Someone Joins Your List

Last week, we talked about the very beginning of the journey, and that’s when someone finds you. Now they have joined your email list.

Today we’re going to move to the next step. They have downloaded your free resource. They gave you their email address; now what?

What do you actually send them? And this is where I think a lot of people get stuck. They spend a lot of time on lead magnets, and then they don’t do anything else. They just send them the lead magnet, and then they don’t email the person again for months.

Suddenly, they send an email, “Hey, I have a new book out,” and people are wondering who this is. The problem is you didn’t build a relationship with them between “Hey, here’s my freebie” and “Here’s my new book.” That is where we talk about what should happen after someone joins your email list and why a welcome sequence is one of the most important parts of your email marketing strategy.

Welcome sequence

Let’s start with the first email. This is usually the email that delivers that lead magnet. Someone has said to you, “Yes, I’d like this” and it’s your job to deliver what you’ve promised. Whichever format you promised is what you send.

You made a promise, and you kept it. This begins the building of trust between you and your email subscriber. However, I don’t want your first email to be nothing more than, “Here’s your freebie. Have a great day.” Now you have the opportunity to introduce yourself, tell them who you are, tell them why you created this resource, and let them know what they can expect from you.

You can make it simple, but it needs to begin a conversation. This is the start of the welcome sequence. A welcome sequence is simply a series of automated emails that someone receives after they join your email list. So instead of you having to remember to send these, these emails are put into an autoresponder.

Email automation

Your email marketing platform will send these automatically based upon the schedule that you set up, and that’s one of the reasons I love email automation. You can create something one time, and it continues to work for you. That’s especially valuable if you’re an author, speaker, coach who is wearing a lot of hats.

You don’t want every part of your marketing to depend on you remembering to do something manually. So a welcome sequence can help you to introduce yourself, provide that value, build that trust, and eventually invite someone to take a next step with you. And this isn’t a magic formula that works for every business, but this is a simple framework that you can use.

First email—will deliver the email (like the lead magnet) and will welcome them to the email list “Thanks for joining me. Here’s the resource that you requested, I am…” You just answer who you serve, who you are, why you do what you do, and then what can they expect from being on this list? Just enough to start to get to know you. That is email number one.
Next email—will give them something helpful. You’re wanting to provide value. Don’t immediately try to sell something; just teach them something. It can be another helpful tip. You can point them towards a podcast episode you’ve already done, a blog post you’ve already written, a video, or another resource. You can also answer a question that they might have. This reinforces the reason that they signed up in the first place, and it’ll get them to thinking, “I’m really glad I joined their email list,” and that’s what you want.
Tells them your story. This is an opportunity to let them get to know you. Share a story from behind your business. Maybe it’s how you solved a problem that they’re currently facing. Maybe it’s why you’re so passionate about the work that you do.Remember, people don’t just connect with information, they connect with people, and your story can help someone else understand why they should listen to you.
This email will help them take the next step. Now, you wanna begin introducing your offer. Maybe you have a book, a course, maybe you offer co- coaching, maybe you provide some sort of service, or you have an upcoming workshop or event you’d like to invite them to.

This does not have to be a hard sale. It’s simply saying, “If you’re ready to take a step further, here’s how I can help.” If you have a solution to someone’s problem, you don’t wanna hide it from them, and that’s what your welcome series should do. One thing I want you to avoid is creating a sequence simply because someone told you that you needed to.

Every email should have a purpose, so ask yourself;

What do I want this person to know?
What do I want them to feel?
What do I want them to do?
How does this email move the relationship forward?

Your emails don’t need to be complicated; they need to be intentional. So don’t make every email about you.

That’s another mistake that I often see. Sometimes we open up the series, and it’s all about themselves. It’s about their book, their business, their accomplishments, their services, their story. However, you want to address the problem that these people are facing and what questions they are asking.

Make the conversation about them.

Maybe they need encouragement. What would help them to move forward? Use your expertise that you have to serve them, and that’s one of the biggest principles behind good email marketing. And you might be listening and thinking, “Now, Alyssa, that sounds like a lot of emails.” Let me reassure you, you don’t have to email your list every day.

In fact, I recommend creating a simple system. Although just because someone online says you should, you don’t have to. You create something simple. I gave you the four email options that you could do, and your audience and your business are unique, so what means more is consistency over volume.

And so I’ve always told people, after this welcome sequence, how often you email people should be based on what you can be consistent with. So if that’s once a month. If that’s once a quarter. I don’t recommend any less than that, or if you can do it once a week.

Let’s start there, and one email is better than disappearing for six months. Also, the automation that I explained, you can set up those emails to be automated, and your email platform can send those welcome email immediately. Then another email in a couple of days. They can download your lead magnet then get that other email from you a couple days later, and you’re not having to sit there at your computer and press send.

That’s the beauty of automation, and you can build this relationship along, as time goes on, and let the system do the work for you. And this is where you’re having a strategy, and you’re not just being… doing things at random.Now eventually, the welcome sequence will end. So what happens then?

Email marketing

That’s where your regular email marketing begins, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about next week, because you don’t want your subscribers to hear from you only when you have something to sell. You want to continue to provide value, you want for them to hear from you regularly, and you want them to get to know you.

Obviously, that will build trust over time, and that’s how you move from subscriber to super fan. So here’s a simple challenge for you for this week. If you already have a welcome sequence, go read it. Actually read it as if you’re a brand-new subscriber, and say, “Does this make me feel welcome? Does this help me to get to know this person? Do I understand what they do? Is there something of value?”

If you don’t, start with the emails that we talked about in this series. Also if you’re not sure that this is something you can do for yourself, you might be saying, “I know I need this. I know that I need to do this, but I don’t know how,” then that’s okay, because this is actually a service that Alyssa Avant and Company, my company, provides, and it’s called the Done For You Email Marketing Service.

We can help you to develop a strategy to set up your email marketing system, create a landing page, and help you with those welcome emails, and it is the best investment you can make in your business. If you need help with your email marketing, my team and I offer a DFY Email Marketing Package. You can find out more about it here.

We will be glad to talk to you about how we can help you. Thank you again so much for following the Christian Business Advantage.

Someone Joins Your List