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What Emails Should You Send In Your Nurture Sequence?
Last week, I wrote about why you should have a nurture sequence for your new subscribers, and this week, I am excited to go even deeper into what emails you should include in your nurture sequence.
If you need a refresher on why it’s so important to have a nurture sequence in the first place, check out 5 Reasons You Must Nurture Your Email List.
Before I go further—do you even have an email list yet? If not, you should get started right now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yesterday was the best day to start your email list, and today is the next best day to get right on that. You can check out my post, 7 Reasons Why Your Email List Is Critical To Side Hustle Success. And also don’t forget to check out the 9 Reasons Why I Switched From Mailchimp to Convertkit.
You can get started with a 14-day free trial of Convertkit by clicking here.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: How Long Should It Be?
When it comes to a nurture sequence, the when and how long you should wait to send your emails is critical.
Unless your opt-in is email based, like a multi-day email course, you should funnel your subscribers into your nurture sequence the day they sign on. The email should send daily, and it shouldn’t go on for longer than seven days. Anywhere from three to five emails will work perfectly.
You can always change up your email sequence depending on how much content you have and what you have to sell.
And now, here are some of the many (really, there are countless) options of what emails you can send to the new subscribers to your email list. The first three would be what I consider to be fundamentals, and the rest are emails that you can add, depending on how well they fit in with your niche and how you choose to engage with your audience.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: What You Do
Even though your opt-in has been created to serve people in your niche, you want to make it clear to your new subscribers very early on what it is that you do.
Who does your business help?
What are your audience’s pain points?
What is the history behind your business and how it came to be?
Letting your audience know right away what you do allows them to be prepared for what content you’ll provide them with in the future, and it also lets them make the decision rather quickly if what you have to offer is going to help them reach their goals.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: A Follow-Up
Especially if your opt-in is a free email course (like mine, Content Explosion), you want to make sure that one of your emails is a follow-up about said opt-in.
It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but you do need to send something along the lines of, “Hey, how did it go?”
This is one of the best early ways to foster engagement with your audience, because you’re asking them to respond to you. What were they successful with? What did they struggle with? What are they working on right now? This is an opportunity for you to find out all that from your newest subscribers.
And in this email, you should give them an opportunity to set up a call with you, so they’re not sending you an email, rather, they’re talking to you face to face about what they’re working on and what their goals are in the future.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Talk About Your Story
Don’t just tell your audience what you do, tell them about how you got to where you are.
Your life, your background, your history with your niche all allows you to be the expert you are today, and your audience wants to know that. Getting to know you by knowing your story is one of the best ways to get your audience to stick with you, to root for your continued success.
And most importantly, it allows people who are currently in the position that you used to be to see what is possible for them. Remember, if you can do it, you can also teach it. You can show your audience what it is like to overcome the same obstacles you did, and you also show them that you are the person that they need to help them through it.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Send Them To Another Freebie
Remember, the key is always value, value, value.
So, send your new subscribers to another piece of free value that you have to offer them.
It could be a checklist, a workbook, another email course (though, I’m personally not sure how much an audience would enjoy back to back email courses). But sending them to another freebie shows that you have a ton of value that you can provide, and this value is highly specific to what your audience is looking for.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Talk About A Struggle You Overcame
Back to the, “let’s talk about you” side of things, talk about a struggle you overcame in your business, and how it applies to your niche and struggles your audience may face.
In the world of perfectly perfect social media, it’s so easy to only see the good sides of business. The wins, the successes, how exciting life is when things go right.
But things don’t always go right, in both life and in business.
So, share examples of who things didn’t go so right in your life, and show them how you overcame it. In my weekly, You Can Do It Too Newsletter, I make sure to include a section called Riding The Struggle Bus, which showcases struggles that I encounter each week (and I, like most entrepreneurs, DO have things that I struggle with, week in and week out).
And not only do you share what you struggle with, but also how to overcome said struggles.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence:Point Them To Your Best Content
Have a bunch of blog posts that you’re really proud of?
Send your new audience over to them.
Depending on how your audience has entered your list, there’s a chance that they haven’t actually seen any of your content yet.
You want to guide them to not just your best content, but if you’re into affiliate marketing, it’s a great opportunity to send your audience to posts that are most optimized to your highest-commission affiliate programs.
