The Code Breaker Newsletter - Issue #009

An Email Welcome Sequence That’s Worth A Damn Do You Have One?!?

Hey Code Breakers,

Today, I want to share some ideas I have around email welcome sequences.

You’ve likely received one before… You sign up for a free download, an offer, or even someones newsletter and the emails start flying in.

It’s a good practice for a number of reasons:

• It shows you care.

• It gives you the opportunity to thank the subscriber for their interest.

• It opens up the opportunity for you to increase the perceived value within the relationship.

• It helps to guide the customer and reduce or eliminate confusion.

• It increases the likelihood of the customer taking a next step.

Sadly, most welcome sequences don’t provide any value, they’re either pushy or generic, and although they may have proven valuable at one point, most companies treat them as a create once, run, and forget about it type of process.

Your Email Welcome Sequence Is A Golden Opportunity, But Are You Missing It?

If you don’t have an effective email welcome sequence (notice, I’m not saying you don’t have one… I’m asking whether it’s effective or not) it’s probably for one of the following reasons:

• You don’t see the value in it.

• You don’t know how to build it.

• You’re following someones generic boilerplate version, but you haven’t questioned why it isn’t getting you results.

• In an ideal world you know what you’d do, but feel it would take too much work or you wouldn’t see a return from your investment.

• You built it when you first started, but you haven’t touched it since you first launched it.

If you fall into any of the above categories read on… Below I’m going to share three ways you can leverage your email welcome sequences and some best practices for how to do it.

Note: This week’s newsletter is a little bit longer than most as I breakdown three specific areas as opposed to just one. In future newsletters, I’ll deep dive into each of these areas and provide specific examples, but for now, I wanted to provide clear thought processes for each so you could get started. Hope you enjoy!

After A Purchase: Congratulate, Inoculate, and Guide

Whether the sale happened in person or via the web, your welcome sequence is a fantastic, and often missed opportunity to congratulate, inoculate, and guide.

Step 1: Congratulate

When someone makes a purchasing decision they want to know they’ve made a good choice. The emotional buyer wants that good feeling to continue and the logical buyer wants their decision reaffirmed. Either way, if one of the very first sentences in your first email isn’t congratulating them on their decision you’re missing a huge opportunity and opening yourself up to the potential for buyers remorse to kick in.

Step 2: Inoculate

Once you’ve congratulated them on their purchase, the next thing to do is to inoculate any potential concerns that could cause buyers remorse. What were the benefits they purchased through your solution? How do they access the product or service? What steps should they take if they need to get in touch or have additional questions. Put them at ease by providing all of this information up front and provide any clarity they may need.

Step 3: Guide 

Now that you’ve congratulated them and inoculated again any buyers remorse, the next step is to keep their momentum moving forward. An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Keep the momentum going by guiding them to their next steps.

This might be finishing your first email by sharing that you’ll be sending a second email with additional instructions. This might be a series of emails with explicit steps they need to take but delivering it in bite size bits so they don’t experience overwhelm.

Whatever it is in your business, you want to think through the key milestones your clients will go through after they make a purchase and craft an email around helping them to get to the next step.

After Downloading A Specific Lead Magnet: Congratulate, Engage, and Ascend

Similar to making a purchase, you’re prospect has just made a decision and how you engage with them post decision sets the tone.

Step 1: Congratulate

Again, congratulate them on making a good decision and be sure to reinforce the benefits they’ll receive from the lead magnet. How has what’s in the lead magnet helped previous clients? What roadblocks has that helped them to avoid? What things can they expect as a result of putting it into action.

Step 2: Engage

Most people download more free content then they’ll ever use, so the question becomes - what will make yours stand out? What will cause them to take action with your lead magnet when they’ve ignored so many others?

Providing your customers with a simple step-by-step guide to increase the value of the lead magnet. You want to think of this almost like a mini-implementation course. It doesn’t matter how you deliver it, whether its text, video, or audio, but you want to eliminate any and all excuses aside from sheer laziness. This not only increases the value of the lead magnet, but it also engages them with you and your process. And the more they engage, the more likely they are to achieve their desired result. And the more prospects you get to achieve a micro victory, the more prospects will want to engage with you further and ask for a next step.

Step 3: Ascend 

If you’ve done the first two components correctly, you’ll now have an open invitation to offer your prospect to take a next step. The challenge most B2B sales consultants and NLP coaches run into here, is that because they haven’t provided enough of that initial value, they come off as pushy, salesy, and just in it for themselves. But, when you follow the steps we’ve outlined above, you earn the right to invite the prospect to a next step from a place of service.

It may sounds something like this…

“Congratulations on taking the final step in our process to create an effective email welcome sequence. I know some of you have leveraged these free resources, taken the bull by the horns, and created the results you were looking for.I know some of you want to know how you can apply these principles in other areas of your business. If that’s you, I invite you to book a slot with my team so we can discuss how we best serve you in reaching your next level of success. And, for those of you who aren’t ready for a call, but would like additional ideas to bring value to your market, here are three additional resources to consider” And then guide them to additional lead magnets and resources you have to offer.

After First Entering Your World: Welcome, Guide, Provide

When someone first enters your world, it’s important to recognize a few key things:

1. They may have no idea who you are or what you’re about. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression and this is it. Whatever you do with your welcome sequence sets the tone on what they can expect from you moving forward. You either accelerate, stagnate, or decelerate the relationship right here.

2. This is your opportunity to frame the conversation. Share the way you think and help them discover why they should be working with you over any and every other option they have available to them in your market.

3. Introduce them to key concepts. If you’re dealing with a topic that most people fail to understand, whether that’s Sales Process or Neuro-Linguistic, this first sequence is a great opportunity to help the prospect deep dive into your world. They likely engaged with you because something you said or something they read intrigued them. Double down on that. Think of all the things you wish you’d known when you first got into your area of expertise, build that out into a series of resource and deliver on that.

Here’s an example of how this can be done. Right now I’m in the process of building out a 7-Day Welcome Sequence for those who sign up for my Reflections Daily Newsletter. Below you’ll find a few snippets of what they’re going to recieve.

Sign up right now and over the next 7 days you will receive the following free bonuses to help you better understand NLP, and my philosophy for success. A philosophy I’ve developed by studying some of the greatest minds and distilling their wisdom into practical actions you can take to strengthen your mind and your business. This highly curated 7-Day Guide will expand your knowledge and provide actionable tools and ideas that make you think, create, and do more. You will get an introduction to my success philosophy, a curated list of resources, thought exercises, a guide to help you through adversity and much more!

1. Introduction to Mind Vault’s Success Philosophy

2. My Favorite Resources and Tools I Use For Mind Vault, NLP, Coaching, Sales, and Leadership

3. The Art of D-A-I Journaling

4. The GAP Analysis - And How To Bridge The Gap

5. The 7 Step Guide To Controlling Your Perceptions Through NLP

6. The Art of Visualization

7. How To Have Your Best Week Ever: 7 Practices From Our Success Philosophy

If you’d like to experience the welcome sequence, and be one of the first to receive these free resources you can sign up for Reflections here.

Till next week!

Nate