The Savvy Seller with Kristen Doyle

145. Email Welcome Sequences: Automate Your Way to More Sales

• Kristen Doyle, TPT seller, SEO coach, and web designer

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Are you rolling out the red carpet for your new subscribers - or just ghosting them after they grab your freebie? In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on one of the most powerful tools in your digital product business: the automated email welcome sequence. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn a casual freebie-grabber into a loyal fan, and eventually a paying customer, this is the strategy you’ve been waiting for.

I walk you through the exact five-email framework I use to build connection, deliver value, and warm up subscribers for future sales…all without sounding like a robot or sleazy salesperson. You’ll learn the purpose behind each email, how to weave in your story and offers authentically, and why starting simple can still get you serious results. Plus, I share how I personally set this up inside my email marketing platform, Kit (without wanting to chuck my laptop out the window).

This isn’t about writing perfect emails or nailing it on your first try. It’s about building a system that works behind the scenes to welcome, nurture, and sell while you focus on creating and serving. Whether you’re brand new to email marketing or finally ready to automate this crucial step, this episode will give you the push, and the plan, you need to get started!

01:50 - Why having an email welcome sequence is so important for your business

06:43 - How and why to automate your email welcome sequence, plus what to include in each email

15:07 -  The tech set up behind an effective welcome sequence

19:52 - My best advice for testing your sequence automations - don’t skip this!

Links & Resources:

Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode145

Tired of constantly hustling to sell your digital products? Check out my free 19-minute training where I show you how to turn all those products you already have into a profitable, automated business. 

 

Get more freedom and less stress ➡️ watch now at kristendoyle.co/training 

Check out my Everything Page at https://kristendoyle.co/everything

Kristen Doyle:

