How to Welcome Your Email Newsletter Subscribers, Automatically

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Peter Sharkey on 23rd of Feb 2017

February 23, 2017

When a person subscribes to your newsletter, it’s a moment of interest, excitement, and commitment. The person wants to hear from you. Your opportunity is to welcome the new subscriber to your community by confirming they made a good decision and introducing them to your content. Readers will know what to expect and get excited about what’s to come.

In this post, we’ll walk through an automated journey you can use as is or build upon to welcome newsletter subscribers. The flow consists of five steps: Step 1: Notify your team every time you earn a new subscriber **Step 2: **Greet your new subscriber with a welcome email **Step 3: **Send your best stuff after 72 hours **Step 4: **Add the new subscriber to your email newsletter list **Step 5: **Invite the reader to take the next step in the customer journey You can set up the automated journey in Autopilot by simply dragging and dropping. The end result looks like this: newsletter welcome journey example Let’s cover each step.

Step #1: Notify your team every time you earn a new subscriber

Once a person submits the newsletter sign up form, it’s important to notify your team. Not only is this a huge morale booster (someone wants to hear what you have to say!) it also helps you stay on top of subscriber activity. Depending on your preferred internal method of communication, this notification can be done in the form of a Slack notification or a team email. notification email If you have different potential products or service flows that could have led the new subscriber to signing up, you can also include this information in the email for more context about what this new subscriber is looking for.

Step #2: Greet your new subscriber with a welcome email

It’s important to immediately engage your new subscriber after they sign up. This way they know that you received their information and are happy they’ve joined your community. In this first email, set the tone for what the subscriber should expect moving forward. This means using a personalized greeting, explaining what type of content you’ll be sharing, and communicating how often they’ll hear from you. This also includes what style of communication they can expect, so be sure to also keep your brand voice consistent as well. Screen Shot 2016 07 21 at 10.20.39 AM Lastly, by giving them an action item in your first email, like a link to a popular blog post or team page, you can encourage them to continue to learn more about you. This way, when they see your name in their inbox, they’ll want to open it.

Step #3: Send your best stuff after 72 hours

After you’ve set the stage for what your new subscriber can expect, it’s time to draw them in with your best content. 72 hours after your welcome email, send an email with your greatest hits of all time. This is an opportunity to build credibility and trust as an expert in your field. As Optimizely has done in their email, it’s important to share a little more information with the subscriber so they can do a deeper-dive and learn more about the type of content you share. This sets an expectation for your subscriber about the quality of content they can expect from you moving forward.

Once you’ve welcomed your new subscriber, set the tone for your newsletter and shared some of your best content, it’s time to add your new subscriber to your email newsletter list. They’ll start receiving newsletter updates, keeping them engaged with your content.

Step #5: Invite the reader to take the next step in their customer journey

Set a condition check for 45 days after the subscriber initially signs up to see if they have completed your desired action, be it sign up for a trial, consult a specialist or possibly register for an account with your service. There are two easy ways to check in with your subscriber. One option being a customized email asking if they’d like to complete the signup or registration. The other option would be an on-site message the next time they come to your website using Headsup. The on-site message comes off a bit less sales-y because the subscriber has been receiving emails from you and has now come back to your website over a month and a half later. Screen Shot 2016 07 21 at 10.37.14 AM Hopefully, after this 45-day welcome and follow up journey, your subscriber has become either an engaged subscriber, or, even better, a customer. Have you tried other ways of welcoming new subscribers that has worked for you? Let us know in the comments, and see what we learned after 12 months of email newsletter A/B testing.