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Most businesses work hard to earn a new subscriber, then miss the opportunity to make a great first impression. Allea Grummert explains how a thoughtful welcome sequence can introduce your brand, build trust, and turn casual subscribers into engaged readers and future customers.
The Email Welcome Sequence That Wins Business
Last week, somebody visited our website, skipped the contact form entirely, and signed up for our newsletter instead. Our automated welcome email asked one simple question: what’s the biggest hurdle you’re trying to figure out right now?
He answered. I replied with a few suggestions, we set up a meeting, and he asked for a proposal. All from a welcome email that most businesses never bother to write.
I recently sat down with Allea Grummert, email marketing strategist and owner of Duett, on the Agents of Change podcast, and she made a compelling case that the welcome sequence is the most neglected asset in most email marketing strategies. After that experience, I’m inclined to agree.
What an Email Welcome Sequence Really Is
When many marketers think about email marketing, we jump straight to newsletters and promotions. But as Allea pointed out, the welcome sequence “is actually the first time people are hearing from you.”
Think about the alternative. Someone joins your list, then hears nothing until your next newsletter goes out. They’re jumping into the middle of a conversation with no context. They don’t know your backstory, your resources, or how you can help them.
A welcome sequence (sometimes called a welcome email series or drip campaign) is a short series of automated emails, usually three to six, that new subscribers receive over their first few weeks on your list. Allea’s team typically writes about five emails per client, and they even exclude new subscribers from regular newsletters while the sequence runs. As she put it, “we are protecting their experience.”
Your Welcome Sequence Is a Brand Hub
Allea described the welcome sequence as a “brand hub.”
Someone might know you from Instagram or a blog post, but they have no idea about your podcast, your free guide, your services, or your monthly events. The welcome sequence is where you ask: what do I want to make sure everybody on my list knows about?
Allea compares it to staying at an Airbnb where the host leaves a folder of local recommendations. The coffee shop that’s a five minute walk away. The museum worth your time. You’re orienting people to your world so they can find what they need.
That includes the know, like, and trust factor. Allea used to work in video production, where they talked about ethos, pathos, and logos (the Aristotle rhetorical triangle, for those of us who slept through that lecture). Weaving in your backstory and a bit of social proof gives people a reason to believe you, not just hear from you.
One Big Idea, Two Calls to Action
Here’s where a lot of welcome emails fall apart: they try to do everything at once.
Allea’s rule is one big idea per email, and no more than two calls to action. Your primary CTA might be “reply to this question.” Your secondary one gets demoted to a PS: “Did you see I’m also on TikTok?”
She admitted she gets overwhelmed when a welcome email links to 20 different things, and needs “two tops” to consume before the next email arrives. Same. If everything is important, nothing is.
This is also why sequences have multiple emails in the first place. You’re not cramming your entire business into one message. You’re spreading it out so each email has room to breathe.
Let Your Personality Do the Filtering
One thing Allea said that might sound counterintuitive: a good welcome sequence should repel some people.
Your emails should make it clear who you are, what you believe, and how you work. At flyte, we load our welcome emails with GIFs and memes because we want people to know there’s a personality behind the glossy cover. Allea does the same, and she once had a prospect cancel a discovery call after reading her emails because he decided they weren’t a good fit.
Her reaction? He saved them both some time. If someone turns you down, better they turn down the real you than a polished facade that would have cracked on the first call anyway.
The flip side matters too. Your lead magnet should attract the right people in the first place. Allea deliberately avoids publishing beginner content because her services are built for businesses further along. Match your content to the clients you can serve.
Turning Clicks Into Conversations
This is where things get tactically interesting for anyone selling bigger ticket services.
Allea uses link triggers, which tag subscribers based on what they click. Click on her services page? Tagged. Click the discovery call link but don’t book? Tagged, and an automation follows up a couple days later asking if they have questions.
