That's right chaps - today we're pimping your welcome sequence.
Picture it. You’re feeling VERY clever and business-like. You signed up to an email marketing site, made a subscriber form and popped it onto your website.
If you were feeling super ninja 🐱👤, you made a lead magnet to entice subscribers.
You set up an email to go out when the subscriber signs up, so all you have to do is sit back and watch your list grow, right?
👎 WRONG!
(Before you go thinking that I’m yelling at you from atop my pedestal: I TOTALLY did this when I first set up – and by the time I realised I needed to do more, I was too busy to find the time to do it…)
Don’t get me wrong – I know that you don’t have the time (and maybe not even the inclination) to learn how to do super-complex automations and ninja software moves, so below I’ve laid out three super-simple steps that you can make a start on today which will:
make sure that your welcome email sequence stands out from all the others 🌟,
help your subscribers to look forward to receiving your emails 📰 and, ultimately,
ensure more and more sales are generated through your email marketing 💲💰.
Make your welcome sequence...a sequence!
You probably have some form of this set up already – a sign-up form on your website which links up to your list and sends an email to confirm that your new subscriber is on the list and welcomes them. Maybe it delivers a freebie, if you have a lead magnet set up.
You can do SO much more, though.
So – let’s start uber-simple. Make it a sequence of three or more emails, delivered over a few days.
A simple welcome sequence can achieve three things –
introduce you, your business and set expectations –
let your subscriber know how often they can be expecting to hear from you and
tell them what they can expect to hear about.
By doing this you are far more likely to have people stay with you, and keep reading your emails rather than just deleting without ever reading.
Educators in particular have busy inboxes, and no time to read everything – so it’s important to make sure that you have the best chance of making it onto their ‘open’ list.
Now, give it a personal touch.
Ok, so you have your simple sequence set up, so far so good.
Now, why not pimp it? I don’t mean using the good old {!name} insert and adding their name to the subject line (though that’s a good idea, and people are more likely to open an email that mentions them by name).
Set up your automation to make sure you’re notified when someone signs up to your list. When you get that notification through, do investigate who that person is and then use an integration like Bonjoro to send that subscriber a short, personal video welcome that mentions them by name and shows that you’ve taken the time to check them out. What a way to add a wow factor!
Just imagine a headteacher opening a short video message from you that thanks them for signing up, talks about the school they work at and perhaps asks them a relevant question. They are FAR more likely to react positively, respond immediately and open your emails in future.
What I *love* about Bonjoro is that your subscriber can send you a message right back – what a way to start a conversation!
Finally, prepare to look deep into your subscribers’ eyes and find out more about them…
Another awesome trick that will make your welcome sequence really stand out from the crowd, is to use the high engagement level of that first email to find out some more about them.
This is important for two reasons. Firstly – the more engaging and interesting content you send to your subscriber, the more you can build up the know like and trust factors necessary to create the conditions under which they will want to buy from you. Secondly – and just as importantly, because engaging and relevant content will encourage subscribers to open their emails, it will make your deliverability stats rise, meaning to are more likely to arrive in other subscribers’ inboxes, rather than their spam folders.
It’s super easy too – ask them a quick and easy question, and get them to click on a button to tell you the answer. Assign a link click action to each button which tags them according to their answer and bish bash bosh – you have an interest tag.
You could get super fancy and give them a survey (now, when they’re super-engaged, is the best time to ask) – either created inside the email marketing software and embedded in the email, or created in something like Typeform and send to the subscriber via a link. If using a survey, ask a maximum of 3 questions and make them easily clickable answers – otherwise people won’t complete it.
Once you have the data, what do you do with it?
Two things –
use it to create segments, to whom you send different types of marketing. Do you have subscribers who are teachers and subscribers who are senior leaders? Chances are they will be interested in different types of product, so why would you send them the same email?
(this is a fancy way of doing things) you can even use the tags to create conditional content, meaning that you can send one email which shows different content to different subscribers based on their interest tags!
If you know that your email marketing could be better, but you simply don’t have the time to do it, I can help. Book a call and let’s chat about how I can help you to set up your educational businesses email marketing systems – it’s totally my happy place. I only open my diary for two discovery calls each week so don’t delay – grab one today!