- [Instructor] A welcome email sequence
is a set of emails sent to subscribers
when they first opt into a list.
It's important because in many cases
it determines whether a subscriber
will bother to open your future emails.
Over the years I've designed
many different types of welcome series,
and I've learned one important thing.
You have to start from the why.
Why you ask people to sign up,
and why your subscribers agreed
to receive your particular emails.
When someone opts into an email list,
it can matter as much or more than a sale.
Your welcome series has enormous potential.
But it can be hard to write
if you don't know your goals
or the next steps you want subscribers to take.
One of the most common mistakes
marketers make at this stage
is deciding on the number of emails
before defining the message.
There's no perfect number for a welcome series.
The best that anyone can tell you
is to send enough, but not too many.
Start with this.
When someone is new to your lists, or one of your lists,
what is it that they need to know?
If you sell a product or service,
you might want them to know
how your product or service works,
how you're different from the competition,
why people love your stuff,
and that you're grateful for their patronage.
Many retailers include
an incentive to buy in the welcome emails,
even small discounts
or free shipping for the first purchase,
and conversion rates show that this strategy works.
If you're a nonprofit,
you might want them to know your history and mission,
stories of the impact you've made,
exclusive perks for donors,
calendars of activities and events.
This type of welcome series is going to look different
because your end goal may be to get donations.
This type of series is about building a relationship
and showing them the opportunity
that their donations will create.
But what if you want more engagement
with the subscriber after the welcome series?
Maybe you want them to sign up for a course, for example,
and if engagement is your goal,
they need to know who you are and what you do,
what your experience is and how you got it,
what value you deliver, that's your brand story,
why they would want to work with or follow you,
how and where they can engage with you.
This welcome series is going to look
even more different than that of the retailer.
This type of welcome series is about
building trust and making a connection.
Here is a step-by-step guide to creating a welcome series.
First, you want to decide
the key messages for new subscribers.
Then you can decide how often
you'll send an email in the series.
You want to create, set up, and test the emails.
And then you're going to step back and analyze the results.
You want to wait until you have a comfortable amount of data
before making any changes to your welcome series.
I can't tell you how much this is,
because it really does depend on the size of your list
and how often the welcome emails are sent.
It comes down to a judgment call,
and here's where your business knowledge
is very, very helpful.
In the exercise files you'll find
an eight-point framework for the perfect welcome email
to help you get started.