Then she goes a step further. She pulls up her segment of hot leads, looks up who they are, and sends a short personal Loom video: “Hey, I saw you’re on my email list. What questions do you have about email marketing that I can answer for you?”
Is it wildly successful every time? By her own admission, no. But when you’re selling services worth thousands of dollars, a two minute video to a warm lead is cheap. As she said, what’s the worst that could happen? They unsubscribe. They probably weren’t a good fit anyway.
If your revenue depends on volume instead (e-commerce, affiliate content, ad-supported traffic), the same principle works as automated follow ups, similar to an abandoned cart email.
How Do You Know It’s Working?
Open rates give you a rough read on early interest, and Allea’s team sees an average 9% click through rate across a five email sequence. But she cautioned against getting too enthralled with the data, since open and click rates aren’t entirely accurate, and some emails exist just to ask a question, with nothing to click at all.
She also made the point that general awareness counts as impact. Not every email converts to a sale, but a subscriber who knows who you are and sees you as a resource is worth something, even if your dashboard can’t measure it.
Your Next Steps
You don’t need a six email masterpiece by Friday. Here’s how to start:
- List everything a new subscriber should know about you, your business, and your resources. Just bullet points.
- Prioritize and group them into three to five emails. (Three is fine. Really.)
- Write your first email by talking, not typing. Allea suggests turning on a dictation tool like Wispr Flow and explaining your business as if you’re sitting across from someone with a cup of coffee. Clean it up, and that’s email one.
- Ask a question in that first email. You might be surprised who answers.
- Add from there. The beauty of automation is you can add an email, a link, or a link trigger next week. It doesn’t all have to happen at once.
Your best content is already written. Your welcome sequence just makes sure new subscribers see it.
If you’re curious to see how flyte’s email welcome sequence works, you can check it out here.
Transcript from Allea Grummert’s Episode
Rich: Owner of Duett, my next guest is an email marketing strategist, copywriter, and tech expert who helps bloggers and content creators make a lasting first impression through automated welcome and nurture sequences. She helps her clients build intentional email strategies that engage readers, build brand loyalty, and optimize conversions for sales and traffic. We love to hear that!
She’s the host of the Happy Subscribers podcast, holds the coveted spot as the email marketing industry expert for the Food Blogger Pro membership community, is a recommended expert through NerdPress, a trusted Mediavine partner, and recognized as a Kit-approved expert.
Today, we’re going to be talking about email marketing, and how you can build relationships with your audience starting at the very first interaction, with Allea Grummert. Allea, welcome to the podcast.
Allea: Thank you, Rich. What a delightful intonation with your introduction. I love it. Hi, Mom!
Rich: I was just feeling energized by your sweater with the crossed cherries. Because my daughter, Maya, is a huge cherry person, and we always get her gifts with cherries on it.
Allea: Oh my gosh. You can show her this. I thrifted it for about a dollar, and it’s the softest piece of clothing that I own. It has a cute, little, collared neck and everything. Love my little vintage pieces.
Rich: She would actually love the fact that it’s vintage, too. She hates buying anything new. Everything has to be vintage.
Offline, I’ll tell you the story of how I had to spend five hours getting a bed frame from another state because it was already used, so that made it acceptable.
Allea: She’s protecting the environment.
Rich: She absolutely is, except for the $80 in gas we spent getting the bed back.
Allea: I see it. I see that maybe it doesn’t line up.
Rich: So getting back to email marketing, how did you get started focusing on email marketing, and what drew you specifically to automations like welcome sequences?
Allea: Oh, man, the origin story. So I actually started out as a personal finance blogger in May of 2016. I started my blog while everybody else, I swear, was out on a boat for Memorial Day. I was like, “I don’t have a boat.” So I watched Gilmore Girls, and I created a website. And that’s how I got into the online space.
And then within two years I decided, not even, a year and a half later, I decided to go part-time at my job and pursue self-employment. I joke that I listened to one too many podcasts about how you can start your own business, and I was like, “Ah, shoot, guess I got to try.” And so I started Duett.
