Here’s the Ultimate Email Welcome Sequence to Generate More Leads

Here’s the Ultimate Email Welcome Sequence to Generate More Leads. You’ve spent months deciding on a lead magnet, writing it, and designing it. You’ve done your due diligence, trying to come up with something that nobody has done before and represents your brand in the strongest possible light. 

Months gone, but you know it’ll be worth it because of statistics like four out of five marketers said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing, and 74% of baby boomers think email is the most personal channel to communicate with brands. So, it has to be worth it, right? 

But then you launch your lead magnet after checking your opt-in box works a thousand times, and nothing happens. 

What happened to the whole “$36 for every $1 spent. Email marketing makes money” thing?

Here’s a newsflash that delivers the good and bad news: It’s not email marketing. It’s your emails. 

It can be easy to take that personally, but I implore you not to. Because, despite it stinging a little, it’s actually a positive thing. Because you can learn, edit, and change your emails. And once you’ve got them working for you, you’ll see results, and you’ll understand why the gurus rave about email marketing. 

It all starts with your welcome sequence. Do it properly, and you know that your email campaigns won’t begin and end there, but it will open up an opportunity to sell to your engaged list, time and time again. 

So, let’s explore welcome sequences. From the definition, to how to implement them, how many emails you need to have, and some top tips to stick to, you’ll learn everything you need to know to ensure your welcome sequence is a success. 

But first:

Is Email Marketing Really the Key? What Are the Benefits of Email Marketing (When Done Right)?

If you’re avoiding touching anything to do with email marketing, know that you’re not alone in feeling overwhelmed by it. There’s a lot to learn and so much to understand in order to master the art of email marketing. 

However, the impact it can have on your brand is too big to cast aside. If you’re serious about growing your business, you’ll find it tricky to scale to the extent you want to without email marketing. For a year or so, perhaps you could build your social media presence instead. 

But this comes with risks. If, for whatever reason, your social media account got disabled, where would you be without an email list? You’d lose your following. However, with an email list, those leads belong to you. You can’t lose them. 

That’s one benefit of investing in email marketing. This doesn’t only refer to investing financially. Instead, it encompasses your time, effort, patience, and money.

There are so many other benefits of email marketing. I could write a novel about how email marketing has transformed my business. However, I’ll stick to five key benefits for this post: 

• Email marketing is low-cost. 

When you compare this marketing method against direct-mail methods, you’ll spot that you have zero printing or exposure fees. Most emails can be designed with templates provided by your email marketing software. All you need to pay for is your platform. The prices vary from provider to provider, and it’s often massively influenced by the number of leads you have on your email list. In the beginning, when the number of email addresses on your list is fairly limited, you’ll be paying very little for the software. 

• Those who opt-in to your list are already warm leads, and they are on your list by choice. 

Unlike social media or blogs, the content you send out to your list is welcomed, as your leads chose to be a part of your list. They’re already warm and have started their journey in your sales funnel by being a member of your email list. 

•  Email provides an opportunity for segmentation and targeted content.

There is so much evidence that suggests that content and copywriting convert best when someone feels like the message is personalized. Email allows you to personalize content in a way that no other content marketing method can. Segmentation, tags, and split testing are just three out of countless ways that you can personalize your content.

• Let’s point out the obvious: email marketing = higher revenue. 

More purchases are made via email than any other distribution platform, and it works explicitly for impulse buys. 

• Finally, email marketing is easy to measure.

It can be too easy to get lost in data analysis, but email marketing makes it easy. The key performance indicators tell a very clear narrative, meaning you’re able to intervene if the data looks funky! 

What Is a Welcome Sequence in Email Marketing? 

A welcome sequence is a series of automated emails that begin sending after a trigger gets released.

For welcome sequences, the trigger is almost always “lead joins the email list.” 

Once you have crafted a killer welcome sequence and you have proof that it is converting the way you want it to, you don’t have to edit or do anything to it unless you want to.

The beauty of investing in your welcome sequence is that it’s an evergreen piece of content spread over a few days/weeks. 

Why Should I Send an Email Welcome Sequence? 

