A client of mine implemented the strategies below for their welcome email nurture sequence with my help.
The result? Sales from the sequence increased by 46% in 30 days!
Ecom brand owners, CMO’s, email marketers and copywriters, I’m talking to YOU.
Do you want to learn the secrets of how to create an asset that will bring in more sales for you 24/7/365, all for a one-time effort?
Do you want to create strong bonds with your subscribers, keeping them coming back for more?
And do you want to annihilate the competition, smashing them into a bruised pulp?
If so, then keep reading.
What is an Email Nurture Sequence?
An email nurture sequence is a sequential set of emails sent to your email subscribers by your email service provider over a period of time after they take some action with your brand.
Actions like abandoning their cart, making a second purchase or signing up for your newsletter.
Today, we’re going to focus on newsletter sign-ups that trigger your automated welcome sequence.
Why? Because these sequences are the lowest possible hanging fruits out there for ecom brands.
I’ll explain…
So… what’s the big deal about welcome sequences?
With open rates north of 50%, and sales 80% higher than regular emails, welcome sequence emails are among the highest performing emails that brands will ever send.
It makes perfect sense. Prospects just filled out their email in your site’s pop-up and are eager to receive their discount code or free thing.
Your prospects are hot and want to see more.
If you have these set up right, your subscribers won’t just become buyers.
They’ll become life-long raving fans. Salivating at the chance to tell their friends about your awesome products.
If I could only optimize one sequence for a client, I’d pitch them the welcome sequence all day long.
But most ecom brands gloss over this sequence…
Imagine this scenario: You stumble across the website of a brand that has products that look incredible to you. You MUST have them.
You sign-up for their email list.
You get one email with pictures of their products and a 20% off coupon.
But then your cat throws up across the room so you jump out of your seat to clean up the mess and then go to bed.
That first and only email gets buried in your inbox.
Then you never hear from the brand again.
This is what the majority of ecom brands do.
And it’s a damned shame. So much lost opportunity.
While this will bring you sales, many of your new subscribers need more information and more impressions before they make that crucial first purchase.
They might not trust your brand yet.
They might not think your products are worth the price.
Or they might not think that they need your product.
This is ecommerce after all. Your prospects can’t hold your products in their hands before they buy.
And they are afraid you’ll run away to Tijuana with their credit card number.
Below I’ll explain how you can overcome these objections and turn those naysayers into first-time buyers.
The Winning Strategy
Here’s the secret to how my client increased the sales from their welcome sequence by 46% in 30 days:
Instead of sending one image-focused email for your welcome sequence, send 6 well-written copy-focused emails.
Most ecom brands out there take the billboard approach and send image-heavy but copy-light emails.
It’s a logical stance. Everyone is so busy these days and Tiktok has brought the average attention span down to 2 seconds.
People don’t have time to read (long) copy! Gasp!
Yet, thousands of studies and experiments over the decades have confirmed this basic fact:
Well-written long copy outperforms short copy. Every. Time.
To all the graphics designers reading this – please don’t shoot the messenger!
Anyways… Some of your subscribers will buy after one email. But some need more information before they are willing to open their wallet.
So why not craft a welcome sequence that satisfies both?
The way we are going to do that is with plain text emails with a personal touch.
Informal language. Write like you speak. Written with personality, from a real person not from ‘the brand’.
Imagine that you are writing a letter to a good friend.
But at the same time, we’re going to be selling in each email. There should be a clear call to action to buy your product(s).
Now there’s nothing wrong with adding an image if it supports the copy, or adding your company logo and recommended product block below your signature.
But let your words persuade and lead your subscribers to the sale.
Got all that? Great. Now I am going to show you the strategy of each email in the sequence so that you can adapt it to your brand.
Email Nurture Sequence #1 – The Welcome Email
It’s the Big Kahuna. La crème de la crème… The first email in the nurture sequence is the most important.
Welcome emails oftentimes have the highest open rates of any emails the ecom brands send. Getting a 50-80% open rate is not unreasonable.
The email is sent immediately after a prospect signs up for your newsletter through your website’s embedded form or pop-up email capture.
Your new subscribers are interested prospects who haven’t yet bought.
This email will be doing many different things. But make it personal. Have some humor and personality.
This template in this rough order is proven for best results:
- Welcome intro – Tell your origin story and demonstrate your mission.
- State your unique selling proposition – Make a bold and confident claim.
- Call to action & opt-in incentive/discount code.
- Reaffirm their decision to subscribe and let them know they are at the right place.
- Set expectations for what’s coming next in the sequence and future emails.
- Pacing and leading – Lead your prospects from problem to solution.
- Product benefit bullets.
- Ask them for a direct reply to the email. This boosts your deliverability (less emails landing in SPAM).
- Signature from a real person.
- Second call to action in the P.S.
- Company logo.
- Recommended product block.
Even if you only optimize this one email, you’ll be leagues ahead of your competition.
For the next email in the series, we are going to take your prospects by the hand and lead them through the conversion process.
Email Nurture Sequence #2 – Secret Sauce
24 hours after your first welcome email is sent, your prospect will receive your second email.
This email is going to be your full-throttled Sales argument. Frame the main problem that your brand or product solves.
State your unique selling proposition. Explain what sets your brand apart from everyone else. Throw some stones at your competitors.
Create positive associations with your brand and negative ones of your competitors.
Create a list of all objections that your customer might have that’s preventing them from buying now and addressing each objection throughout the rest of this sequence.
If your brand sells hammers, for example, this email would go something like this:
- Introduce and frame the problem –‘Millions of people suffer broken hands and fingers from ‘slip-grip’ hammers. The shame is, they don’t know it could have all been prevented, and other manufacturers don’t seem to care.’