And early on, I knew I needed to niche down. And honestly, email was something that came really easily for me, and I had helped a friend of mine with her agency and her clients. She’d say, eventually it was like, “Allie, can I bring on this client, and will you help me help them?” And so it had just evolved from this hobby of a blog on my own site, to helping other people and starting my business. I just needed something that I could execute on and know that it was done.
And so I built my business as a project-based service provider instead of retainer. I had actually started my business out of burnout and depression. I was in such a state that I was like, “I can’t have someone needing something from me Friday afternoons. I just need to know that I’ve done a good job, and I can send the invoice and call it a day.” Now, we’ve set up to where I have a recurring service now as well, because I have an amazing team. We got almost eight years in business, so a lot has changed.
But with email, what I noticed from the personal finance community that I was part of is that everybody had such awesome content already. They just didn’t have a way of getting it to new subscribers right away. And I remember the people saying, “Well, I wrote that blog post two years ago. Who would really want that?” And I’m like, “Is it still how you budget and how you’d recommend budgeting or paying off student loans? Like, has that really changed?”
Because I think that as content creators, we have so much valuable content that we’re just not putting in front of people, especially the bloggers who are constantly creating new content. And so the cool thing about welcome and nurture sequences is that you automate emails full of your best content, most valuable, serving the biggest needs of people as they come onto your email list. And it sends out to them automatically as they join, just over the first couple of months that they’re on your list.
Rich: All right. So when we think about email marketing, a lot of us jump straight to newsletters and promotions. What are we missing by not focusing more on that early-stage experience?
Allea: Yeah, if you think about it, it’s actually the first time people are hearing from you. So the alternative is that they join your list and they don’t hear from you until you send out a newsletter. But think of how much context they’re missing out on. They don’t know your backstory, how you’re there to help them.
And then without a welcome sequence, you’re not able to answer their biggest questions right away. We survey our clients’ audiences, and we’re like, “What is Amy doing already that we really, really love?” Or, “What are the biggest pain points or issues you’ve come looking to solve?” And we take the answers to those, and we craft a welcome sequence that does both of those while also supporting, quote-unquote, Amy’s business of driving traffic back to her website or making sure they know that she has services or a product, and we weave it all together.
And so people aren’t just jumping in midway into a conversation. They’re being slowly introduced so that when they get your first newsletter, they have the context of where they are and who you are.
Rich: The first time I did any email marketing, the company I used doesn’t even exist anymore. It was so long ago. And really, there was no welcome sequence or what some people will call an email drip campaign. It was basically you could customize that first message that said, “Welcome to the list,” and that was about it. And if you didn’t, this company would send out an email on your behalf that said, “Welcome to the community.” It was very generic and things like that.
So as we’re thinking about that message, and you kind of did a good job of breaking down how you go about it, what are some of the things that we should think about when it comes to that welcome sequence? And I guess we’re talking about a sequence. We’re not just talking about a single email that says, “Welcome to our list”, hopefully customized with our brand voice.
We’re talking about a series of events that are then delivered into their email box outside of any email promotions you might be sending, outside of any newsletters that come around once a week or once a month, correct?
Allea: Yeah, and we actually exclude anybody currently in the welcome sequence from getting newsletters.
Rich: Oh, wow.
Allea: Like, we are protecting their experience. I often talk about the welcome sequence being like a brand hub. So people might know you from social media, or they may have found you on your website, but they don’t necessarily know about all the other pieces that you have. Like, they might not know you have a $5 guide here or a free discovery call here. So it really is a matter of asking, what do I want to make sure everybody on my list gets?
So that’s one big thing. And that could be just a resource, a freebie, or they need to know that you have a podcast, or I used to host these monthly roundtables. That was in my welcome sequence, because it was happening for two and a half years I hosted a monthly event.