Think about the last time that you signed up for freebie online, you were excited to get that checklist or that template, but then what happened? Maybe you got the freebie and suddenly you started getting promotional emails about products that you weren't ready for yet. Or maybe you got that first email with your download and then crickets until a random newsletter showed up in your inbox weeks or months later. Neither of those experiences feels that great as the subscriber, does it? But there is another option. So today we are talking about automating your email welcome sequence. That is that little series of emails that turns those casual freebie subscribers into loyal fans who are ready to make purchases from you. Nurturing new subscribers through some thoughtful and yes, automated emails, feels better for your new subscribers, but it also builds trust that leads to more sales down the road for you. And once you get it all set up, it works for you. 24/7 without you having to do a single thing. Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen Doyle, and I'm here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automation, and so much more. Let's get started y'all. Let's talk about why you need a welcome sequence anyway. So that welcome sequence is the series of emails that you're going to send out to a new subscriber after they sign up for a certain freebie and they've just joined your list. Those first few emails really are the ones that will determine whether these subscribers stay on your list or they hit that unsubscribe button after they download their freebie. The experience that people have in that first seven to 10, maybe 12 days really determines whether they're going to start engaging with your content and stick around, or they're going to decide you're not for them and then they're going to disappear. It's really important that you capitalize on those first few days, because open rates are highest when someone has first joined your list. So you want to make sure you take advantage of that window while they're still excited about you and what you have to offer, and they're more likely to open up emails from you. It's really important during those first couple emails that you spend some time building trust and setting expectations before you ever ask for purchases. See when we set clear expectations, that helps us to keep our subscribers happy. When you are transparent about what kind of contents you're going to talk about and how often you're going to email, this keeps people from unsubscribing because they are surprised, or they're getting something in their inbox that they weren't expecting. And you might be worried that if you're super transparent, especially about things like what kind of content you're going to promote, things that you might offer for them to purchase from you, you might be a little worried that being too transparent about that will cause people to unsubscribe, but I would argue that you want those people to just go ahead and exit out of your email list anyway. Because if they aren't going to be interested in the content that you're offering, then they don't need to stay on your list, because they're not going to be engaged subscribers. So when you set those clear expectations around what kind of content you're going to share, the topics you talk about, how often you're going to email, and yes, what kinds of things you're going to offer to sell them, that can prevent the kind of surprises that lead to lots of unsubscribes down the road, and it can just clean up your list over time as people are joining, and set those expectations for what they can expect from you long term. Because that's so important, those expectations are so important you want to make sure that the style of emails in your welcome sequence matches the style you're sending out in your regular emails. You don't want your welcome sequence to look like one thing, and then flip the switch when they get to your regular email list, because that is going to be another one of those points where people just start to unsubscribe because they're getting surprises that aren't necessarily good ones for them. In that welcome sequence, you want to provide some immediate value for people. This is important for a couple of reasons. First of all, when you can give people some sort of a quick win, especially if it's directly related to their opt in, that makes subscribers glad that they joined your list, and it makes them more likely to open the next email and the one after that, because they've already gotten a quick win from you. This creates engagement, and it builds trust. And long term, the best subscribers on your list are going to be those who see some value in what you offer from the very beginning, because once you start to lose them, that is going to just continue. So you really want to reel people in right at the beginning, when they first join your list, to keep building that momentum in a positive direction instead of a negative direction. Now this doesn't mean that you're not going to talk about any of your products and services. In fact, I think it's important that you do mention them toward the end of your welcome sequence, but you want to do it in a really natural way. That welcome sequence kind of serves as a soft introduction to what you offer. You can mention products in context, rather than putting out immediate, hard sell direct emails, because that will help you to build interest and build trust before you make those really direct sales pitches that you're going to want down the road. When you're doing this, since this is one short email sequence, focus on just introducing one product or a bundle, rather than everything all at one time. Think about what is your flagship offer, your main thing that you sell. Maybe you call it your signature offer. Share a little bit about that, rather than trying to introduce people to everything that you have available for them right off the bat, because that can feel overwhelming. Now that you know what that welcome sequence is, let's talk about why you need to automate it. When it comes to welcome sequences, typically, one of two things is going to happen. Either you have it on your to do list to make a welcome sequence, and it never, ever happens, and you just start sending people those regular weekly emails and you never welcome them to your list, or you create an automated sequence. See if we try to welcome people to our list in a more manual way, it tends to just fall off the radar and never actually happen. So I recommend that you create an automated welcome sequence for lots of reasons. The first is that consistency is so so important, and it's good for keeping your subscribers