Your mission last week was to check out email providers and choose one, testing it thoroughly. If you forgot that part of the mission, go ahead and subscribe to your newsletter now. Is it easy to subscribe. What are the message like that are being sent? Are they written in your own voice, or did you leave the default ones up? How hard is it to unsubscribe and what parting message do you offer the readers as they leave your newsletter? (Note to self: Check your own unsubscribe message!)
Today we will discuss Chapter Six. This is all about onboarding, and I’ll be honest—my favorite part of this entire newsletter thing. Even if I have to invest significant time up front, I love any system that you can set on auto pilot to keep working for you 24/7.
In a way, you have an initial sequence set up when a subscriber first signs up. Your provider will send them that “are you sure—please confirm” email automatically. The onboarding sequence is just a more personalized extension of that process.
How many emails?
I think that depends on how much work you have out and how much of yourself you want to inject into your newsletter. If you’re personal life is an open book, you likely have a lot to share. If you’re using a pen name and want to keep your personal life on the down low, you’ll have less to talk about, and subsequently, less material to work with.
As stated in this chapter: this sequence has several jobs to do.
- Introduce yourself and your work to new subscribers
Set up their expectations
Hook them into wanting more.
It’s harder to try and work all three of those things into every email, but two should be manageable.
What about freebies?
There is an entire sequel to this book devoted to freebies. So I think rather than get into that in detail here, we can save that topic for later. That being said, it’s nice to have a freebie, but since Vella offers three free episodes, you can leverage this for quite a while.
Designing the sequence
You have TWO missions this week: FIRST, make sure you have your newsletter sign up everywhere you want it to be. Twitter, instagram, your Linktree, website, etc. Then make a list of these locations.
Second, get pen and paper and draw out a sequence. You’re not writing any emails yet, just the basic subject will do. But you should figure out how many emails and what the purpose of them will be before you start.
While you do this, think about WHERE these people will be coming from as you design it. You can set up several different automations, tailored to the incoming event. For instance, I have seven automations. When someone comes in from a contest, their sequence will look differently than someone who signs up through my website. If someone signed up from a Bookfunnel, they need a different automation experience, too.
This doesn’t have to be perfect. You will probably change your mind about how many emails once you sit down and actually start writing them. And some sequences can be copied, with only the initial email tailored to the incoming event.
Assigned reading: Read Chapter Seven “The First Date” by April 13th. We will have discussion about your mission and the current assigned chapter on that day.
Good luck and see you then!