And so I just want to make sure everybody who’s new knows about that, and I’m not just waiting and hoping that they get and open the announcement email. There’s another touch here to make sure they know about it. I’d mention just making sure that whatever their biggest pain points or questions are or what they come looking for, gets answered right away. So I work with a lot of recipe content creators, and so that first email is usually give the people what they want. Give them the recipes that they came looking for.
And then the other pieces that I really like to incorporate is the know, like, and trust factor. And I actually used to work in video production, and we would talk about ethos, pathos, and logos, Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle. And so part of it is also weaving in your backstory so that there’s some sort of credibility factor as well as social proof. Even if it’s like, “I spoke at this event one time.” Just piecing those things together so that people can know you and trust you from the very beginning.
But back to your question too, I mean, this could be a one-email sequence. If you’re just getting started, don’t over pack it, but just make sure it at least answers some of those questions so there’s not a gap from they signed up for your list and they hear from you a week later for the first time. I think my welcome sequence is six emails, and we write for clients usually around five.
Rich: All right. So a lot of what you’ve said so far sounds very relevant for an individual, like a solopreneur. How might it differ if we’ve got a team and we want to introduce ourselves as a group of people working together rather than just a strong single personality?
Allea: Yeah. I think that identifying the reason why your business exists and repeating that to your audience, because they don’t know. I always ask our clients in the copy prep phase, “What was it that was going on in your life that you started this business? What was the problem in your life that you were trying to solve or for someone else’s life?” Because that’s the hinge point that someone can say, “Oh, I see that Rich understands me. He knows why I’m here.”
So even if it’s not one person’s story, it’s your brand’s story, and you can still kind of feature the people behind the scenes. I’ve written for companies before, like membership communities, and it’s like, “Here’s who you can expect to hear from. You’re going to hear from all these voices. So glad you’re here.” And it’s like onboarding.
I’m curious what you might want to include in one, Rich. Because I use the analogy often of staying at an Airbnb. And you have your local person who’s got their folder here with the brochures and the notes of, “This coffee shop is a five-minute walk,” or, “Be sure if you want to do a museum, you check out this one.” And so we get to do that. But what comes up for you that you would want to make sure a bigger business more than an individual might want to include?
Rich: Well, some of the things that I think about, because we did create a welcome sequence, and right before the last week I actually had an excellent experience with it. Because in my initial email, I say, “Listen, you’re going to start getting these kind of emails from us, but I’m just curious, what is the biggest hurdle you’re trying to figure out right now?”
And I know that most people are never going to read that or do anything with it because people are too busy, but just last week somebody responded with an answer. I immediately responded back to them with a couple things that they could try and then said, “Do you want to talk through this?” We ended up setting a meeting, and he asked for a proposal.
Allea: Oh, my goodness.
Rich: Word is not in yet on whether or not we got the business, but that was a great experience that only came from a welcome message, so that was really important. Because he did not reach out through the contact form. He came to our website, but he didn’t act except to sign up for the newsletter, and then this was the welcome process.
So for me, I want to introduce people to the services that my company, flyte new media, rather than Agents of Change, which is the podcast, offer. So we talk about branding, and we talk about web design, and we talk about digital marketing. We try and throw in some other things throughout the process.
And yes, there’s a little bit of the ‘why’ behind that, but we also set testimonials or certifications, all those social proof items that we put into our website, we’ve also included in the email. We just use a lot more GIFs and memes in the email welcome sequence, because we want people to know that we’ve got a personality behind the glossy cover.
Allea: Absolutely. Yeah. My team member, Kat, has pointed out, she’s like, “There’s no GIF in this week’s email. Do you want to? People might not think you wrote it.” I’m like, “Oh, yeah, let me go do that.” It’s definitely a flavor.
And I will say that there’s kind of a purpose, too, of stating your intentions, your angle, your approach, your personality in your emails, especially your welcome sequence. Because it can turn the right person toward you or the wrong person away from you.