- Picture of product
- Product unique selling point – ‘Woven nano-fiber grips save your digits from imminent crushing!’
- Proof –‘Our products use the same technology as formula 1 race cars!’
- Statistics – ‘Studies confirm 88% of job-site accidents are caused by inferior tools.’
- Social Proof – ‘Our hammers have been featured on This Old House and are prized by Norm Abram himself!’
- Risk Reversal – ‘We are so sure that you’re going to love our pillow-gripped hammers that you can return them for any reason and get 100% of your money back.’
- Call to action with deadline and coupon code: ‘Click here to buy our award-winning hammer with your 20% discount. But act now – your code expires in 4 days!
- Signature, second call to action
Hammer home your sales arguments. No pun intended.
Email Nurture Sequence #3 – Features and Benefits
The objective of email number three is to demonstrate your features and benefits to your prospects instead of listing them.
If you just say ‘our product is 14 ounces’. No one will care. It doesn’t pass the ‘So what?’ test.
Demonstration is more persuasive than telling and will net you more sales with your welcome sequence.
An easy way to knock this email out of the park is to first write down all the features of your product.
If we keep with the example of hammers, your features might read like this:
- 18″ in length;
- 14 ounces;
- Woven nano-fiber grip;
- Durable Hickory wood handle;
- High-carbon steel head;
- Comfortable, ergonomic grip,
Then make a list of all of your benefits:
- Save money;
- Save time;
- Reduce your chance of injury from accidents;
- No pain and strain on your wrist;
- Attracts attention.
Now, write out your copy to combine these features and benefits in a natural way.
What I have found makes things easier is to tell a short story about a your ideal fictional customer using the product.
A story that leads with the benefits and then pairs them with the features. Something like this:
After a long day on the construction site using his co-worker’s new X22 hammer, Jimmy was astonished.
Normally, he’d have a fiery pins-and-needles sensation in his wrist at the end of the day. But not today.
Our X22 hammer is lightweight, measuring in 14 ounces. But it packs the same punch as other brand’s hammers that weight almost twice as much.
The X22’s compact size and comfortable, nano-fiber grips reduce wrist, finger and arm fatigue by 70% compared to standard hammers. Jimmy added:
“Not only did I get my work done faster than ever before, I also never once misplaced the brightly-colored, space-age looking X22 hammer.
Most days I’d be running around the site to keep track of my tools. But today I finished early and got to make it to my son’s soccer practice!”
In the above example, we still state that the hammers are 14 ounces, but we also demonstrate WHY that matters. It matters because it’s less stress on your wrist and you are going to feel better.
Now isn’t that more persuasive that just listing out your product features?
Email Nurture Sequence #4 – FAQ
The next email is straightforward but important. If you already have an FAQ section on your store, pull out the most important questions and answer them in this email.
If you don’t yet have an FAQ, brainstorm all the questions that your customers have ever asked you.
Think of all the possible objections that your prospects could have and answer them.
Look through all your customer reviews that are 2-3 stas (a goldmine for what your customers think!) and see if anything could have been helped had they known some tidbit of information.
Try to inject a little humor into this email or it will sound bland. Don’t just copy and paste your FAQ section.
Re-word it:
Instead of “We ship only to the continental united states”.
Say “To all our fans in Kazakhstan, we’re sorry! We can ship anywhere in the lower 48 United States”.
Key things to include:
- Will your product help me X?;
- Return policy and your guarantee;
- Security of customer CC info;
- Will your product help me X;
- Answer a common misconception about your niche or products;
- Shipping Policy.
Email Nurture Sequence #5 – Raving Customer Review
Find your best customer reviews on your site and read them. Select one that best demonstrates how the customer benefited from your product.
Include their review verbatim in your email, along with the star rating.
If the customer’s review includes a picture of them, make sure to email them and get permission to use their likeness in your marketing.
Otherwise, you can drop the photo and just refer to the customer by their first name.
Here are some ideas to make your email convert:
- Introduce the review and make your prospect believe that they can achieve similar results. Select a review that represents your average customer;
- Pace and lead. Talk about the problem the reviewer had, how your product helped them achieve a solution;
- Address and smash your prospect’s main objections.
- Share something personal about yourself that relates to the review or the reviewer;
- Mention how many other customers have bought and enjoy the same product;
- Wrap up with how confident you are that your prospect can achieve X result too, and state your product guarantee.
- Call to action and discount code. Remind them it’s expiring soon!
Email Nurture Sequence #6 – The Urgency Email
There’s nothing harder to move than human inertia. If you don’t convince to buy NOW.. they will just ‘think about it’.
The goal of this email is to create urgency with your prospect and urge them to take action.
Their discount is ending.
They are going to miss out.
Prices increase tomorrow.
Inventory is running out (be truthful here, prospects can tell when everything is always ‘about to sell out’)
If they want to receive all the wonderful benefits of your products, they just need to buy today.
Link them their custom discount code again. Try to not use generic codes that are not unique to the user.
Why? Your claim that the code is expiring is more believable if it’s a jumble of numbers and letters.
No one believes that your SAVE20 code used by the entire store is expiring tomorrow.
Try these in this email:
- Tell them their discount is expiring in X hours;
- Restate the discount code with link (custom unique codes work better);
- Create FOMO (fear of missing out);
- Restate all the great benefits of your product;
- Give them permission to reply to the email with any questions in the P.S.
Looking for more?
I help ecommerce brands implement email nurture welcome sequences in a done-for-you package.
You get your own ‘money tree’ asset to keep, written in your brand voice that will bring you more sales 24/7/365 without ad spend.
Learn how I helped this brand grow their sales from their welcome sequence by 46% in 30 days!
If that sounds like something you are interested in, then click here to see if we’d be a good fit to work together.