Do you have to send an email welcome sequence? No, you don’t. In fact, you could follow the 61% of brands that don’t send a welcome sequence at all. 

But you’d be letting down the 74% of people who expect a welcome email immediately after they opt-in to your email list.

So, should you send a welcome sequence to push your business forward? Yes. You 100% should. 

The very fact that such a large percentage of people believe they should receive an email welcoming them to your list represents the need to feel connected to the brand. Consider that when a lead chooses out of their own free will to sign up for your email list (specifically if that was done organically and without the help of paid ads), their interest is very high. 

So, this is the pivotal time for you to communicate with them. If you choose not to, it could be months before any interaction happens between your brand and the lead, by which point interest has died down, and your competitor (who created a welcome sequence) has received their business. 

A welcome sequence isn’t created with the prime focus of making a sale. Instead, it’s about nurturing a 1:1 relationship in a smaller digital space. Using social media or blogs to post content means the entire world can see it. However, there’s something more intimate about an email, as it’s just your message and your lead in their inbox. 

Your welcome sequence is all about allowing your lead to get to know your brand. From your messaging to the way you solve problems, it uses — for the most part — soft selling techniques. There’s room for two hard-selling emails, but the vast majority of your welcome sequence relies on relationship building. When done right, this sets you up for repeat buyers after nourishing and growing levels of trust. And, as the nurture sequence is evergreen, it will work time and time again. 

What You Need to Know Before You Start Writing Your Welcome Sequence

Before you fire up your email marketing platform, you need to strategize. It’s the case with any marketing method: it won’t work unless you have a clear strategy behind it. Don’t send emails just to say you’ve done it and to cross it off a list. 

So, you need to be able to answer the following 3 questions before you can advance to the creative stage:

1. How will you entice leads to opt-in to your email list? What will your lead magnet be? What problem will it solve?
2. Where will your leads sign up for your email list? Will you use a landing page provided by your email marketing software, your own website, or a pop-up ad?
3. What will you promote or sell at the end of your welcome sequence, and how does it link to your lead magnet?

Your welcome sequence will lack purpose and strategy without answers to these three questions. Before you start creating your sequence, you must be able to answer these questions clearly and concisely. 

What Goals Can I Set for My Welcome Sequence?

Without a goal, you’ll find it almost impossible to measure whether your welcome sequence is converting. So, before you get going, you need to decide on your end goals. These goals will depend massively on the offer you end your welcome sequence promoting.

The offer doesn’t necessarily need to be something they need to pay for. It can be free, but the offer should help you get one step closer to making a sale. If you have a sales funnel, refer to it, seeing which low-ticket item you can sell at the end of this sequence.

Some examples of offers you could promote at the end of a welcome sequence are: 

• An upsell or cross-sell

• Adding the lead to a Facebook Group

• Asking for a review or testimonial of your lead magnet

• A discovery call

• A demo (particularly useful if your product is software-based)

1. A webinar or mini-course

Whichever product or service you promote, you’ll need to make sure it’s evergreen. Remember, a nurture sequence should be designed to work for you in the background, converting while you focus on future marketing campaigns. So, try to choose a product or service that won’t expire. For example, a discovery call is unlikely to change. It’ll remain consistent, so it’s a good choice for an end-of-sequence promotion. 

What to Write in Each Email of Your Welcome Sequence

So, your strategy is drawn up. You know what you’re going to promote at the end of your sequence — now what? 

We’re at the planning phase of the process. At this point, you need to know what each of your emails will be about. Plus, just like you set an overall goal for the entire welcome sequence, you need mini-goals for each email. 

For example, you could set an initial goal of a 98% open rate for your first email. This will always be your top-performing email, as they’ve elected to opt-in to your list. 

But what goes in each email? How do you make sure every email is packed with content that will push the lead in the direction of making a purchase?         

Follow this structure:

Email One: Welcome Your Lead

This is the very first email your lead will get from you. Hopefully, it’s the start of many, but you have only one chance to make a strong first impression.

This email should be short and sweet while maintaining your brand voice. All you need to do for this email is deliver your lead magnet. 