I’ve actually had the opposite happen, Rich, where somebody booked a call with me, joined my email list, this was years ago, and actually ended up canceling the call with me because he’s like, “I just don’t think we’re a good fit.” And I was like, “Okay.” You know, it’s up to him to decide, and that goes back.
Rich: Just saved you a whole bunch of time though.
Allea: It just saved me some time. And I’m not even that offended because I know that what I’m putting out, and this is what I encourage you to do when you’re writing your welcome sequence, of make it true to you. Make it clear who you are, what you believe.
For me, it’s like I believe in the power of email marketing, and I make it really clear why this is an important part of running an online business. And if you disagree with me or you don’t like that I included this funny GIF, because that’s my personality, at least I know that you’re turning me down because of who you really think I am. Versus if you feel like you have to have this professional persona or it has to be a certain way, it’s going to be a facade for you and for the reader. And then when they do book a call with you, it might not feel like there’s a match.
Rich: I also think that it’s a great opportunity to give people quick wins if there is something that you can offer them that gets quick wins and starts to build some of that trust as well, or somehow gets them involved in that customer journey, giving them something to do. I always find that that can be very, very helpful as well.
Allea: What do you consider quick wins? I haven’t thought about that in ages, but that is a great idea.
Rich: I think it depends on the type of business you are. But if you were doing some sort of health coaching, if there was one thing that you found that really works, if you’re trying to get a better night’s sleep, everybody will tell you that you should always shut off your phone half an hour before bed, but that’s really tough.
And one of the tips that I’ve used is I make sure that the phone is plugged in across the bedroom, and my book that I’m reading is on the bedside table, and that’s how I always manage. I don’t know, something along those lines. Except I would try and come up with something with SEO or GEO if that’s it, but yes.
Allea: Absolutely. I love it.
Rich: So let’s take a step back before even the welcome message, because you mentioned something important. And the fact that we’re looking to attract the right type of client and also detract the wrong type of client. They won’t be a good fit. They won’t appreciate our work, whatever it is.
What are some of the ways that when you’re doing consulting with your clients, for them to attract the right type of person to sign up for their list in the first place? Are there any sort of tactics that you recommend?
Allea: I mean, in general, you don’t want your lead magnet to be too generic. It’s a little bit different in the blogging space because it really is kind of a matter of mass attraction. So they’ve got tools like ‘save this recipe’, where you enter your email and the recipe goes to your inbox. Or if they’re using Instagram, comment below if you want me to email you this week’s meal plan.
So it really is a bit more of a wide net. Which is fine because what they’re looking for is a growth in subscribers, and recipes are a little bit more palatable across the board. That felt like a joke. Palatable. Get it? Food. Okay.
So it would be different, though, if you’re a service provider because for instance, I have to be really careful. I don’t have a lot of beginner content, or I’m not sharing a lot of beginner content on my blog even, because I am leaving the beginners to Amy Porterfield, Jenna Kutcher, whoever teaches on how to do email 101. I’m more of 201, 301 and above. And so it’s just more so making sure that you’re not attracting the people who wouldn’t be a good fit for you.
And it’s not that I don’t think that that information is helpful, it’s just that I’m a service-based business who requires clients who can pay a certain amount, and you just have to have that in line with the type of content you’re creating.
Rich: Absolutely. So both before they sign up and then after they sign up, alignment is definitely critical, and these welcome sequences certainly give us the opportunity of letting people self-select or self-deselect if that’s what they need.
So how do you… we’ve got these emails, whether it’s going to be one email or whether it’s going to be six or more emails. How do we find the balance between overwhelming people when we’re trying to introduce ourselves and our ‘whys’ and delivering value and quick wins or guiding somebody towards taking action, like joining a membership group? Is there a balance? Is there a rubric that we can use?
