You know you need to finally get into email marketing, but not sure where to start with building and nurturing your list (if you even have one?) And what comes after you create your first freebie? Anything?!

Thank God you’ve made it to this post, so I can teach you the art of the welcome email sequence: what it is, why you need one, and how to get started.  

What is a welcome email sequence?

It’s simple: a welcome sequence is a series of emails that you send new subscribers in an effort to help them get to know you and your brand better.

As I mentioned when I taught you How To Grow Your Email List With A Lead Magnet, sending a new subscriber your freebie and then never speaking to them again is like ghosting someone after a first date and expecting them to still like you and welcome you into their home.

Why are email welcome sequences important?

Let’s address the harsh reality of the world of freebies: people do not care about who they download freebies from.

More often than not, you don’t even know the person you’re downloading the freebie from. You’ve probably never heard of them in your life.

I’m willing to bet that at least 80% of the people who have downloaded my lead magnets have either found me on Pinterest, with no prior knowledge of my existence, or Googled something like “how to write a homepage” and opted for downloading my quick checklist instead of reading through my lengthy blog posts.

Welcome sequences are necessary because they help your subscribers get to know you, so they come to like you, so they come to trust you, so they eventually buy from you. 

This is their first (maaaaaybe second) impression of you. 

Because while, yes, I love everyone on my email list, and I get a great deal of joy from sending them a weekly newsletter every Tuesday morning, I’d be lying if I said my ultimate goal wasn’t to make more people aware of my services, encourage them to book a strategy call, or to create an engaged audience to launch my website copywriting course to.

I’m not out here sending weekly newsletters for my health.

(Although, if I do say so myself, the Tuesday Table of Contents is pretty fun, and I would definitely miss it if I didn’t write it every week… I won’t deny that I love talking about myself and my feral stories, like this one and this one and this one.)

That being said, though, I don’t expect anyone on my email list to invest in my products or services without a comprehensive knowledge of who I am, why they can count on me, and how I can help their brand or business grow.

Your welcome email sequence helps you build trust with your audience, allows you to establish your credibility, and gives you an opportunity to nurture your relationships — so that you can create (and maintain) an engaged, ready-to-invest email list.

Okay, cool. So… how does one actually write a welcome email sequence?

Great question! I’m going to give an unpopular answer, similar to my unpopular opinion on About pages: there’s no foolproof formula.

The whole point of your welcome sequence is to introduce yourself to your audience. Your true, authentic self.

Maybe that means throwing in a fuck at least once in every email, like me. Or maybe that means adding emojis to help your audience find the key points quickly, like my friend Kristina from Gem Creative Co (stalk her site, by the way — she’s one of my biggest Write Your Site success stories!)

Of course, there’s a strategic way to approach the sequence, but in terms of what you say, well, that comes down to your brand voice, and your overall goals for your email list.

Alright, now that my “be yourself” disclaimer is out of the way — here’s what I recommend sharing in your welcome sequence:

1. More context about who you are, what you do, and who you do it for.
2. An overview of all the ways you can help them / all the ways they can work with you.
3. Extra elements of free value, like tips or tutorials about something you know they’d benefit from.
4. Any info you think would be helpful for them to know before working with you.
5. What they can expect as a member of your email list.

 

I find that this strategy reduces the amount of immediate unsubscribes after downloading their freebie (of course, that happens sometimes, and fair enough.) They usually stick around to learn more about me and my business and become loyal subscribers.

If I have 4 freebies, do I have to have 4 email welcome sequences?

Nope, you don’t have to! You can, and it may improve your user experience / conversion (thanks to the specificity each sequence can provide, based on unique information you could include about each specific freebie topic), but it’s not a MUST. 

The only thing that has to be different is the email delivery of the freebie they chose to download. After that, it can be the same welcome sequence.

And if THAT is the one thing holding you back from getting started with email marketing, I beg you, please don’t make extra work for yourself. This is where segmenting your list will be a dream come true. Your ESP (email service provider) will give you the option of creating different segments (aka different portions of your list) for each of your freebies.

I use Flodesk, because I’ve found it’s the most user-friendly, accessible, aesthetically-pleasing, and helpful ESP on the market.

It does everything I need from an ESP and I freaking love it.

My list is divided by lots of segments, most of which are opt-ins from my five free resources. I recommend using your lead magnet delivery email as a template, and adjusting the structure of that one email based on whichever freebie you’re delivering.

Then, create a segment called something like “welcome sequence” and make the next step in your workflow “add a trigger” and click “add to segment” then choose “welcome sequence.”

For more Flodesk tips, check out their recently-launched resource hub, Flodesk University. And if you plan to sign up, click this link or use my code “BTLCOPY” for 25% off your first year!

Want to learn how to write an email welcome sequence of your own?

Download my free welcome email sequence and swipe my strategy for keeping new subscribers engaged. You’ll also get emails from me each day for four days, helping you understand how to set up your welcome sequence.

Download for free here.

And if you want to know even more about email marketing and how you can effectively use it to grow your business without feeling slimy, enroll in my email marketing course! You’ll learn how to grow and sell to a list full of engaged subscribers, including building out your welcome sequence. Buy it here!