Why a Welcome Email Series Is Crucial for High-Ticket Sales

In his copywriting cult classic,?The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert aptly observed that since people regularly sort their mail into two piles of either junk or personal letters, marketers should strive to make their sales letters as personable as possible.??

Although he was talking about snail mail at the time, this core tenet of marketing could not be more applicable to email copywriting for high-ticket sales. While there are many types of emails a business or solo entrepreneur will send throughout the customer lifecycle, none could be more personal, and therefore more effective, than the welcome email series.?

A welcome email series (sometimes called a funnel) is the first sequence of messages a business sends to a new subscriber at the very moment when they are most excited to receive new information. It serves many purposes, but its most important function is to build trust, authority, and comfort with the target audience. There are two overarching ways in this is accomplished.

First, an effective welcome email series delivers a mountain of value upfront before ever asking for a sale. Usually, a business promises a freebie of sorts in exchange for the prospect’s contact info – maybe a video tutorial, e-book, or PDF. Other times, a business can demonstrate upfront how valuable its newsletter is by providing past samples and this alone is enough to convince someone to subscribe.?

This exchange of value for the prospect’s email address represents the first transaction and is therefore a critical first impression. In the emails that follow, more and more value is delivered in the form of actionable advice that the prospect can immediately start applying without having to think about or commit to buying anything.

Secondly, welcome email funnels build trust by addressing the customer journey that a person goes through before investing in a product or service. This is especially true when it comes to high ticket sales such as coaching, info products and online courses. By speaking to the exact psychological state underpinning each stage of a person’s journey, we can meet them where they’re at without doing anything “salesy”. The result? The prospect is now in the driver’s seat, and thus more likely to move themselves forward through the sales process.?

The first stage of the customer journey they’re likely coming from is called?problem awareness?– they know they have a problem, but they’re unsure if anything can be done about it. The objective at this stage is to subtly pose the question: What if this problem could be solved, and what would that feel like??

One of the easiest ways to do this is to contrast something of value that the reader falsely assumes they are lacking with something they?can?be doing to better themselves. By tearing down their assumptions about why their problem can’t be solved and offering them advice that does work, we not only empower them to believe their problems are solvable, but we also have successfully handled a potential objection before it even comes up.?

Next, we want to bring the reader from a state of problem awareness to solution awareness. After delivering value and helping the reader believe their problem can be solved, it’s time to make them aware that you have a solution for them, with one caveat – we’re still not going for the sale just yet. At this stage, it’s best to use some storytelling from your own past as the pretext to introduce your product or service.?

Once you’ve given adequate context that justifies your product or service, it’s now time to introduce a time-sensitive special offer around your flagship offer while continuing to handle potential objections in tandem. One common hurdle to selling anything is that some people understandably want to see immediate benefits when they make a big purchase. But again, in the case of high ticket offers, it often takes months or even years to fully reap those life-changing rewards.?

That’s why future projecting in reverse is so powerful. By vividly describing how the long-term benefits connect to the medium and short-term results someone can experience right now, your prospect will be more motivated to take action.?

Take fitness coaching, for example. A person’s peak results in this realm often take years of hard work to accomplish. By helping a reader imagine how they’ll look and feel one month from now when the pounds start coming off and their confidence starts going up, they’ll be much more excited to put the work in. Now, your reader has gone from a state of solution awareness to seeing your product specifically as the solution.?

Making people feel heard and understood is the key to building trust. There’s nothing fancy about it – it’s just the way humans operate. The beauty of a welcome series, however, is that it allows you to automate and scale the process of building trust so that your email list is generating revenue for you even while you sleep.?

How have you been utilizing welcome emails? Are there any aspects that you're struggling with? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be glad to help.