Using a Welcome Email Sequence for Your Business
Episode 490: Show Notes
Hey everybody and welcome back to The Strategy Hour! We hope you’re as excited for today’s episode as we are because we have something special for your earbuds that we know you are going to love. Today we will be talking about email welcome sequences and how to do them right. It took us some time and a few missteps to get our’s where we are today and we are happy to share all the blunders we made with you for you and your business’ benefit! We want to help you get your welcome sequence just right for your needs and most importantly to make it profitable, so buckle up!
Listen on your favorite podcast player
During this discussion we’ll be guiding you through our history with our email tools and ideas and showing all our listeners just what worked and what didn’t. And at the end of the chat we will be sharing something extra special that can take you one step further in your marketing so make sure to listen out for that. We cover the purpose and reasons for having a welcome sequence that is the bomb, we also do a deep dive on why our first welcome sequence was so bad! Imagine that! From there we share some of the reasons why it can be so difficult to get this right, especially in the beginning and we finish off by emphasizing what you should be focussing on when you are putting your sequence together. So let’s get all the way in!
What is The Purpose of a Welcome Sequence?
So you have some subscribers or followers who have taken some notice of what you are doing? Now what? Let’s say they clicked your link to receive emails or maybe they had a free service delivered to them. Just because they did that does not mean much actually, they may even have forgotten what they signed on for! If they now receive your regular newsletter they may be a bit in the dark about why they are getting it, what you’re all about or why they should care. This is pretty much what we did at first and looking back is a bit painful to be honest. The point being here that you have to try and bridge the gap between first time engagement with your online presence and customers who know and care about what you have to offer. Your communication needs to service all of these needs and really invite people into your world. You can potentially have new signees everyday and your email correspondence needs to take that into account and keep people up to date according to their relationship with your business.
Our First Dismal Attempt at a Welcome Sequence
It was not so long ago, when we were using MailChimp, that we were unable to automate much and just shot everything out at once and thought that was it. Boy were we wrong! Our first email newsletter was pretty much bursting at the seams with information about everything. We are talking biographies, interests, quirks and all. It’s like we had never heard of the term ‘reel it in’. We gave away way too much and pretty much left little to the imagination while at the same time bombarding any potential clientele with so much information it could scare the bravest of them away. This send and hope strategy was not much of a strategy at all and looking back we can see how we were trying to address all our different customers in one communication, with no nuance and personalization to attend to the dynamic and different stages people may be on with us. On top of this, the amount of links we included in those early emails probably filtered them straight to the spam folder!
How We Initially Used Freebies and Downloads
The newcomers to our email list most likely read a blog post or found us on Pinterest but that one piece of content is really not enough for them to have known who we were and especially to have cared. So if at that point, after the most minimal of engagement, this new customer was to receive some random promo for an upcoming offer, how do you think they might respond? Generally the rule is not favorable! And then repeated reminders and constant updates? Not good! Regrettably this was how we were treating our mailing list, everyone getting everything all the time no matter their level or experience with us. This led to large amounts of inappropriate content and basically we had to grow up and start filtering our communications because this was not working! The first iteration of this meant that we sent out a week’s worth of emails for new signees to welcome them to our tribe and this was a step in the right direction. The emails were still all about us and in most cases had very little real purpose other than to try and make people feel at home. It was like a big introduction but with very little direction. Just us going on and on about what we did and why they should like us. We want all of our listeners to take this lesson to heart, inject your personality into your content, but do so with purpose and restraint. Your audience cares but only to a point, especially in the early stages of this kind of relationship!
The Effect of Struggling Socially on Your Business Now
Both of us had trouble connecting with real friends, both at school and at college and at times we can see the effect of this dynamic and how it played out in our business communications. If you feel like you also had some of this in your formative years, we feel you! But we are all stronger and older now and we need to go beyond the difficulty we might have faced. You cannot let you email marketing sound like a plea for friendship or a flex on how cool you want people to think you are. You are great and cool and unique and have loads to contribute and share but you want people to want to get in with you and not sound like you are trying to get in with people! We have all felt like outsiders or that we are not worthy and these are hard experiences to shake off but with time and some conscious action we promise you can take off that burden! Another important thing to remember is to show why you are unique but do not do so to the point that you become unapproachable. We are not trying to build walls here, we want short, to the point, relatable content!
Making Money the Purpose of The Emails That You Send
The bottom line, as usual, is the bottom line! You want your audience to sign up for something that eventually leads to them buying and putting some money in your account. Everything you are doing in these communications should be targeted towards this goal. We only really made this change earlier last year and boy did we notice the difference! Around March, we erased everything and started over, focusing on teaching our audience about business, something about themselves and just enough about who we are. We hope you can follow suit and have these kinds of honest and open channels with your email list. From here you can really start funneling people into bigger sales that are appropriate for where they are at. You can offer value with being off-putting or seeming boastful and overbearing. In the end, what you really want is to have a customer base that is sure that they want to back you, not a half-hearted group of people who do not stand with you.
Following the Soap Opera Sequence
It was around this time that we started following what is known as the ‘Soap Opera Sequence’. Now, if you are unfamiliar with it there is no need to freak out, there will be plenty of time for you to learn all about this and all the other methods for directly sending your emails. Basically the lesson here is to make sure that those reading your emails want to come back and read the next one, tomorrow or the next day. Since making this change, we have noted huge improvements in engagement. Open rates have increased and the open to purchase conversion ratio has steadily increased to a really high number. Sometimes we are still a little confused by why our new tactics have been so successful but needless to say what we have been describing is at the center of this success. You should be collecting your data and adjusting the areas you can see are not performing well so they can rise up to the highest points. You need to know how many people are doing what and you need to have your hands on sister! Get in there and get your hands dirty! Make sure you are giving your customers the best!
Quote This
Instead of feeling like an outsider trying to get in, you want people to try and get in with you.
Highlights
What is The Purpose of a Welcome Sequence? [0:03:58.2]
Our First Dismal Attempt at a Welcome Sequence. [0:08:05.9]
How We Initially Used Freebies and Downloads. [0:12:39.2]
When We Grew Up and Started Filtering. [0:14:50.9]
The Effect of Struggling Socially on Your Business Now. [0:20:29.2]
Making Money the Purpose of The Emails That You Send. [0:24:12.9]
Following the Soap Opera Sequence. [0:27:01.9]
TheUpcoming Workshop to Help You! [0:30:12.7]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
Email, Welcome Sequence, Return Customers, Indoctrination, Content, Marketing