engaged and excited and happy with your list. It also helps you to give those brand new subscribers a good introduction to you, to your business, to how you can help them, and yes, what you have to offer as well. See when you just take brand new subscribers, you send them the freebie and then you dump them into your general email list, that can sometimes create a kind of jarring experience, because sometimes the things that we are sending to our regular email subscribers who've been on our list for months or years are not really appropriate yet for brand new subscribers who don't know much about us. It can feel a little jarring. It can feel a little uncomfortable, especially if you happen to drop them into your main email list in the middle of maybe a sales period for you, when you're doing more promotional emails than you normally would. So when you have these automated welcome sequences set up that makes sure that nobody slips through the cracks, that everybody gets welcomed to your list, gets introduced to your business before they start getting that regular weekly content. When you throw brand new subscribers into your regular maybe promotional emails that can lead to higher unsubscribe rates, because people don't really understand yet who you are and what you offer. If you think about it, new subscribers have different questions than your established audience. They have different things that they need than your established audience, who you've already taught a lot of things to. So by welcoming your new subscribers in an automated welcome sequence, you can address some of those things on the front end, so that then they are ready for your regular weekly email cadence, whatever that might look like. All right, let's talk a little bit now about how to actually make this happen. The first thing that you want to do is do some planning before you start worrying about the automations. So if automations feel overwhelming to you, don't worry about it yet. Let's just talk about the planning first. I would recommend that you start by writing your emails first. Now there are lots of different ways to do a welcome sequence. I am going to recommend that you do a five email welcome sequence. Short and sweet, just enough to really introduce yourself to people. Email number one is where you deliver the freebie that they opted in for. Give them a warm welcome, kind of let them know that you're going to continue emailing them some more information over the next couple of weeks. Then in email number two, if you can provide a quick win that is directly related to whatever they opted in for, that is going to go a long way toward building trust and getting them excited. See if you can find a way within email two, to get people to either click on a link or, even better, hit reply and respond to you, and make sure that when you get responses to these emails from your welcome sequence, make sure you're taking the time to reply back to those people and build that relationship, especially in the early days of them being on your list. Email number three is a great time for you to kind of share your story and set yourself up as an expert in your field and to build a little bit of a more personal connection with people. And then in email four, you can start to hint a little bit at some of your offers. Maybe you show off your best product with some testimonials. This is a great place to just start to set the groundwork for the fact that every now and then you're going to send a promotional email about something that people can purchase from you. And then email number five is a great time to ask them what their questions are for you, and then to set the stage for that transition into regular emails. Now you don't have to say now you're at the end of my welcome sequence. So next week, you'll start getting my regular email, because that feels awkward. But you can ask them what kind of things they still have questions about that you can help with, invite them to hit reply, or even give them a quick poll and ask them to respond back, A, B or C. Which of these are you struggling with the most? That'll get that conversation started and give you some feedback about what people need as they're joining your list. And then you can let them know toward the end that going forward, you'll be emailing them about once a week, twice a week, whatever your cadence is, so that you're setting the stage for that transition into those regular emails. Now, when it comes to timing, it really doesn't matter when you send these out. So even if you are typically only emailing people once a week from your list, the first email with that freebie, of course, that needs to be delivered immediately when they sign up. Emails 2,3,4, and 5 should be spaced out somewhere around two to three days apart. This is close enough to keep people's interest without overwhelming them, and it really is one reason I recommend a pretty short welcome sequence, because you don't want to overwhelm you don't want to be emailing them three and four times a week for multiple weeks at a time. But what you do want to do is email them close enough together in those early days that they stay interested in that you keep building momentum in their inbox. And then once you get towards those last emails, between email five and starting to get those regular weekly emails that should stretch out to more like four or five six days, you can even set a delay in your email platform to make sure that that stretches out Now, there are a handful of things that you're going to need some. to think about when it comes to automating this. The first is, how are people going to get into your welcome sequence? And how many welcome sequences will you have? If you have lots of different forms, but they're all about one topic, you probably just need one welcome sequence for all of them. Or maybe you have two or three topics with lots of different lead magnet forms. You could create two to three welcome sequences, one for each topic. I would not recommend trying to create a separate welcome sequence for every single email opt in that you have, unless you only have a handful of opt ins, because it's just going to get overwhelming, and probably there won't be enough difference from one sequence to the next to really be worth all of that time and effort on your part. Plus it could mean that people are getting very similar email sequences from you over and over if they're opting into multiple things. So think about how many sequences you're actually going to need, regardless of how many you think you need. I want to encourage you just start with one, but think long term. So you'll have that plan in place. You're going to also need to decide how