There’s an added bonus for any gravitas you can add to the first email. Congratulating your lead on becoming a member of the list is okay, but it’s been done a thousand times before. Instead, try to be more specific and praise them for taking action against the particular problem your lead magnet solves. 

What does that look like in practice? Well, let’s say you run a business in the pet industry. After conducting thorough research, you discovered that the number one problem cat owners have is the smell of the litter box. So, your lead magnet is a video showing how to clean out a litter box to avoid lingering odors. 

The way you’d add gravitas to that is by praising the reader’s action (i.e., downloading your video). It may look something like this:

No one likes stinky litter boxes! But so many cat-mamas + papas cringe away, putting up with their fur-babies business because they’re too embarrassed to ask for help. Kudos to you for finding a way to banish the stank!  

Email Two: Outline the Problem You Solve  

Now that your lead has had a few moments to digest the value provided in your lead magnet, your second email should communicate what problem — specific to the reader — you solve. 

This isn’t about driving a hard sell. And it shouldn’t be too pushy. Remember, your lead needs more time to get to know you and your brand before making a purchase. They need to know they can trust you. So, this email is pivotal for building trust. 

In this email, you’ll need to answer these three questions: 

1. What problem does my reader have that my brand can solve?
2. What does the reader currently think they need to buy to solve the problem?
3. What does the reader believe they have to do in order to solve the problem? (Even though that method won’t solve the problem.)

Email Three: Show Empathy Through Storytelling and Reduce Guilt

In email two, you clearly outlined the problem your brand is able to solve for the audience. So, your next email dives into the problem and emotional empathy. 

Take the “it’s not your fault” approach in relation to the problem, and tell a story about when you experienced it, too. This makes your solution and transformation all the more credible. You don’t want to sell in a completely obvious way. Instead, it should be a gentle, soft sell. And if they chose to make a purchase, then great! But that’s not the overall purpose of this email. 

Position your brand as a transformative opportunity, and lift guilt from their shoulders. 

Email Four: Present the Benefits 

Emails four and five are the main emails that will convert. This is where you up your selling game. 

By now, the reader understands that you have been through the same problem as they are currently facing. That works wonders. But when you combine it with the next email, which outlines the benefits and provides a hard sell, it becomes magical. 

The benefits you outline in this email need to address the short, medium, and long term. The best way to do this? Use “imagine this” or “picture a world where” statements.

Then, end it by positioning your offer as the solution. 

Email Five: Create Urgency 

Email five is where you up the ante! With every email, you edge closer and closer to a sale. Email four was the first hard sell, and email five follows suit.

In this email, you want to create a strong sense of urgency to promote action from the reader. Adding a simple countdown timer to your email to suggest that the offer will expire is always effective, and using a copy to support this will create a solid sense of urgency throughout your message. 

You’ll also need to reiterate the benefits from email four. However, if they didn’t sell in email four, try repositioning and rephrasing it. Perhaps adjusting the order of the benefits will suit the reader better. Just make sure you’re using a totally different copy, as you don’t want to sound repetitive. 

Email Six: Last Chance! 

Email six is your last email in your welcome sequence, so try to end on a high. This should be considerably shorter than email five but should have just as much — if not more — urgency involved.

Your countdown timer will display less time remaining, and it’s your final push for action. 

Here’s where you can display further social proof. Often, social proof is the last prod a reader needs to push them into action.

Try to provide social proof from a lead or past client/customer who had a similar problem to those on this list. It’ll resonate far better, which will be proven with your conversion rates. 

Email Welcome Sequences: A Key to Increased Revenue 

In this article, you’ve learned a whole host of email marketing tips and tricks, specifically for your welcome sequence.

Now that you know what goes in each email, how to strategize effectively, and the overall purpose of your welcome sequence, there’s just one thing left to do:

Go and write it!

Author’s bio for this guest post

Liz Slyman

Over the past decade, Liz has worked as a copywriter and digital marketing executive for a multitude of companies from startups to and mid-sized businesses to working as the VP of marketing for award-winning, platinum-selling artists. Leveraging an understanding of the nuance of language in marketing, Liz founded Amplihigher, a content marketing and copywriting agency, designed to connect consumers to companies in a way that results in next-level brand expansion.

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