The welcome sequence

The first message after somebody subscribes is the one most likely to be opened and the one most businesses waste on a confirmation that says thanks for subscribing. The attention is highest at the moment of signing up and declines from there, so the sequence that follows is worth more thought than everything after it.

What the first message has to do

1. 01Deliver the thing. Immediately, in the message itself or behind a link that works without an account. Anything else comes after.
2. 02Say who you are, in one sentence. They may have forgotten already, having signed up on a page they found through a search.
3. 03Say what happens next and how often. This is the expectation that prevents complaints later.
4. 04Make it easy to leave now. Counter-intuitive and correct: somebody who leaves in week one costs nothing, and somebody who stays annoyed costs you a complaint.
5. 05Invite a reply. A genuine question, answered by a person. Replies are the best research you will get and they help your sending reputation.

That is one message. The temptation is to make it five, and the first one is the only one with the attention to spare.

What a short sequence should cover

Three or four messages over a fortnight is enough, and each should earn its place by doing a different job.

• The delivery, as above, sent immediately.
• The thing that makes the first thing work. Whatever people get wrong with the checklist, the template, the tool. This is the message that establishes you know something.
• The adjacent problem. The thing that becomes obvious once the first is solved, which is usually also the thing you sell.
• What you do, stated plainly, once. Not a pitch dressed as advice. People know they subscribed to a business and are not offended by being told what it sells, as long as it happens once and clearly.

The mistakes

• A sequence of seven that nobody finishes, written to a template about building know, like and trust.
• A first message that sells before it delivers, which breaks the exchange the person agreed to.
• Messages that arrive every day for a week. The volume reads as a mistake and produces unsubscribes at exactly the moment interest is highest.
• An automated sequence that keeps running after somebody has bought, offering them the thing they already own.
• A no-reply sending address, which tells somebody you are not interested in hearing from them and removes the most useful signal you have.

Then what

This is the part people leave unplanned. When the sequence finishes, somebody is on a list receiving nothing, and the next message they get arrives months later from a sender they have forgotten, which is how complaints happen.

Decide before you build the sequence what regular sending looks like, even if the answer is once a month. A predictable small thing beats an unpredictable large one, and if the honest answer is that you will not send regularly, say so in the welcome and only email when there is something worth sending.

Who it comes from, and when

Two settings decided once that affect every message afterwards, and both are usually left at the platform default.

The from name should be a person, or a person at the business, rather than the business alone. It is the first thing read in an inbox, a human name is recognised faster, and it makes the invitation to reply credible. Then leave it alone: changing it between sends discards the recognition that makes people open the next one.

The sending address should be one that receives mail and is read. A no-reply address tells the recipient two things, that you are not interested in a response and that this is a machine, and it removes the most useful signal available to a small sender. Replies also help your sending reputation, which is a practical reason on top of the obvious one.

On timing, the first message has to be immediate, because somebody who signed up thirty seconds ago is still at their screen and somebody who gets it the next morning has forgotten. The rest should be spaced over a fortnight rather than days, and sent at a consistent time so they become expected rather than surprising.