Most importantly, you want to put your best foot forward in all things, and you want them to see the best of the best of your work. And also, make it easy for them to share these posts, both on your website with a social sharing plugin (I use Monarch from Elegant Themes), and links in your emails as well (That’s why I always include, “Please save it to Pinterest” with every blog post I link in my weekly newsletter.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Tell Them A Funny Story
Tell your audience a funny story about something that happened to you, that’s related to your niche or your business.
This allows your audience to not just get to know you, but it gets to know your personality. You’re writing style. Your voice (which I talk about in depth in Episode 62 of 10 Minutes Before Dinner).
Like overcoming struggles allows your audience to see a very important side of you, the funny side allows your audience to remember that while yes, starting a business can be challenging, and takes a ton of work, it is so possible to have a ton of fun along the way.
And those funny stories, those anecdotes, are those things that get to follow you throughout the evolution of your business.
Speaking of funny stories, one of mine is how I screwed up by not connecting my nurture sequence to my own email course, and didn’t know that it hadn’t been running for months.
Oops.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Repurpose Your Social Media Content
One of the drawbacks of social media is longevity. Something that you post to Facebook or Instagram is not going to be seen very long after it’s posted. Pinterest content tends to live a little longer, but there are still ways to refresh and repurpose your social media content.
Have an amazing Instagram post?
Well, don’t reinvent the wheel, just send that to the new members of your audience.
It’s that simple.
Just take the caption from a post that killed it and include it in the email.
And don’t forget to ensure that there is a way for the new members of your audience to easily follow you on the social media you use.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Have Them Schedule A Free Call With You
Are you building a business that focuses on 1-1 or group coaching?
Getting the newest members of your audience to book a call with you right away not only allows you to find out more about your audience, but it allows them the opportunity to get to know you in a way that social media or a blog post doesn’t allow.
While you may not sell to them right away, getting that face-to-face (even over a computer) dialogue allows you to showcase the best of what you as the expert has to provide.
And those are the people that you can also follow up with in the weeks and months down the line, and eventually turn some of those subscribers into your paying clients.
It also allows you to continuously have the opportunity to do market research. As your audience grows and changes and your business grows and changes, having your new subscribers book a call with you lets you continuously keep your finger on the pulse of what they want.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Share A Testimonial
As I talked about in Episode 78 of 10 Minutes Before Dinner, testimonials are so important to the success of your business.
Especially if you are selling something in your nurture sequence (more on that next), you want to include testimonials from your audience.
Testimonials are basically external validation that you are good at what you do.
Don’t have a product or testimonials yet? That’s okay. Remember, your nurture sequence is going to evolve as your business does, so you can always change your emails as you grow.
You can also provide services on the cheap (or on the free) to your friends in your niche, your to select members of your ideal clientele, in exchange for testimonials. I don’t recommend doing a lot of that, but you don’t need to do a lot of that kind of work in order to get the testimonials that you need.
Remember, when it comes to testimonials, it never hurts to just ask.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Send A Sales Email
When you get into the online business sphere, one phrase that very commonly gets thrown about is, “The money is in the list.”
Your email list is the driving force of your business, even now in 2019. And each email is valued at about $1. So, if you have an email list of 300, it’s valued at about $300.
Now, you’re not always going to get money out of every single person who joins your list, but engaging with your list with something like a nurture sequence makes it all the more likely that you will. When people know you, like you, and want to learn from you, they are most likely to put their money where their mouth is and invest in both themselves and you.
So, once you’ve sent a bunch of emails to your new subscribers in this nurture sequence, you can send them a sales email too.
A sales email can be a lot of things. It can be an ebook that you offer, a workbook, or even a low-cost online course.
When you are sending a sales email, it’s important to keep in mind the cost of whatever you are selling. Sure, some of these newly warmed up members of your audience will be willing to buy from you after a few emails, but they’re probably not as likely to buy something high ticket right off the bat.
For high-ticket offerings, like signature courses or group or 1-1 services, you’ll want to get them on a call first.
Emails To Send In Your Nurture Sequence: Whatever Works For YOU
Don’t just stick to the 11 email types I talked about above.
If there’s something that works for you, your audience, and your niche, make sure to include it in your nurture sequence.
And remember to have fun with it. Do what is unique to you and let your voice show through, so your audience can really get to know you.
Ready To Start Your Own Side Hustle?
Have a lot to talk about, but don’t have the website to guide your readers to? Now is the perfect time to get started.
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