Allea: That’s why people pay us, Rich. No, it’s really, and this is my favorite thing to do, is that it feels like different puzzle pieces because there’s not a real formula. Asking them to join your Instagram, follow you on Instagram should be an email, too. It’s more like prioritizing what definitely needs to be in there, and then figuring out what can be deprioritized to a PS, or a snippet at the bottom, or a soft mention.
In general, though, you want each email to have one big idea, and I would say no more than two calls to action in a welcome sequence. Ideally, the main, call to action might be, “reply to this question”, “PS, did you see that I’m also on TikTok? Come follow me there.” So you have your primary call to action.
And it might just be a matter of frequency. People might, if they get carried away replying to my question, heaven forbid, that’s what I would love. And if they don’t catch that I have a TikTok until later, that’s fine. But in that email, they’re hearing about why you do what you do, the importance of SEO, your angle on SEO, and are replying to your question. So that’s what I mean by up to two calls to action.
The other type of email that you might have is, what are the best ways that I can serve you? And it might be like, “Here’s my free offer, here’s my medium, here’s my signature offer. Book a call with me.” So in that case, the big idea is I want to show them the breadth of content or available options, and the call to action is to either buy, sign up, or book a call. Something like that.
But in general, that’s why I have so many emails, because I don’t want them to be too full. Like, I generally get overwhelmed with people when they’ve linked to 20 things in the welcome email. I’m just like, nope, I need two, tops, for me to actually consume it before we move the next email.
Rich: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. So a lot of the emails that I receive when I sign up for something, the welcome sequence feels very one-way. I mentioned that we actually have this question that just the other day got a response, but what are some ways that you’ve seen that we can encourage real engagement, whether it’s to get somebody to reply or to click on something, download? Have you seen some things that are working across the board?
Allea: Yes. I would say giving away maybe one of your lead magnets. Because people might have come in through the creator network, or they joined you on Instagram, but they don’t know about your Airtable content calendar. You know? And so this is really helpful in making sure that everybody knows about it.
And I don’t consider it super repetitive. Sure, maybe some people have received it, but maybe they haven’t used it yet. But you’re saying, and I always tell my clients, you are the managing editor of your own content. You get to say what gets the front cover. And so if the front cover for this email is, “this resource is super helpful”, you want to make sure everybody knows about it. That’s a really generous thing to do and to focus your time on.
Rich: All right. Now, once we start getting people to engage with our emails, is there a way for us to identify who’s going to be more likely to turn into clients down the road?
Allea: Ooh, great question. So another way to offer engagement would be some sort of link trigger or poll, so getting them to click and answer a question. So it could be, “where are you at with your SEO?” “I’m just getting started”, “I need to know what I’m doing wrong”, and somebody else might say, “Just do it for me.”
And so what you can do is add a tag to anybody who clicks on those. What I do is I actually have a tag that gets added saying, ‘clicked on one of my services’, like the name of service, or ‘clicked discovery call’. And I actually have an automation that sends them a follow-up within a couple of days saying, “Hey, did you have any other questions? Do you want to book your call here?”, with a link to actually book the call if they haven’t.
So what I’ve done, and this is where there’s that line between marketing and sales. You send your one-to-many email, but then you go into your email service platform and look up, who are all my hot leads? Who are the people who actually clicked? And you can create a segment of that. And you can go in and see, okay, you get their domain, you actually look it up, you’re like, “Oh, do I know this person? Would this be a good fit?” I reach out to them, and I create a Loom video, and I send them a custom email through my Gmail saying, “Hey Melissa, I saw that you’re on my email list. I’m so glad you’re part of my community. What questions do you have about email marketing that I can answer for you?”
Rich: So it’s really interesting that you say that. Because just the other day I was having a conversation with my creative director. We were pushing people to get a free branding consult with him, and I mentioned, “Oh, here are the people that actually clicked on your Calendly but didn’t end up filling out your form.”
