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As an online entrepreneur or a blogger, your email list plays a huge role in your success.  Many people often say that money is in your list. This is a very true statement, however not all the lists are created equal.

many people have difficulty with the concept of nurturing their list. Some are simply afraid of writing emails, or they struggle to come up with content for their emails. Either way due to this reason or others many bloggers, business owners, and entrepreneurs simply forgo sending emails to their lists.

To benefit from your list,  to create loyal readers who come back to your website on a regular basis you need to have a list that is nurtured. When you capture a lead for the first time and enter them into your email list you cannot forget about them at this point. The moment they are on your list you have to start nurturing them.

When you as a blogger or an entrepreneur stop sending emails to your subscribers they become what is popularly called a cold list. A cold list will not benefit you. People who are not being nurtured by you will not be your loyal readers, and they will not convert into good buyers.

At the end of the day, your goal is to generate income from your website. Whether that income is earned through ads or selling products and services, one thing is certain-you need constant and regular traffic to see results.

Capture and Grow Your Email List

It’s needless to say that before you can start actually emailing your list you need to have a list in place. There are various resources covering the topic of growing your email list.

You can refer back to some of my posts on email list building an email marketing to get details about how to build your list, how to capture your readers and convert them into subscribers and to learn for the best tools and resources for building your email list in general.

I have a resource on how you can quickly build your email list by using Facebook live. My post includes a detailed blueprint as well as a checklist that you can put to use and start growing your email list today.

If you want to get a detailed breakdown of different tools and software to use for growing your email list you can refer back to my previous post on growing your email list.

Related Reading:

• How To Build Your Email List And Grow Your Business
• Want To Know How To Build Your Email List Using Facebook?

Nurture Your List Through Welcome Email Series

Email marketing can be a touchy subject for a lot of people. For some reason, many bloggers and online entrepreneurs tend to think that they should not send emails to their subscribers because they’re afraid to annoy them.

When a person walks into your email list it is because they want to hear from you. They opted in because they thought you have something of interest to them or whatever you were offering was attractive for them.

If someone really does not want to hear from you unsubscribing from your email list is extremely easy-it just takes one click. Therefore, the fact that your subscribers are still on your list should be taken as a sign that they do actually want to hear from you. Keep in mind when you do email them you have to give them value and some benefit to their skills, knowledge or experience.

Your first point of contact with your subscriber is going to be through your first email. Don’t limit yourself to just one email, however.  Your goal is to establish a relationship, to build trust, and to create a loyal fan.

The key to achieving these goals is to send a welcome email series to your subscribers. These welcome email series are mostly responsible for determining your relationship with your readers. Put an effort into you’re welcome series and you’ll have an engaged and loyal reader.  Your welcome email series should not be an afterthought. It should be a sequence of emails that you think about, you plan for, and execute properly to achieve your end goal.

Your welcome email series should ideally contain anywhere from 4-7 emails in them. Each and every email should be as engaging and irresistible as you can make them be.  Once your readers go through your entire welcome email series, they should have a fairly good idea whether you and them will be a good fit for each other.

One of my favorite email marketing gurus, Meera Kothand, has a blog post on welcome email series where she discusses the importance of welcome series and how to do them.

This means that your subscriber should know what it is that you do, what you stand for, how you’re going to keep in touch with your readers, and what you’re going to do to help your readers.

Welcome Email Series Components

As already mentioned about welcome email series should include anywhere from 4 to 7 email. If you have less than 4 then you’re not really giving your reader an opportunity to get to know you to get to know your mission and your business. Moreover, you are possibly not giving enough time to yourself to get to know your readers, to survey them, and to learn what makes them tick.

Each one of your emails in your welcome series should have a clear and specific purpose behind it. each person’s welcome hearing will be specific and unique to their own goals and circumstances. However, the structure of each email and the role that each email will play as part of a whole is going to be the same.

As far as how often you should send your emails will depend largely on your audience and their preferences. However, a good rule of thumb will be to send 1 email every day for 3 days. Then start sending emails 4 and 5 approximately 3 days apart. Then 1 email a week. Keep in mind that there is no hard and fast rule about this. Your goal is to be remembered, but not to annoy.

For more statistics on welcome email series, read Neil Patel’s blog post.

This means that you can use this method to come up with your own welcome series. Whether you’re creating a welcome series for a freebie offer, a tripwire, a product or service that you’re selling, this method will work for you. Let’s take a look at each individual email in your welcome series and dissect them to come up with our method.

EMAIL #1 WILL EITHER BE A CONFIRMATION EMAIL, WELCOME EMAIL OR BOTH

Your first email that goes out to your subscriber right after they subscribe and submit the form is either going to be an email to confirm their email, or it’s going to be an email welcoming them into your community or a hybrid- meaning a combination of both.

