Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Guest Post: How to Properly Welcome a New Subscriber (and Make More Sales)

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Welcome a New SubscriberWhen a first-time guest arrives at your home, what do you usually do?

You give them a tour.

They learn where the bathroom is, why you painted your office a sunny yellow, and what you’re planning for the basement renovation.

(Okay, maybe you skip the junk room, but still, they see most of your house.)

You then offer them a beverage, a comfy chair, and engage in a friendly conversation.

You get to know each other better because you’ve crossed the threshold from “acquaintance” to “someone who’s been in my house.”

Now think about your email subscribers, those strangers who responded to your invitation to join your list and receive your newsletter.

  • Have you given them a tour?
  • Engaged in a little chit-chat to get to know each other better?
  • Shown them where the necessary resources are located?

According to a recent study by Experian, a welcome email series “had 40 percent higher click rates, three times the transaction rates, and four time the revenue per email of the promotional mailings.”

Those numbers are hard to ignore.

The reason is pretty obvious when you think about it.

Your customer is most interested in what you sell at the moment they subscribe to your list. So why not extend a hearty welcome?

How to Personally Welcome Every Subscriber

An automated welcome series (sometimes called a drip campaign or autoresponder series) of 5-7 emails showcases the information your subscriber most wants at the time she’s most interested in receiving it.

You can set it up in your email marketing program (in Mailchimp it’s called a Workflow, in most others it is called an autoresponder).

Set your welcome series to start the moment someone subscribes to your list so they get an instant welcome.

Email #1: Welcome (send immediately)

This is you standing at the front door greeting your guest. You’re telling her she made it to the right destination and ushering her inside. Take her coat and tell her you’ll give her a tour of what she’ll love about your business over the next few emails.

If you’ve offered a lead magnet, this is also where you’ll deliver it.

Email #2: A sweet surprise (send 24-48 hours later)

What’s that delicious aroma? Oh, it’s my grandmother’s secret brownie recipe. Would you like to have it?

This is where you offer your subscriber a treat related to your business. Show her how to do something, overcome a problem, or get a quick win. No sales pitches, please.

Email #3: Exchange stories (send 24-48 hours later)

This is where you tell why you got into this business, and how it helps your visitor. Personalize your mission and connect on a human level with your desire to help and her need. Bullet list 1-3 of the best resources on your site.

Then, ask your visitor a question about herself.

Email #4: Showcase your best offer (send 24-48 hours later)

Your subscriber signed up because she’s interested in what you have to offer…so offer! Like showing off the best room in your house, you reveal your signature product (or your best entry-level product, if more appropriate). Show her what it can do for her.

Email #5: What to expect next (send 24-48 hours later)

Now that you’ve introduced yourself, given a brief tour, and unveiled your best offer, it’s time to tell her the frequency in which you’ll email your newsletters, what kind of information she can expect, and remind her where to find you on social media.

Your subscriber is now properly welcomed and ready to receive your newsletters, offers, and promotions.

She’s more likely to open your emails (because she knows you now!), more likely to purchase (because she’s familiar with how you can help her), and less likely to unsubscribe or mark your email as SPAM (again, you’re a known entity now).

And all it takes is creating a one-time email series that runs 24/7, warmly welcoming every single visitor to your list with your personal charm.

About the author: Betsy Talbot is a writer who helps small business owners attract and convert more leads into customers with content marketing. Find out what her email welcome series looks like by subscribing here.

A Better List Building Strategy

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stack of business cardsLast month I was talking to a small business owner friend who was courting a potential client. After a meeting and good follow up practices, they ended up hiring someone else. Bummer, but it happens. What happened next though was a bit surprising…

A few weeks later my friend received the newsletter of this client that didn’t come to pass. As my brother would say, Baller Move.

This easily goes in the terrible newsletter etiquette category. My guess is that this potential client just exports their contacts and adds them to their newsletter each time without regard for the relationship. And that’s not how you should be building your newsletter list.

When it comes to newsletter list building, here’s my recommendations:

  • Automatically Include

    • Clients (past & present)
    • Prospects
    • Referral Partners
    • Friends & Family can also fall into this list for some people 

  • Ask First

    • Your Database
    • Networking connections
    • That stack of business cards in a box in your closet

If you are working with a prospective client and have multiple conversations with them, they’ll most likely be in your CRM (because you have one right?) and I think they should be added to your newsletter list as well, because they’ve engaged with you and have had some interest in your services. It’s a sort of implied consent. Now, if it’s a cold lead that you want to make a client and they haven’t responded/engaged with you, then don’t do this.

Building and growing a newsletter list is one of the biggest challenges businesses have. Take a minute to consider your newsletter  list building practices and let’s make sure you’re not “accidentally” doing something illegal.

Do You Want To?

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norm!
Norm refused to get out of the car to go to the park the other day.

I’m pretty vocal about not being on Facebook which means that when I talk with clients or colleagues and they talk about what they should be doing, my first question is “but, do you want to?”

I had this conversation yesterday with a small business owner who was trying to figure out HOW to set a blog on their site. I asked, do you want to blog? And the answer was (as I expected) no. There’s a difference between what you need to do for your business and what you think you should do for your business. If writing on a weekly (ish) schedule stresses you out, then maybe a blog is a bad idea. Maybe harness that power to one great post that becomes your monthly newsletter. If Twitter stresses you out then just don’t use it. You’ll find clients other places, I promise.

As a small business owner you need to do what works for you. Having a blog is great, I use it as a way to help readers get answers to marketing questions and to see a bit of the method to my madness. But if you hate writing then don’t do it. If your target market isn’t hanging out on Pinterest then don’t worry about not being there.

Here’s a New Years Resolution you can keep: Before you start anything NEW ask yourself “do you want to?”