And he’s like, “How do you know who clicked on it?” I’m like, because I go into the reports – on MailChimp in this case – and it literally tells me who are the people who clicked on it. That being said, if you’re in marketing, you’re like, “Oh, that’s cool.” But if you’re the other person, does that feel weird to you? Does it feel skeevy? Like, have you ever followed up with people and they’re like, “Wait a sec, I didn’t ask for this level of intimacy”?
Allea: I don’t know, Rich. Nobody’s ever told me to buzz off.
Rich: No one’s ever complained. All right.
Allea: No. And then part of it is, you’re in my ecosystem. I you know you, and forgive me for wanting to build a one-on-one relationship with you. It’s a Loom video, so it’s maybe two or three minutes of me just saying, “Hey, so glad you’re here. I just want to be able to answer whatever email marketing question you have.” It’s not an outright pitch. It’s just starting a conversation from there. And even if they don’t sign up, it’s building relationships with people.
Rich: How much of this for you is automations versus doing things manually? Like, I think you’re on Kit Convert, or it used to be called ConvertKit, now it’s called Kit. Are you manually going in there, or have you set up automations and have scripts? And do you recommend one over the other?
Allea: Nope, I just have it set up as a segment that I can click into and see who my hot leads are. I have an assistant who will have a goal of reaching out to or sending a Loom to five people, and it might be people who attended my webinar. So people who really signed up for something and then didn’t end up buying.
So it’s like maybe those are the five people I reach out to, or the people who took action on my Black Friday offer, “Hey, do you want more?” So I guess I kind of have a script. Like, I have a template where I’ll drop in the video, and then my assistant sends the follow-up, and it’s replying back to it and saying, “Hey, I want to make sure this didn’t get lost in the interwebs. Is there any way that I can help you?”
And I don’t know, I haven’t seen it be wildly successful, but it’s part of my due diligence. At least in seasons where I feel like sales are low. I’m like, what’s the worst that could happen? They unsubscribe?
Rich: Yeah, and then they probably weren’t a good fit anyways.
So I just want to kind of clarify this for anybody listening. So for you, you’re doing a lot of, I won’t call it aggressive follow-up, but you’re doing a lot of follow-up.
Allea: Intentional.
You’re taking really good care. Intentional. Yeah. Much nicer word. I’m going to say my driving from now on is very intentional, and not aggressive. But you’re doing this in part because maybe this is better for big-ticket sales. There’s going to be people out there who just need as big a list as possible, engage, buy that one widget, move on kind of thing.
But when we’re selling bigger ticket items, and certainly websites or SEO for us are bigger ticket items, you’re taking the time, you’re making this part of that onboarding process. Even though obviously number-wise, most of these people won’t necessarily convert. But you’re seeing these people as much more valuable than just some automation sequence.
Allea: Yeah. And then if we’re talking about people who have e-commerce businesses or the high traffic type businesses like content creators, where they’re earning revenue from site traffic or affiliate revenue, the same thing can happen where you have a tag get added if they click on something and you send a follow-up email. Just like an abandoned cart email. “Hey, were you able to sign up for those 33 days using the Kit link that I sent you? What questions do you have?” And then in that case, it’s only being sent to the people who’ve actually clicked.
Rich: Makes sense. For those of us who maybe don’t have big teams, don’t have the VAs or the assistants working for us, what is the simplest version of this that we can get set up and put into place without spending too much time or energy?
Allea: For what particular outcome?
Rich: For setting up a really strong welcome message, welcome sequence.
Allea: Honestly, just make a list of what are all the important things people need to know about you, your brand, your business, or your resources. Just make a bulleted list and then break them out into five emails or into three emails. Determine which ones are most important, and then prioritize. You might not be able to include them all in your welcome sequence. Let it be three emails. It doesn’t have to be five.
I actually do have a resource for this, Rich. I could grab the link for you, but it’s called, Your First Welcome Sequence, and it just has you asking these questions and bringing to mind things that are really common for you, the things that you’re so used to.
