Welcome to the family.
When you invite friends over and you answer the door, do you just open the door, say nothing and expect your friends and their friends to start right into the party? Nope. The same can be said for your email list.
You’re inviting your customers or clients into your business. You want them to stay a while, eat some free snacks, have a good time and then tell their friends about it, right?
Think of your welcome sequence as that greeting to kick things off and then make sure they’re happy and know where everything is so you can get back to being the business owner.
“Hey! Thanks for coming over. I’m so glad you came. The bathroom’s over here, coats go on these hooks. I’ve got drinks in the kitchen and the food’s in the tv room. We’ll play some games at 8:00.”
You’re guiding them to the places they need to go.
“Glad you made it. Here’s that download I promised. My name is Holly. Our hoodies can be bought via this link because it’s fall and it’s getting chilly!”
You’re welcoming them, making them feel comfortable so that the next phase of the party can get started. No awkward standing around. Everyone feels appreciated and is told where to go next.
Your welcome sequence doesn’t have to be grandiose, long or high style. It has to welcome your customer, thank them for coming. Tell them when to go to find out more about you. Grab their freebie and wait for the next email to come with the next steps.
Here’s a graph to help you determine how to set up your 3-4 email long welcome sequence for your business.
Email #1 needs to welcome the customer, ensure they’re in the right spot and deliver any lead magnet promises. Keep it short and simple. I like to add one single image of you, your staff or some form of humanity to help establish trust.
Email #2 will be to give them another option and potentially lightly sell to them. Send to your favourite social channel if you have one and give them a little taste of what you offer.
Email #3 will hit them with a hard sell. Go in with your best offer, best selling products or trends. By this time, you will have been able to establish that critical know, like and trust factor and can potentially convert the email into a sale.
Email #4 is optional and I like to deploy it when the customer hasn’t done anything other than open the first email. I give them an image that is fun and ask them to make a quick choice via buttons. It would be something like:
Love tie-dye hoodies for fall? Yes or No.
You’re not directly selling and you’re getting engagement if they vote. But if they do nothing, they get tagged with the label of non-engagers and don’t head to my general newsletter list. Everyone gets tagged with general news and get their emails as per regular.
Next week, we’ll wrap up our 4-part series with segmentation and how it’s your sleeper trick for email success!