subscribers get from that welcome sequence to your regular email list, and we'll talk about how I do that in just a minute. You'll need a system to keep track of who has already gone through the welcome sequence. That can be as simple as setting up some tags in your email list. And you might want to think about special circumstances, like people who purchase the offer during a welcome sequence, people who have already gone through other welcome sequences. Think about how you might be able to handle those sorts of things by excluding certain tags or sending only two people with certain tags. Things like that can really help you to organize your welcome sequence. I would encourage you to just map that out on a piece of paper, on something like Canva whiteboards. Whatever tool you like to use just to get your thoughts out. Go ahead and map that stuff out so you have the big picture of where you're going. And then let's talk technical setup. I want to walk you through exactly how I have this setup in my business. Now I use Kit, which of course, used to be called Convert Kit for my email marketing. Love them. Highly recommend them, but you should be able to do something similar to this no matter what tool you're using for your email marketing. So the first thing I do is I write all of my welcome emails in a Google Doc. And the reason I do that is so that I can go back and edit them later. I can go back and see what I have written. I can also use that as a reference doc for my Claude or Chat GPT projects for things that I'm doing, so that those AI tools know what I've been sending out to people. So I really do encourage you to write all your email sequences in a Google Doc, rather than just pulling up your email marketing platform and writing directly in their email editor. Once I've got those emails written and edited, then I go in and I create a visual automation. You'll find that in the menu bar at the top on kit, and here's what mine looks like. The trigger to start the automation is when someone submits a form. And like I said earlier, depending on how many lead magnets you have and how similar the content is, you might want just one automation for when someone signs up on any form, or you might need to say when someone signs up on this form or this form or this form, we're going to start this automation and have a separate automation for different categories of lead magnets. Now the first step in my automation is to remove a tag called weekly emails from the subscriber, assuming that it exists, and I'll explain that tag in just a minute, but it is a very important first step before anything else happens. Step two in the automation adds the subscriber to an email sequence. Inside this sequence you'll copy in all that content that you wrote for those five welcome emails, and you'll set the timing that you want to use. When you click on sequence settings on kit, there is an option to let people go through a sequence multiple times or only once. Now, depending on your sequence, there are use cases for both of these, but for a welcome sequence, I always set those so that people can only go through it one time. This keeps people from getting the same welcome sequence emails if they've signed up for multiple freebies that are feeding into that same sequence. And when it comes to having multiple welcome sequences, you can either handle this with tags and exclude people who have any of the welcome sequence tags or and this is what I would really recommend - you can make your welcome sequences so different from one another that it is okay for people to go through more than one of them. Now, after the sequence ends, I like to add a wait. You can do this anywhere from a one day wait to a five or even a seven day wait, if you want. But I like to add a wait time between getting the last email in the sequence and when these people go into my regular weekly email group. This is really just to make sure that no one is getting multiple emails from me on the same day, and that after that very last email, there's a little delay before they start getting regular weekly emails. After that step, I add any tags that I want the subscribers to have based on the lead magnet that they signed up for. I use those tags to target different people's interests in future emails, or when I create future sales sequences, things like that. And then the last step in my automation is adding a weekly emails tag to the subscriber. Now this is the same weekly emails tag that I told you I remove at the very, very beginning. And this tag is how I make sure that people who are in my welcome sequence, or I also use this same process in some of my other automated sequences to make sure they're not getting random, unrelated emails in the middle of a sequence.When I write my regular weekly broadcast emails, I don't send them to everyone. I only send them to subscribers who have the weekly emails tag. And for every automated sequence that I build, assuming that I want people to only get those emails, then the first step is to remove the weekly emails tag from the subscriber, and then the last step is to add that weekly emails tag back. This just pulls those people who are getting a single, very focused sequence of emails out of my regular group for that couple of weeks and then slides them back into the regular group when they get finished with the sequence. Now, before your automation goes live, you're going to want to test everything. You want to put yourself through this automated sequence as a new subscriber to make sure everything is working. And one little trick that I use for that is I sign up for one of the freebies that leads to this email sequence using a test email. And you don't have to have dozens of email addresses to do this. The way that I do it is, I use my regular email the plus sign, and then something it can be, literally anything you can say, plus one, I usually say plus whatever it is, so that I know which email that was, which email it is tied to. And so the way that that looks is, I would type in, for example, Kristen Plus, the last one I did was Kristen Plus SSC test at Kristendoyle.co. So my regular email is Kristen at Kristendoyle.co but I've added that little plus and something in the middle, and what that does is that makes sure that the emails get sent to your regular inbox so I don't have to go hunting around for these. I don't have to go check an email I never use and remember the password. The emails get sent to my regular inbox, but because it's a unique email address, it creates a new subscriber in my email platform. That way, I can go to that new subscriber and track exactly what emails they're getting, what emails they're being excluded from and make