But these people have never met you. I actually was at a conference two years ago, Rich, where the person next to me didn’t know who the keynote speaker was, and it was Amy Porterfield. And I was like, “Wait, what? Where do you live?” Are you under a rock? Like, how are you at this conference, this was the Kit conference, and not know who Amy Porterfield is?
But I think that’s a really helpful thing for us to realize, is that we make a lot of assumptions about what people think about us, and this is your chance to show them what to think about you.
This kind of goes back to when I went to school for advertising. We talked about brand perception and brand projection. The brand perception might be like, “This is just the person I followed on Instagram.” But the brand projection, what you actually get to put out into the world, allows them to update that projection to match what’s actually true and what you’ve told them.
Rich: If we wanted to take one step forward this week to start to use a welcome sequence, what’s the first thing you would recommend we start with?
Allea: I think you download Wisprflow, and you turn it on, and it transcribes you, and you just explain your business and why it matters as if you’re sitting over a cup of coffee.
Rich: And from there, what do we do when we have this Wisprflow output? Which is a well-designed paragraph that explains our ‘why’?
Allea: You drop it in your welcome sequence. It can be your one email. So all the strategies and things that I’m talking about can happen next week. They don’t have to all happen at the same time.
That’s what I love about automations. You can go in and add an email. You can go in and add a link. You can go in and add a question. But if you were having a conversation with someone saying, “Hey, I’m so glad that you asked about what I do. Here’s what I do. Let me ask you a question,” there’s your first email.
Rich: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. One thing I am curious about is how do we know this is working? Like, what measurement metrics are you looking at to make sure that your welcome sequence is doing everything you hoped it would do?
Allea: Oftentimes, looking at open rates helps. It just shows people’s amount of interest at the very beginning. And it’s interesting because, kind of going back to my advertising degree, we had different measurements of, yeah, there’s conversions. There’s also just a goal called general awareness. You are just putting yourself in someone’s space because they’ve invited you to, and so it’s just an introduction.
It’s like, well, I met this person at a conference two years ago. I don’t necessarily know that that converted into a sale, but they know who I am. They know that I’m a resource. That also counts as impact.
And then I would also say what we’re creating for clients as far as actual click-throughs and conversions, we’re seeing an average of 9% click-through rate over the course of five emails. And so it also helps to look at that as a whole. Because one of those emails might not have any clicks, might not have anything to click on, it’s asking a question. So definitely take that into account as well.
I don’t like being so enthralled with the data, because click rates or open rates are not entirely accurate. Click rates can totally vary based on what the call to action is. But I will say, going back to what you asked earlier, I have emails in my nurture sequence, so further down into their experience, where I share about your first welcome sequence. Oh, my goodness, I’ve got a 13% click-through rate, and they’ve been on my list for two months at that point. So I do know that that works. So it’s just like, how can I be resourceful? How can I give you what you need right now as you’ve entered my space?
Rich: Awesome. Hey, if people want to learn more about you and how you can help them, where can we send them online? And I do believe that you have something for the people listening today anyway.
Allea: Yeah, yeah. So you can find me, my business is named Duett, D-U-E-T-T. So duett.co is my website. There’s a way to contact me, to book a call with me, to check out my podcast, Happy Subscribers. It’s all linked there.
And then I do have a resource, it’s our Airtable content calendar and content bank. So as you’re planning out your newsletters, how do you make sure that those continue to reinforce what you have shared with people in your welcome sequence? So I will give you that link to include in the show notes, and it’s also available on my resources page if you beat me to it.
Rich: Awesome. Allea, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.
Allea: Yes, thank you so much for having me, Rich.
Show Notes:
Allea Grummert helps business owners build intentional email marketing strategies that nurture subscribers and drive conversions. Learn more at Duett and connect with Allea through her podcast, Happy Subscribers. And grab her FREE resource: Airtable Content Calendar and Content Bank.
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, a web design & digital marketing agency in Portland, Maine, and founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his nearly 30 years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing