Summary

Elna Cain discusses the importance and structure of a welcome email series for building a personal connection with subscribers and promoting a creative brand.

Abstract

Elna Cain emphasizes the significance of a well-crafted welcome email series to engage and nurture new subscribers. She shares her journey of evolving her email marketing strategy, highlighting the impact of personal storytelling and consistent communication. Cain advocates for a series of emails rather than a single welcome message, suggesting that this approach helps subscribers feel a personal connection to the brand. She provides insights into her own successful welcome series, which includes sharing personal anecdotes, offering valuable resources, and guiding subscribers on how to ensure emails are received in their primary inbox. Cain also stresses the importance of addressing subscriber pain points and maintaining an ongoing dialogue to foster loyalty and increase sales.

Opinions

Cain believes that a strong narrative in welcome emails can captivate readers and encourage them to engage more deeply with the brand.
She suggests that even if one starts late or makes mistakes in email marketing, there is still room for success.
Personalization and relatability in emails are key to making subscribers feel valued and singled out, even in a large mailing list.
Cain recommends Convertkit for email marketing services and provides a referral link for interested readers.
She advises on the inclusion of a call-to-action in the welcome email, asking subscribers to whitelist the sender's email address to avoid promotional tab filtering.
Cain encourages the use of a P.S. in the welcome email to tease the next email's content, keeping subscribers anticipating further communication.
She offers additional resources, such as her List Building Challenge and Medium membership, to help readers grow their email lists and writing presence.

The Perfect Welcome Email to Introduce Your Creative Brand

Hook ’em in with a strong story & watch the sales grow

I get giddy when I send a marketing newsletter to my 20,000+ email subscribers and some reply thinking I’m only emailing them.

It’s touching really, because it shows me that what I put in my marketing newsletters touch people and makes them feel like I’m only talking to them and not thousands of others.

Someone apologizing for replying to my marketing emails

But, how did that happen?

Why do people think I’m their teacher or friend even though they have never met me or even live near me?

When I first started my marketing email in 2015, I didn’t invest too much in a strategy. I played around with optin ideas and eventually found that a free course was a highly converting offer that grew my email list on autopilot. So, I didn’t worry. I didn’t care, and I wasn’t consistent with sending weekly emails. Months would go by, but my list continued to grow (because I had a 6 day email that was sent out every day for six days).

I was late to the game

Even years after I created my first course, I still had no email funnel to grow my course sales! It’s only within the last few years, that I decided to create a welcome series that lead into a highly optimized email funnel, which I created with another copywriter.

I’m telling you my “fails” to let you know you can still succeed even if you make all the mistakes (and trust me, I have!).

It’s also okay to be late to the game and do things when you can. I know of bloggers that made their first sales within six months of starting a blog. They started their email first and then a blog and then made money.

Me? I started my blog, grew a hard-core audience and then started my email list three months later and then created a course a year later.

To each their own, right? So, don’t compare your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 21. Even if you started a blog or a service two years ago, you can create a welcome series today and tweak as you go!

The perfect welcome email isn’t just one email

When I was learning about a welcome email I always thought it was just one email but it’s not! I learned it’s a series of emails that helps a new subscriber learn more about you and your business or what you offer. You can have a 3 day welcome series or a 5 day welcome series or even a 7 day series! It’s up to you!

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this article, which means if you make a purchase after clicking on one, I may make a commission.

If you want to make a welcome email series, follow along! I use Convertkit as my email marketing service. You can get started for free if you want to check it out!

In Convertkit, go to Send>Sequences>New sequence.

Here’s my welcome series for my blogging audience.

Since my audience are mom bloggers, I wanted to be as personal as I could, and even share a photo of my nursery in my 1-bedroom apartment. This makes my first impression of my brand as:

relatable — even though I make six figures I started out in a one-bedroom apartment pregnant with twins.
friendly — I welcome new subscribers and tell them I’m here to help!
approachable — I want new subscribers to hit reply and share with me their blogging story. This not only helps me with my copy for sales writing, but also helps my email reputation! The more people who reply to my emails the better my emails will land in the inbox.

I start my first email like this:

First off, I want to hand you a coffee, give you a big ol’ hug and officially welcome you!

If you’re wondering who I am and what this blog is all about — because surprise! it isn’t all about being a mom to twins — let me just take a minute to fill you in.

I’m Elna, a stay-at-home mom, blogger & freelance writer.

My twins are in their second year of school, but I built my blog and biz as a stay at home mom. I also have a ton of help and support from my husband — who also has an online biz — and other family.

But, it wasn’t always like that. Before I was even a mom, I lived with my husband in a 1-bedroom apartment.

When I become pregnant with twins, we had to make do where we were living.

I use a story to hook in my readers and get them to REALLY read my welcome email.

For your welcome email start with a story on how you got to where you are right now.

Why did you start a blog or start out as a virtual assistant or content writer? How did you succeed and why are even starting an email list?

By answering these questions, you can ensure that subscribers will WANT to read your welcome email. Your welcome email should also include important and helpful resources to:

most popular posts (or the popular post that brings in most of your traffic, i.e grew your list)
your products or courses or affiliates (a shop page, for example)
where to find your on social media (Instagram, Facebook group, Youtube channel, etc.)

Finally, your first welcome email MUST contain what you want your new subscriber to do so that your emails land in the inbox and NOT the promo tab.

Do this if you want to avoid the promo tab

I tell my new subscribers how they can “whitelist” me so they will always get my emails:

Here’s what you can do now

1. Make sure you receive my emails

It’s unfortunate, but sometimes email providers send my newsletters to the “Spam” or “Promotions” folders by accident. It’s really to help you avoid any junk email you might receive, but they’re preventing you from getting the totally awesome emails I’m going to send.

Not good.

If you’re using Gmail, drag this email from your “Promotions” tab to your “Primary” tab. Also, add [email protected] to your contact list so you never miss out on some actionable advice from me.

*happy dance*

2. If you have any questions about blogging, being a work-at-home mama or anything related to starting a business, just reply to this (or any) email from me. Any time. I love hearing from you and can talk about blogging and biz all day!

Can’t wait to talk with you soon, mama blogger bestie!

What about the next email and the next?

Congrats! You have your first welcome email, but wait…there’s more!

To help you gain a loyal list of subscribers, entice them with a P.S. at the end of your welcome email with thoughts of your next email.

I usually hit them with a solution to a big pain point. For bloggers, that’s traffic! If your audience is wanting to learn more about Instagram, your next email might be how you got 25k followers in only five months or with little effort. Find a pain point and find a HUGE win so that people will remember you and click on that next email.

If you want to learn more about growing your email list using Convertkit, sign up for my List Building Challenge! Workbook + video training!

If you are interested in writing on Medium, you can sign up here! Once you sign up you can read all my articles and thousands on Medium!

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