Welcome series emails are an important content asset in your business – because when someone is new to your email list, nurturing them is a priority!

Whether this person comes into your world from a free or paid option, they require more from you than simply the deliverable they were promised.

I’m seeing some tactical mistakes in the world of email Welcome Series – so I thought I’d do a few Welcome Series episodes to help you to learn how to

1. Avoid these damaging errors

2. Improve your own Welcome Series –

(Don’t have a welcome sequence? You need one! Listen in for ideas and how to avoid bad habits in the first place!)

If you’ve gone through the trouble to create a product, downloadable, lead magnet – whatever – let’s make sure that you’re not losing people with your welcome series!

Links Mentioned
www.jenliddy.com/voxer

www.jenliddy.com/contentplanner

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Full Transcript

Hello. Hello. Welcome to Content Creation Made Easy. This podcast is all about ways to streamline your content to make it better, to make it more effective. And I am your host, Jen Liddy.

I’m a former English teacher, total word nerd, and somebody who loves to break things down for you so that you can implement them realistically into your business.

I'm really glad you're here!

Last week on episode 195, I talked all about how to make your content more strategic so that it actually leads your audience someplace, how to sound more like you in your content, and how to make your content really based on your strengths, but to do it in a strategic way.

Our goal when creating content is to lead people to a place and that will help you stop splattering your content everywhere and feeling like it's a waste of your time.

Today, I’m diving into one specific aspect of your content assets, which I want you to think of everything that you do in your content for your business as an asset.

I'm talking specifically today about Welcome Series.

Welcome Series are emails that people get when they sign up with you for something. It could be a lead magnet, it could be a product, like a digital product that they purchased.

It could be a training that they've purchased or a free training that they've signed up for.

People need to be nurtured, especially a 2023 audience. And a Welcome Series is one of the content assets that lets you do that!

Now, I'm not sure if you have a Welcome Series, if you use email, if you have a Welcome Series that you haven't looked at in a year or a few years, but I've been noticing some issues going on with people's Welcome Series and I wanted to break them down today.

What I'm talking about today is the content asset of your Welcome Series, and we're going to talk pretty tactically today.

Last week I was talking a lot of strategy and big ideas.

Today I'm really honing it in. But the reason I'm talking about this is last month I signed up for a bundle.

A bundle is a group of trainings or downloadables, basically.

They're put together by an expert who collects them from a bunch of different content creators, coaches, course creators, experts, authorities, and then she puts it all together and you get the benefit, for one low price, of downloading everything.

The woman that I follow who did this is Lizzie Goddard. She runs an incredible community and she always has really great stuff and it's always very well done. I like to follow her stuff.

I knew that if I downloaded her bundle that it would be high quality and well put together. And it was!

There was a free bundle with lower cost items and there was a paid-for bundle.

In each bundle there was an immense number of programs and trainings and PDFs and all sorts of things.

I think the free bundle had over 100 things, maybe 140, and the paid bundle had like 340 things in it.

I sorted through it and started to download the ones that I wanted. Then I started to notice that people's welcome sequences had a lot of issues.

Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of excellent stuff out there.

But I started to pick through and notice some people were making mistakes in their Welcome Series that I viewed both as a consumer of their product, but also, through my eyes, of my nerdy English teacher copy content strategist eyes.

So I wanted to share with you two mistakes that I saw people making that are super easy for you to fix.

We’re going to start here on this journey of talking about welcome sequences.

Remember, I'm going to break it down for you over the course of several podcasts because it's so easy to get overwhelmed with this stuff!

Let's talk about what to do with your Welcome Series.

Why is the Welcome Series important? Well, first of all, you've gone to a lot of trouble to either create your lead magnet, create your training, create your downloadable…

Whatever it is, you've gone to a lot of trouble.

Think about the hours of expertise that you've gained creating that thing.

Not even just like creating it, but then also having it designed and making the page and making the form.
There's a lot that's gone into it.

You don't want to lose people once they download that thing. They really need to be nurtured.

Remember, people are out of capacity, they're overwhelmed, they have a lot of information. So your job is to nurture them along the way.

A Welcome Series does that.

The very first email that people get in a Welcome Series is the one that says, here's your thing. Thank you for joining my community, my email community, or thank you for taking action on this thing.

Or thank you for buying this thing. That email gets sent to them immediately.

It's like day zero. They put their information in and boom, they should get it immediately.

Why? Well, people forget.

For example, most people find me through my customized content planner.

It's a really hearty, great downloadable. When they put their information in immediately, something goes into their email that says, Here it is, go get it!

The reason people need that right away is they forget that they signed up for things.

But what I saw people doing, the mistake is on that immediate email, they throw everything into this email like it's the freaking kitchen sink.

It should say, Thanks for downloading or buying my thing. Here's how you get it.

I mean, it needs to be to the point.

Here's the thing, here's why it's valuable, or here's how it can help you.

Here's how to download it.

You could even include, Hey, I'll be back in your inbox tomorrow, or back in your inbox in a couple of days with some suggestions on how to use it.

Or I'll be back next week with more value on how to help you solve the problem that you help solve for.

But what I saw in many, many, like a ridiculous number of these Welcome Series emails were people sharing their entire backstory.

I don't really care about you yet.

Frankly, humans care about what's in it for me. I'm not ready to learn about you.

I also saw emails with numerous links, links to affiliate products or programs like, “Oh, I think you might enjoy this thing, so here's another rabbit hole to go down. And, PS. I'll get paid for that.

OR, here's more of my classes you can take.

Or, here's a discount code for my services.

Here's a list of all of my services.

I mean, put all that in an immediate thank you, and your Welcome Series email is a death knell for trying to nurture people because they're bombarded.

Basically, you're fire hosing them.

All of those links are super confusing and super overwhelming, and all the person cares about is downloading the thing you sent them.

Now, I don't know about you, but I do not have time for extra rabbit holes in my life.

So when I get emails that not only say, Here's my thing, here's another thing, here's another thing, and here's a discount code and I'm doing this live thing and I'm doing this other thing, I start to get like:

OH NOOOOO! And I unsubscribe.

But also I saw people including, here's a link to my podcast, here's a link to my YouTube channel. Do we know each other on the Socials?

And here's some icons of podcasts I've been on or places I've been published.

All of that stuff just makes your people feel absolutely stunned and they are going to either ignore your emails or like me, I'm a ruthless unsubscriber. I hit that button and get out of Dodge as soon as I can.

So remember, your people barely have time to do the thing that they signed up for.

Please don't bombard them, especially in that first email with a lot of information about yourself, a lot of information about your business, a lot of information about your programs.

They're just not available for that yet.

The Welcome Series is not the place. Let me put it this way.

Your Welcome Series is not the kitchen sink.

Be very sparing with what you choose to share with people, especially in that first deliverable email.

We're talking about nurture. Nurturing takes time. So one of the actions you can take is to go into your Welcome Series and take a look at that immediate email that gets delivered.

Now, you might have a ton of value to share, but you'll get more mileage out of it if you parse it over a few days or a few weeks.

Give people the chance to digest and don't dump it all into, especially not into that first one.

I will say one more thing about that.

In terms of being overwhelmed, sometimes I felt really confused, like, which is the link for the thing I actually signed up for?

And you don't want people to be confused because they do not buy when they are confused.

So that's the very first tactical thing that you can shift in your email.

Okay, the second thing I noticed with these Welcome Series is that the emails just came in with their first name.

I don't know who Heather is. I know several Heathers in my real life! I don't know who this Heather is.

Even if it came in with a first name and a last name, Heather Smith, I still don't know who that is yet. I need some context.

For example, if you were to go or you saw a Facebook ad on Facebook and you downloaded my customized content planner, in your mind you're like, this is the content planner lady, this is the content lady.

So for an email to come into your email inbox and say just Jen, how many Jen's do you freakin’ know? Right? Or Jen Liddy. And there's no context.

You might not open it because you might be like, well, I don't know, a Jen, or this doesn't look like it's from my other friend Jen.

It's very confusing for people, so you have to give them some context. It's really easy to do.