sure that everything about my automation is set up properly. You'll want to check the timing of the emails that are sent out any filters you've put on to make sure that those are working properly and all of the links in the emails before you set this automation live and start pushing people through it. One little trick that I use for that is, as I am setting up my emails, initially, I'll set them to two or three hours between emails instead of days. That way, I can test it out fairly quickly over, you know, 24 to 48 hour period, and then I'll go in and switch that from hours to days once I've checked everything and I'm ready to go. That way, I am not waiting multiple weeks before I can push this live just waiting for the emails to come to my own inbox. You'll want to make sure that you test these because it is so so easy to accidentally miss a filter or click the wrong thing and have something set up incorrectly. In fact, just yesterday, I was working on an email sequence in my own kit account. It was an automated sequence, and when I sent myself through that test, what ended up happening is I got email one out of the sequence, and then I didn't get any more emails. But on day two, that would have been the next day, it was about an hour later because of the way I set it. But on that day two, when I should have gotten the day two email, I actually got the last email in the sequence, and what I found when I went in is I had set some filters incorrectly.And so it had skipped through emails, 2,3,4,5, and 6, and only sent me email 7 of that sequence because of the way I had set up some filters. So if I had not sent myself those emails and made a point to check them, I would have never noticed, and this would have been happening for my subscribers, and that's not a good experience. So just make sure you take the extra time to be sure it's working properly before you start sending out these emails live. All right, that is the overview of how to set up and automate your welcome sequence. Let's talk about some action steps. Start by writing your five welcome emails. If five feels super overwhelming, start with just the first email for right now. Set aside some blocks of time that you can use to work on writing these emails where you can turn off everything else and just really focus in on the emails. And I would really encourage you, like I said earlier, focus on the content before you worry about the automations. Then take a minute to map out the way your automation is going to work. The easiest way to do this is just to sketch it out on paper. It does not need to be anything fancy, really, just as important that you visualize it and you think through the process. So whatever works for your brain. Think through anything that you might need to do for your existing email list before you start this automation. One simple example is from my list, I knew I wanted this weekly emails tag so I could exclude people from getting weekly emails while they were in the sequence, but that meant I needed to create the tag, and I needed to add the weekly emails tag to all the people currently on my list, or no one would be getting my weekly emails at first. So it's just a little extra step I needed to do that I might not have recognized or thought about had I not mapped everything out on paper first. And then pick a day. Block out half a day on your calendar to get it all set up and kick off your testing so that you can make sure everything is working. Now, if you are thinking that you're going to need multiple welcome sequences for different categories on your list. Then I recommend you start with one form, or one freebie, one category, get that one all set up perfectly, and then you can typically in your email platform- I know Kit allows this. You can typically duplicate that entire automation to use it again for a different email sequence. Now, there is one important thing to know if you're using Kit especially, and this may apply to other email platforms too. The email sequence and the automation are two separate things. I always build my sequence within the automation, but that also means when I hit the duplicate button, it is duplicating the automation, but that automation is still tied to my original sequence. So if I start editing those emails, I'm editing the emails that are in both automations, not just the new copy. So what you need to do is duplicate your automation, but then go in and create a brand new sequence for your automation to run through. Don't edit those original ones, or you'll be editing in both of the automations. Now, if writing those welcome emails feels super daunting for you or you're not sure where to start, I want to share two really great resources to help. So first of all, my friend Nicole Kepic has some amazing welcome sequence emails. I believe she called it her red carpet welcome. They are polished and professional and welcoming and friendly and sell without ever being salesy, just like she always does. These are perfect if you want that more polished approach. And then if you prefer your emails to have a little bit more quirkiness, a little bit more fun, check out Liz Wilcox's templates. Hers have lots of personality. They are a little less polished. They are a little more casual and relaxed. So depending on which of those feels more aligned for you, either one of those is a great option. In fact, I have actually used both of theirs to create different welcome sequences at different times. I'll link to both options in the show notes so you can pick the one that works best for you. Now, once you have set up your automated welcome sequence, I would love to hear how it's going. Drop me a DM on Instagram@kristendoyle.co if you have any questions, or if you would like to see a screenshot of my automation setup. I know sometimes it's really helpful to actually see it visually in order to kind of put those pieces together. So I am happy to share my system and how that works if that is something that would help you to implement your own welcome sequence a little more easily. Seriously, though, just get it set up. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can always go in and edit those emails, tweak the tags you're using. You can change all of those things down the road, especially as you see which of those emails are he important thing is just to start. Start welcoming new working well and which ones aren't. T subscribers to your list the right way, instead of ignoring them or throwing them straight into the deep end. I hope this episode has helped you get ready to automate your own welcome sequence. Like I said, if you have any questions, feel free to DM me over on Instagram@kristendoyle.co and I'll talk to you soon.