Newsletter Ninja #4

Hello! Hopefully by now you’ve read Chapter Seven – The First Date and you completed last week’s missions. If you forgot here they are again:

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.

If you haven’t done those yet, there is still time. These posts are not going anywhere, so you can jump in whenever you need to.

As the book says, there are two automated emails that will go out once someone signs up for your newsletter (assuming you have double opt-in, which is recommended.) After that, it’s all on you to start creating your welcome sequence.

• Confirmation Email (I used Better Call Chris Lang’s Whitelist Builder but it seems to be offline at the time of this writing. Here is an example of what it looks like though: https://naomiault.com/whitelist-instructions/)
• The Welcome Email
• The Cookie Email (it isn’t called that in the book, but if you offer a cookie, then that’s what it is.)Cookie Check In Email (make sure they got the cookie.)
• Cookie Check In Email (make sure they got the cookie.)

This can lead them to be parked on a list, where you routinely send out a weekly or monthly newsletter OR you can divert them into a new sequence. The author recommends this new new sequence starts 7 days after your Cookie Check In Email. It’s going to depend on your email provider & their capabilities.

Whether you start a while new sequence or just send a one time email, you want to let your personality show, and let the readers get to know you (as much as you care to share.)

I’m considering drafting a new sequence, to spread out the getting to know you phase more, and help me highlight my work (now that it’s growing!) without being salesy, which I hate. I personally think it’s better to send multiple very short emails with a single point of interest, than a long one that takes a while to read.

Back to the book, though, where she talks about drafting this sequence tailored to HOW the reader came into your list. So that’s something to keep in mind, as your readership grows, and your marketing campaign becomes multi-faceted with numerous entry points.

Even with recycling automations, I think it’s important not to get overwhelmed trying to make your welcome sequences “perfect.” For one, there’s not such and for another, your writing business is going to be fluid in these beginning years. I love the idea of doing something once, and forgetting about it, but that’s not feasible or advisable. So I am not stressed about ‘getting it 100% right’ and I hope you don’t, either.

Your assigned reading is Chapter Eight – The Sign-Up Process by April 20th.

Your mission is to sit down and think what experience you want the new reader to have, and the impression you want them to have of you. Rough draft your sequences (I use note cards so I can physically move them around) and once you have the gist, open up your word processor and start writing them out. Depending on your provider, you may be able to start setting up the sequence now, or you have have to hold it until you have a sign up form. If you can, go ahead and load them up and test them.

See you next week!