The type of email you send will largely depend on the way you structured your email service provider. If you do double optins, then when a person subscribes to your list, the very first email they get is going to be a confirmation email. Generally, as an accepted practice, you send a confirmation email, then you send your official welcome email.

If you do send a confirmation email before sending your actual welcome try to add some warmth and personality to the confirmation email itself. Most email service providers already have in place an automated confirmation email that goes out. Generally, you have the option of customizing this email. Do that!

Chances are your readers and subscribers get tens if not hundreds of the confirmation emails on a daily basis. You want to set yours apart. Give them a reason to want to confirm their subscription. Don’t just send a cut and dry “please confirm your email” type of a message.

If you intend to send a welcome email then know that this is your chance to make an amazing first impression. Spend some time on drafting your very first email. This email has to have a specific purpose. Your reader must know what it is that you do, who you are, how you intend to benefit your reader and even information such as how often you plan on emailing them and much more.

EMAIL #1 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES

Your first email in your welcome email series is extremely important as it’s going to set the tone for the remainder of the time with your subscriber. This email should achieve the following tasks: introduce yourself, introduce your business and your mission, clearly state what type of communications you will be sending in the future, and outline if possible what your reader can expect from you.

Begin your first email with a nice greeting that makes your reader excited to be part of your email list. Understand that your reader probably gets several other emails throughout the day and it’s your job to stand out from the crowd.

Let your voice shine through your email. Don’t be afraid to show your personality. To inject little bit humor, personal story into your emails. In this of technology advancement, it’s comforting to know that there is an actual human being on the other end instead of a computer or a bot.

Doesn’t matter what kind of email you send – whether it’s your confirmation email or a welcome email. The point is that each and every email you send out can include facts of your personality. Each email can say something about you to your leader. For example, take a look at this confirmation email I got from Meera Kothand when I signed up for her free email marketing course.

Do you see how the email is not just cut-and-dry “confirm your email” type of a response that you get from a lot of people? She actually expresses happiness to have you as part of her community. She tells you what this email is for that-it’s for a free course, and she asks you to confirm in a very nice way that actually makes you want to confirm.

Also, notice how she became a little creative with the button text. She is not just telling you to confirm your email. Instead, she is reminding you why you should confirm so you can get her free course.

And by the way, if you don’t know who Meera Kothand is you should go check out her site and read her material. I read her blog on a regular basis and learn a lot from her when it comes to emails and email marketing.

SOME ELEMENTS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR FIRST EMAIL

Your welcome email should at least include some, if not all, of these elements:

• A dazzling and warm welcome
• Thank them for subscribing
• Introductions
  • Who you are
  • What you do
  • What your business/website/blog is about
  • How you came to start your venture
• Ask your subscriber to mark your emails as safe or whitelist them
• Let them know what the can expect from you in the future
  • Specifically how often are you gonna email them
  • If you have a set schedule for publishing new content, let them know (example: every Wednesday I publish a new blog post)
• Ask them to follow you on your important social media pages
• Conclude your email a cliffhanger/teaser as to what’s to come

EMAIL #2 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

Your second email in the series is as important as your first one. The reason being is because you are in the early stages of establishing a relationship with your subscriber.

Always keep your word in your email. If you ended your first email with a teaser or some kind of cliffhanger, for example, find out how I quickly got 10K email subscribers in my next email– you want to make sure that you deliver on that teaser.

Your second email shoot address how you concluded your first email and deliver the response for the explanation.

More importantly, your second email should start getting your subscriber into the habit of responding to you. For that reason think of a few questions, either open-ended or one with particular choices, to direct at your subscribers so that they respond.

You can ask questions such as what prompted you to sign up for my email list or what’s one area that you struggle with the most or something a little more creative like if I could grant you one wish what would it to make the biggest impact in your business.

Questions like this should be asked towards the end of your email. I prefer to ask these types of questions in the postscript. there are several studies that have shown that the “P.S.” section of your email is one of the most read and clicked sections throughout.

So generally, whenever I like to invite my subscribers’ attention to something specific, I either put it at the beginning of the email-where they’re more likely to see it when they open it or in the “P.S.” section where they just scroll through the email and get to the end.

EMAIL #3 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

Third email in your welcome email series should start exhibiting a more intimate and friendly tone.

Talk to your subscriber as if you already created a solid relationship. Don’t forget to address your subscriber in a singular. You want each and every person on your email list to feel like you’re talking directly to them instead of a big audience.

Also when you’re sending your third email remember to address the fact that your readers responded to your second email with their answers. Show that your grateful and also super excited about the fact that you spoke to so many of them.

Because you’re still at the stage of trying to attract your subscribers and keep them on your email list you should continuously deliver value. This is true for every subscriber at every stage. However, it holds especially true for your new subscribers in these early stages.

For your third email deliver something for them. This will be a nice surprise and a bonus touch that they’ll appreciate. It can be a checklist, an ebook, a guide, free stock photo, anything at all. Just make sure it’s something that your subscribers would find valuable.

