Sep 7, 2021
The Welcome Sequence
Y’all. We need to revisit this little thing called the Welcome Sequence. (That’s what you’re supposed to send your readers when they first join your mailing list.) Traditional (read: patriarchal) marketing taught us that our Welcome Sequence’s #1 job is to SELL something.
Here’s how the framework used to look—
➡️Follow us on social! Did you get my $27 lead magnet yet?
➡️btw, I wasn’t always a megalomaniac… check out my rock bottom story 🙁
➡️…and now, I’m THE authority on how to 10xing your productivity & wear a t-shirt under your suit!
➡️You can do it too, if you enroll in my high-ticket mastermind!
➡️INVEST IN YOURSELF. TIME’S RUNNING OUT. NINJAS!!!!!!!
Most people think their Indoctrination Sequence should culminate in a sales pitch. (I like to call it an Indoctrination Sequence, because, cults.)
But what this does is devalue the Very Important Thing they literally *just* gave you—permission to enter their inbox. Trusting you with their contact info.
That is a big deal, and the methods we’ve been taught have resulted in too many of us taking our readers for granted. In exchange for this trust, your first emails to them should be engagement-driven, not sales driven.
Ask them questions. Invite them to tell you about why they’re here, and why now. Share more of your story, now that they’re listening. If you have some resources you can share with them, make like The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and give it away give it away give it away give it away now! (Sorry.)
The primary goal of this sequence is to prove to your reader that their trust was well-placed, and that *ALL* your emails will be worth opening.
One way you can do this is by turning something you *already have* into a little 5-day email mini-course. That way you’re offering something that’s truly of value, and you don’t have to engage in any cloak-and-dagger lead magnet shenanigans to trick people onto your list.
And hey, if you’re worrying about the monetary results of this approach, here’s the real talk—engaged readers make better customers. Treating people with respect and integrity is how you build trust. And trust is how you get conversions.
About Sam
Samantha Pollack is a Copywriter & Creative Director who works with ethically minded, mission driven businesses who are actively trying to reshape our culture (and possibly tear down the patriarchy). She’s also the founder of The Highly Sensitive Business Owner, a 12-week online program that helps HSPs & neurodivergent business owners create healthier, more sustainable systems in their work.
Sam also writes about feminism, privilege, pop culture, entrepreneurship, the creative process, and whatever else is on her mind. She currently lives in Asheville, NC.
Emails for cult thought leaders.
(Personality included.)
Want to learn how to craft emails that inspire action and engagement WITHOUT the “tried and true” (cough: patriarchal) norms we’ve all been taught?
I’m doing it, and I can show you how to do it, too.
(But sometimes, I also like to write about the books I’m reading, or the creative process, or the entrepreneurial experience, or why I hate Steve Jobs, or how I met my BFF. I’ll send you emails like that, too.)
*Just kidding. It’s only an email list.
Books. Cats. Rants. Drawrings.
(and every couple months or so, an unexplained absence 🤷🏻)
