It’s an exciting moment when you get notified that a new subscriber has been added to your email list. It means your audience is growing, and someone is interested in what you offer. However, to keep that person engaged and possibly convert them to a customer or client, you have to nurture them well. One way to do this is by having an email welcome series in place. Keep reading to learn email welcome series best practices and tips for creating a successful, engaging welcome campaign.
Everything You Need to Know About Email Welcome Series
As a small business owner, you’ve probably heard that email is an essential marketing tool. And an email welcome series is a highly effective way to increase customer engagement and conversions. Before we dive into email welcome series best practices, let’s make sure you have a good understanding what a welcome series is and does for your brand.
What is an Email Welcome Series?
An email welcome series typically consists of 4-6 emails sent to new subscribers over their first three months on your list. Each email covers one or two topics related to your business, such as product use tips or available services. These emails aim to provide value by educating your audience about what you offer while also providing them with perks like discounts or free resources. With clear expectations set from the start, this type of campaign can increase engagement and conversions in those crucial early days after someone signs up for your list.
How to Create an Email Welcome Series?
To create an effective email welcome series, you need an email marketing platform. With an email platform, you can create automatic workflows that send your welcome series emails to your audience for you. Personally, I use Flodesk for all my email marketing needs and recommend Flodesk to all my clients. Flodesk makes it easy to create workflows and even capture new emails with personalized forms. Here’s an example of how you can capture new emails and send an automated email welcome series with Flodesk.
Step 1: Create a Freebie
The best way to get people on your email list is to offer them something for free in return for their email. For ecommerce companies, that might be a 15% discount code for their first purchase. For service-based businesses, that might be a free resource or ebook.
Step 2: Create a Form
Flodesk forms are customizable; you can create a pop-up form, inline form, or full-page form with fields for people to enter their name and email address. Once you create your form, embed it on your website or link it in your Instagram bio to give people lots of opportunities to join your email list.
Step 3: Create and Send a Freebie Email
Flodesk makes it easy to get your freebie into the hands of your audience after they fill out your form. Create an email with the free resource included or attached and set up a workflow to automatically send the email with the freebie. This saves you time by not manually sending emails to new subscribers.
Step 4: Create and Send an Email Welcome Series
So, now you’ve created a freebie, a form, and a freebie email. But that’s not the end. In fact, now is when your email welcome series starts. It’s time to nurture your new subscribers and help them learn more about you, your brand, your products and services, and how they can engage with you further. You do that by creating welcome series emails and putting them into your automatic workflow. Once you create your welcome series, the work is done. Flodesk does the rest by sending the right email to the right person at the right time, depending on where they are in the journey with your brand.
If you’re interested in trying Flodesk, click THIS LINK for 50% off your subscription or use the code “SNRGCM” at checkout. While I do receive a small commission if you use my Flodesk discount code, I stand behind the platform and am excited for you to give it a try!
5 Email Welcome Series Best Practices
Now, let’s look at some best practices when creating a compelling email welcome series. These five tips for success will ensure your email welcome series works for you, not against you, and encourages your subscribers to engage with you in more ways.
DO Create 4-6 Emails
An email welcome series should consist of 4-6 engaging emails. Within each email, the quality of content is more important than quantity. Additionally, these emails should be sent out over a significant period and not rushed. A good cadence is to send four emails over two months, five over two and a half, and six over three months–or one email every other week.
DON’T Send Impersonal Emails
For your email welcome series to effectively engage your subscribers, it must be personal, genuine, interesting, and relevant. When someone reads the content, they should feel like you’re talking directly to them, that you understand their needs and care about their success. It would be better not to send any emails than to rush and throw some generic emails together. People’s inboxes are already full. The last thing they want is to receive another email without any real value. If you don’t have the time, desire, or inspiration to create highly robust and effective emails, that’s okay! You can hire an email copywriter to write, design, and schedule your emails for you.
DO Set Expectations & Share Ways to Engage
In your first email, set expectations for the remainder of the series, as well as for additional communications. Let your audience know that you’ll be popping in their inbox over the next couple of months to share exciting opportunities to connect with your brand. If email isn’t their style, mention other ways to keep in touch with you, from reading new content on your blog to following you on social media.
DON’T Use Boring Subject Lines
It doesn’t matter how excellent your email content is if your subscribers don’t open the email to read it. That’s what makes your subject line one of the most critical parts of your email. Some email welcome series best practices for subject lines include the following:
- Personalize the subject line by the first name
- Keep your subject line under 9 words
- Don’t overuse emojis
- Use numbers when relevant
- Don’t promise something you don’t deliver
- Show your personality; make it a fun subject line to read; make them laugh; say something that stands out from all the other subject lines in their inbox!
DO Make it About Them, Too
Your email welcome series is designed to help your new subscribers learn more about you, your brand, your products and services, and how you can help them. But it’s also a time for you to learn about your audience. Consider asking a question at the end of each email, and include a “Reply to Me” button. The questions should be a mix of personal and professional, relating to your services when it makes sense but not making it all about business.
Put These Email Welcome Series Best Practices into Practice
Ready to put these five email welcome series best practices into practice and engage your new email subscribers? First, you’ll need an email marketing platform with automation and workflow features. As I mentioned, Flodesk is my go-to choice. (You can read why I switched from Mailchimp to Flodesk HERE.) If you’re interested in trying it out, use my link to get 50% off Flodesk monthly or annually, or enter the code “SNRGCM” at checkout. Next, you need to write and design stunning, engaging emails. Let me know if you need help with that part! Then, set up your emails to send to new subscribers and build an engaged following today. If you have any questions or want help creating your email welcome series, I’m here for you.