EMAIL #4 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

In your third email you delivered a valuable free resource to your subscribers.  So don’t forget to follow up with your readers to see if they’re downloaded your free resource and whether or not they liked it. It’s always good form to follow up whenever you sent them any resource. Are generally also like to ask if there were any pictures or anything at all that they would change add or subtract to make the resource more valuable for them. This is useful to do because in a way it gives you insight into your reader what it is that this specific subscriber requires.

For the fourth email in the welcome series, you could share a personal story. The kind of story that helps your reader understand better as far as who you are,  where you’re coming from, and why you do the things that you do.

The story that you share can be one personal struggle, triumph, or even something small that left a big impression on you. Remember, you want your reader to know that there is an actual person behind the screen. So the more you share, the more personable you appear, the easier it will be for your subscriber to connect with you. They will be more accepting of you once they understand you and you’ll have higher chances of subscriber retention.

Look at the email from Jen Kem. She is getting personal and is opening herself up. She is clearly showing vulnerability, yet telling her story. When you read this email, you can understand her and what she stands for better.

Don’t finish your emails in a depressing or sad mood. Even though it may start off as a sad story or one of hopelessness and desperation, you clearly turned it around, have a business, and are connecting with others. Use all of that as a source of motivation. End your email in a positive and uplifting way.

Also, your fourth email in your welcome email series is a good place to start getting to know your readers a lot better and to some extent-even segment them into appropriate groups. At the end of your email ask either a simple open-ended question or a question that requires them to select an answer.

These questions can be anything like the following:

• what is one struggle that you have right now;
• what are you struggling with most that if I was to solve it for you, you would be successful; or  
• which one of these describes you correctly: you correctly a blogger Disney an entrepreneur see stay at home mom, etc.

The point is that by just asking those questions you’re telling your subscriber that you care about him or her. If they reply, then you will be able to understand your audience better. You now know what your audience is struggling with, and can offer a solution to their pain.

EMAIL #5 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

At this stage in your communication, you can test the waters and introduce any products or services that you’re offering. Don’t come off aggressive or pushy.

In Email #5 you should just get a feel of how your audience responds to and reacts to potentially being sold to.

I suggest to include a non-salesy soft promotion in your “p.s.” section or toward the end of your email. For example:

P.s. Did you know that I am an attorney? I created legal templates and policies that you need to be legally compliant. Check it out.

Make sure you handle this step from within your Email Service Provider so that you can tag individual subscribers when they visit your website or link that you provided in your soft pitch. This way you’ll know who is potentially interested in what you have to offer.

You could segment the interested group and work on converting them.

EMAIL #6 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

In the previous email, you tried a soft-pitch with your audience. Meaning you introduced your products or services that you have for sale, without being pushy or aggressive about it.

In this email, you’re gonna continue that trend. However, I find it very beneficial when you provide value to your subscriber first.

By this I mean create a freebie that is closely tied to your service or product. Make something complementary so that your free offer and your paid products/services complement each other and make sense together.

For example, if you have an online course for sale, then maybe you can give a lesson away for free to get them interested in the course and to get familiarized with your teaching style.

Or, in my case, I am selling legal templates and policies, and I give away my Cookie Policy for free. This my subscriber sees the level of detail in the policy and will feel more comfortable about purchasing from me because they know what to expect.

You can give away an ebook, a workbook, an instructional video that’s gonna make sense with your products.

After your free offer, make another pitch, this time not as subtle as in your email #5. You can remind your subscribers that you offer certain products or services.

Outline the benefits your subscriber will get if they purchase from you:

• Benefit A
• Benefit B
• Benefit C

Remind them that you’re always available to help them and answer any questions they have.

EMAIL #7 IN THE WELCOME EMAIL SERIES CAMPAIGN

At this point, you have hopefully established both a working and personal relationship with your subscribers.

Don’t feel bad about offering your services or products. Remember you are providing your list with a lot of valuable information and material. If you don’t adopt an aggressive approach to selling, you’ll be fine.

In this last email, connect on a personal level with your subscriber. Ask for feedback and suggestions. Let them know that you’re there to help them out, so you want to make sure that you offer the best possible support.
If you can, tell them a story or challenge them to do something.

Additionally, you can give them a coupon or discount code for 1-time use in your store (if you have one).

Conclusion

Welcome email series is a very powerful tool that you have at your disposal. Don’t be satisfied with just sending one email welcoming your readers. You’ll be wasting an important opportunity to create a relationship with your subscribers, to learn about them, and to make sure that they won’t leave you.

The outline for the welcome email series in this post should be used as a guide, and not as a rule. Every person has their own preferences when it comes to sending out welcome emails. However, if you haven’t created your own strategy and approach yet, feel free to use the one I described in this post.

Let me know if you’re using a welcome email series, and whether your approach is similar to mine. Share the post with others.

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