Part 1 Of 3 – How To Use Welcome Series Emails To Make A Stellar First Impression On Strangers

When I set about writing this piece, I came upon a number of interesting examples on how to describe a welcome email series to you.

Different marketers use different analogies to describe a welcome sequence. 

Here are two classic examples:

Imagine you’re at a bar, and you meet this really interesting guy/girl and you begin to have a conversation.

The first conversation you have with them is if you can buy them a drink. (This is like your lead magnet)

Once they agree, do you immediately ask them to come to a second date with you? (This is like you sending them a “buy now” email right after you got their email address)

Hell no!

Instead, you have a conversation, tell stories to each other, and if they find you interesting, then, and only then, will they agree to take the next step.

This conversation, telling stories, about how interesting you will be to them, is what a welcome series email is all about.

It’s about getting your readers to like you, make a connection with what you have to say and in return, find value in that exchange.

Another analogy that people use to describe a welcome series email is to on-board a new member in your team.

You don’t leave a new hire to figure things out on their own, do you?  

You walk them through the ropes, set the right expectations, and make sure that they know that they will get all the help they can to begin performing in their job roles.

Likewise, marketers use a welcome series email to help new email subscribers navigate through their business and help them by making it easy to do business with them.

In this 3-part series on welcome series emails, we will cover everything you need to learn about how to create an awesome welcome series email for your list.

• Part 1 (this article) will talk about what exactly is a welcome series, why it is important, some important elements to include, and outlining the goals from your own welcome series.
• Then, in Part 2 next week, we will look at each individual email, it’s components, how to weave a story-line across numerous emails, and move your subscribers from being unaware of your brand to becoming friends with you.
• In the third and the final part in this series, we will pick an imaginary business example, and walk you through a step by step training of how to write the welcome series, and help you write one for your own email list.

If you have any questions, comments, thoughts to share, feel free to let us know in the comments below. 

Ready? Let’s get started.

What Is A ‘Welcome Series Of Emails‘

Simply put, this is the first email sequence ever that your subscribers will see when they sign up for your email list. It is an automated series, which you set up to welcome new members on your list, and then let it do its’ magic.

A Welcome series is meant to be sent only for new subscribers. 

The people that have signed up for the first time.

There are a lot of people who would visit your website or read your blog on a regular basis.

They will even enter their email address to download a lead magnet that you’re offering.

But they’re not new subscribers, so they should not be sent the welcome series.

So this is important. 

It’s only for turning strangers into friends of your brand. 

By way of a welcome series, they should become aware of 

• Who you are as an individual
• What you company stands for
• What are your brand values
• What are your working principles
• What are you good at?
• What are you creating and offer them value.

How Many Emails Should I Add In A ‘Welcome Series Of Emails‘

Start with five.

Typically welcome series of emails should be between three and five emails. But in this article, we are going to talk about a series that uses five emails.

Normally, 1 to 2 emails are a little too less, because of the goals that you want to accomplish during the sequence. 

And six becomes too many because ultimately you need to move them into a conversion email sequence, or at least nudge them towards buying from you.

What Are The Goals

The welcome series is meant to accomplish three goals in particular, in the following order of priority.

1. To make them a friend/fan of your brand
2. Agree on the method of communication you are going to have together
3. Gently nudge them towards a buying cycle for your business

The most important goal of a welcome series is to ‘make your list members a friend of your brand.‘

It’s not really to sell anything immediately, because you want to make sure that you present your best foot forward.

Imagine this – when you’re in a party, and you meet someone new for the first time, do you immediately begin to sell them whatever it is you have to offer?

No, right? Though if you do, we’re going to need a whole another conversation, and it’s not going to be pretty.

But let’s stay in the party for a minute.

You are going to ask questions, and you are going to answer questions.

You will have a conversation with them, the conversation about what they do, what you do, where you are, and where they are. Where you are going and where they want to go and then, only then, do you start to discuss if you have what it takes to get them from point a (where they are) to point b (where they want to go).

That’s Exactly How A Welcome Series Works

You move your readers from being completely unaware of you or your business to become a fan or a friend of your brand.

Typically, whether you’re in a B2B or B2C business, your customers are generally aware of the problem they have (that your business solves) but they may not know about your product or service, and how it can help them solve that problem.