Think about how your email shows up in people's email inboxes: if it said Jen Liddy from Content Creation Solutions. Ah, now you've got some context.

These two things are inextricably linked together. That's really helpful for a busy, overwhelmed person who's downloaded your thing and hasn't quite made the equation that your thing goes with this name yet.

They will, but you have to give them time.

That's what this Welcome Series does: it nurtures them and gives them time to come to get to know you. If I don't open that email and I never get your thing, do you think I'm going to remember?

I might not remember, especially if I didn't pay for it, especially if it was a freebie.

So if I don't open it or I delete it, that does not give you and I a chance to get to know each other!

I don't get to learn what your problems are, I don't get to help you solve your problems and you don't get to learn about me, my expertise, or how I can lead you to some kind of reprieve from your content hell. Right?

That is the shame of it.

We are supposed to be developing a relationship so you can learn whether I can help you or not. A simple shift in your email inbox name is a huge thing.

The other thing you can do to help give your audience more context once they've downloaded something from you is simply remind people where they found you:

“Hey, I'm so glad you downloaded the Customized Content Planner. Isn't it a great resource? People have told me it really changes things for them.”

Blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Basically tell them, Here's the name of the thing you purchase or hey, remember me? We met three days ago when you downloaded or when you purchased, or when you bought…

You need to help people remember, sort and file all the things that are coming at them, especially in their inboxes, right?

Because remember, Old Navy and Anthropology or Loft is probably emailing them, hammering at them all day long, and they need to sort through the noise!

These two simple shifts are so easily implementable!

But you need to put a time on your calendar to make it happen.

Take 20 minutes out of your day sometime this week, put it on your calendar and look through:

What does your immediate deliverable email look like? Is it a kitchen sink situation? Do we need to clean that up and parse it out over the next few days?

And what does your email inbox name look like?

Once they receive it, they're like, Oh, this is this person who helps with that thing!

I really want to make sure you understand how important nurturing is for your audience, because as I've said many times before, you know, your consumers are smart and savvy and also at capacity.

They have come to distrust the marketing world, and they do not want to feel manipulated, bullied, shamed about anything.

They don't want to feel overwhelmed or confused, nor do they want FOMO, and they don't want to make a decision out of panic or lack. That's why developing a relationship over time is really important.

Think about yourself as a consumer. You don't want to feel those things either.

How many DMs do you get with people hawking things to you that you're just like, DUDE. I don't know you! I'm not spending that kind of money with you because I don't even know you yet!

So wherever you are in your journey of creating content, think about this nurturing piece.

If you have a Welcome Series, we're going to start tweaking it over the next couple of episodes.

If you don't have a Welcome Series, you are really leaving an opportunity behind to develop a relationship with your people and not lose them.

Email is a really valuable tool in your business. This is a long journey for you as a creator. It's a long journey for your audience member.

Nurturing their trust gives them the chance to eventually try something with you.

What actions are you going to take today in terms of cleaning up your Welcome Series or getting started on your Welcome Series?

If you are interested in the content planner I've been talking about all episode, actually, and you don't have it yet, go to jenliddy.com/contentplanner and you can download it there.

It's a super easy download and it's a very comprehensive content planner that actually teaches you how to content plan and how to think like a creator, but to do it in a way that works for you.

I know many people have creative brains and they don't think in ladders or they don't think in step by step, but they think more holistically.

This planner will help you do that.

Please come back next week because I'm going to be talking more about Welcome Series, unpacking what works and unpacking how to tweak yours.

If you want support with strategizing your Welcome Series or strategizing any of your content, a Voxer Day is a great opportunity to do this.

If you go to www.jenlliddy.com/voxer , you can get one to one support with me for a day over Voxer where we're not freaking out and trying to get it done in an hour!

Instead, we're taking our time and strategizing back and forth using the walkie talkie app Voxer.

I hope that there's been a nugget in here that you can take and implement.

And if you have any questions at all, follow me over on Instagram. I'm at @jenliddycoach and I’d love to see you there.

I'll be happy to answer any of your questions in the DMs. Talk to you next week. Bye.