than weekly.

Your welcome email series offers a you a good opportunity to test different days and times for sending. At the end of each month have a look at your email engagement stats and look for opportunities for improvement.

Welcome Email Five – It’s okay to ask

The first four emails in your welcome series have been all about adding value and letting your new subscriber get to know you a little.

Email five is your opportunity to promote your products and services a little.

If you’re eCommerce then you might like to promote your best sellers, offer another discount or free shipping.

Many service providers offer a complimentary initial consult (we do, you can find our strategy session application form here). Welcome email five is when you want to encourage people to take you up on that offer. Often one of the reasons someone will put off engaging a service provider is because they don’t know how much it is going to cost them. A free first meeting helps to move past that unknown.

Another option for service providers is to offer a deal. That might be packaging up a couple of your services at a discounted rate or offering six sessions for the price of five, for example.

If you offer an online program I suggest holding off on sending people to the sales page right away. Instead gauge their interest by letting them know about it and inviting them to join the waitlist for next time you are running it.

Following up on Your Welcome Email Sequence

One quick hack that will help improve outcomes from your welcome series is to automate a resend on the key emails in the sequence. With ActiveCampaign it’s simple to resend an email to everyone who hasn’t opened it yet.

I suggest setting an automation to wait 3 business days and resend emails two and five to people who haven’t opened those emails yet. Give the resent email a different subject line to the original.

Another quick hack to improve results from email five is to add another email to send to anyone who has clicked on your link but not taken action. IE they clicked on the link to book a strategy session but didn’t submit a form. Use this email to ask them if they have any questions. This extra email will help you address the typical resistances your subscriber might have to taking the next step with you.

Last but definitely not least, make sure that you are making the most of your list building efforts by emailing your database regularly. Check out this blog post with ideas on what to send in your regular email marketing newsletters.

If you have any thoughts or questions we’d love to hear them. Pop them in the comments below or fire off an email to us!