The ‘Welcome Series’ is about creating a favorable image of your brand, and then associating the solution of their problem, with the brand.

You start by delivering value, some of your best content, and then, how other benefits from what you have to offer.

Take a look at this clean example of a welcome series from helps out.

Notice, how you’re presenting your best articles and establishing your credibility, authority on the subject and trust in minds of the readers before you make an offer.

You are gradually moving them towards a solution because ultimately, once you’ve made the a friend, they are more inclined to buy from you when you make that sales pitch in the end.

So there, after all conversation, is going to be about making sure that they find value in buying from you. 

The second biggest task of a welcome series email is to ‘talk about the specifics of your communications with your readers.’

The first thing included in the “specifics of your communications” is the reason why they are getting your emails in the first place.

Why Did They Sign Up For Your Newsletter?

If you’re like me, you go to several websites in a day and then sign up for a bunch of eBooks or free webinars.

And then you don’t have time to look at all those emails immediately.

So maybe a few days down the road, you find an email from some company that you don’t remember you signed up for. 

Now, similarly, the subscribers on your list are not waiting around for your emails, so you need to make sure that you make them aware of why they signed up.

This information is included in the 1st email you send, and should clearly state why did they are receiving your emails.

The next step, is to ‘deliver what you promised when asking for their email.’ Whether a free eBook, checklist, cheat-sheet or whatever it was that they asked for, make sure that you deliver it first and foremost. 

Remember, exchange of value is always two way, so if you delivered on a earlier promise you made, you can ask them for more of their time and attention now.

Next, you need to explain to your readers about how many emails can they expect on your list, how often are you going to email them, and what will you include in those emails

This goes a long way in not only building an initial rapport, but in eliminating future surprises, when you suddenly find a higher than usual number of un-subscribers, or even worse, complaints on your list.

These logistics, as long as you are able to set clear expectations from the start, will help building engagement and getting better results from you’re welcome email sequence.

Why Is It Important

Okay, now let’s talk about why is a welcome series important!

First Time Subscribers Are More Likely To Buy

First of all, statistics show that the first time subscribers (new subscribers) are most likely to buy from you in a fairly short period of time when compared to the old subscribers.

The old subscribers, if they haven’t bought from you already is a clear sign that you have a better chance of selling to the first time subscribers. 

So it is better to have a welcome email flow with a properly thought out plan that helps you convert these subscribers into customers. 

This happens because you already have the sign-up momentum. They have already trusted you with their email address and they have seen the value in the content that you promised you would deliver. 

So Capitalize On That Momentum and use the welcome series to nudge them forward in their conversion cycle. 

Higher (Much Higher) opens and clicks 

Welcome email sequences get much higher engagement rates than regular emails.

Typically, the first email, for example, gets almost twice (2X) the open rate than your average emails and the click rates are much higher as a direct result.

And, of course, this leads to an average of 70% more revenue than other emails. 

Coach Your Audience Into Making a Decision

The next objective on welcome email is to step up to to decisiveness. 

In psychological terms, the clients don’t reject you, per se. 

Most of the times they don’t fully consider your value proposition because it has not been communicated to them and therefore, welcome series is an important step to coaching them step by step into your product awareness into your solution.

Establishing Your Authority, Credibility And Trust

Welcome series is the best way to establish your authority by demonstrating the depth of knowledge in your subject matter, building trust by projecting their pains and desires, etc into your solution.

You can make your readers understand that you realize their pains, you are aware of it and possibly you’ve been in that situation. Therefore the solution that you have ties directly into their situation and that you can empathize with them. This leads to trust.

Then, you establish credibility by offering social proof and what others say about you in the welcome series emails.

How To Write A Welcome Series Of Emails

In the next article, we will look at each email individually in your welcome series.

We will also help you build a welcome series email by showing you how to deliver excessive-value based on the problems that you solve for them, and then associate your brand with 

• the solution of their problems,
• the solutions for their pains and frustrations and
• identifying and kind of mirroring the mistakes they make and then
• projecting the desires and dreams off that they have on your product.

In the next part of this series, I talk about how to turn these impressed strangers into friends, and buyers. See you there.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, and comments on this piece, drop them in the comments below.

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