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5 Email Sequences That Boost Your Launch Results (Before You Even Launch)

the launch playbook podcast Apr 18, 2022

Planning your calendar of promotions and launches? Check-in with your business to see if you are missing any of these top five emails sequences from your current stack and make a plan to incorporate them in–doing so can boost your email open rates, and help you fill up your next launch with perfect for your offer clients. 

 

 

In this episode, I talked about...

  • a simple 3-email sequence that boosts open rates
  • how to reengage your list if your last launch have low sales and low open rates
  • why you might want to use a waitlist sequence ahead of your next launch
  • getting peoples consent before promoting
  • continuing to build your audience between launches

...and much, much more

Things mentioned in this episode

Read the full transcript so you don't miss a thing


Sara: Welcome back launchers. It has been a hot minute, okay, more like a hot hour or two, since I have been here with a solo episode. And I couldn't be more excited than to chat about the topic today. So we all know there's a ton to do before you launch, you definitely don't need this podcast to know that a launch checklist can be quite large, and be quite a lot of things you need to do. And so I'm not here to add something else to your, you know, six weeks out to launch checklist.

This is something today, I want to talk to you about that if you're planning your next promotions, you're looking ahead for the year, q2, q3 q4 to see if you can work in some of the things we're going to talk about today.


You're listening to the launch playbook podcast, the weekly podcast for service based business owners to discover the starts, stops and tools of transformation that go into launching their online offers. I'm your host, Sara Vartanian. And if you want to launch your ideas into the world faster, with more success and less burnout, well, friend, consider this show your secret playbook to get you there.



So right now, this recording, we're almost at the end of March, by the time you're listening, we'll be into q2. And when you're looking ahead at the year, I really encourage you to pause and check in to see if any of the following five sequences could help you. Because what I have noticed over the past year working with a bunch of one on one clients for the launch, where the experience was that there are certain email sequences that when we had time to put them into play, really boosted launch results. And they could just even boost your general sales results before you launch. So these are things that would go not in your ramp up in the pre launch period, or right in the launch period. I'm not talking about those kind of email sequences, although there is one that you can put in that time. These are sequences that can be built in throughout the year to boost those results. So I'm going to dive into them.

So the first sequence that I don't see enough people doing would be a cold subscriber sequence. So you know that this sequence could help you if you are finding that your open rates are really low and low being it can change for your industry, but let's just stay consistently under 20%. If you're finding they're they're constantly under 20%, or low for you, you know your numbers, let's say you're usually around, you know, in the 40s to 50s. And suddenly, for few months, you've been in the early 30s or mid 20s. If you're there low, you really want to do a cold subscriber sequence. So a cold subscriber sequence is sent out to only people on your email list who are cold. And so I'm air quoting this, and you can't see me here, but it's people who haven't opened your emails, generally for three months, you can definitely extend that time to six months. And so you'd want to think about how often you're sending emails to see what makes sense.

But in the sequence, you're going to send out three simple emails to the people who are in that cold subscriber segment, I do look at people who have been three months mostly. And so in these emails, the first email you're going to send is all about a check in. And in this checking email, you're going to remind people why they signed up for your list and what they were going to get out of it. So you might be like a sleep consultant, perhaps you're sending baby sleep tips. Maybe you are in the wellness field, and you're talking about how to eat vegetarian, or maybe you're a lawyer and you want to talk about how to make the law work for your business. Whatever it is you do you want to remind people on this cold subscriber sequence in the segment here, why they signed up to be there and ask them if they still want this information.

And so you're gonna say, if you still want this information, no click here, and I'll keep you on this list, and you're gonna have a link, you're gonna need to have a link that they can click, and it opens them up into a thank you page that says like, thanks for sticking around, or something like that. And the important thing is here that when they click that link saying, yes, they want to stay that then they're then tagged as maybe main list, or not cold, if you want to go whatever you want to call it. But you want to pull them out of this cold describer sequence because they've taken an action so they want to stick around. For those people who maybe don't want to stick around anymore. You have something in this email that also says if this topic no longer interests you or you no longer need this information, no problem, just click here. And I'll remove it from the list. And you're welcome back any time.

And so that click would be the URL to your unsubscribe and you're going to let people know you know, I'm checking in with you. I want to make sure you're here I want to make sure it's valuable and I want to see this still resonates with you. And then about seven days later you do a second check in So these are people again, they're in your cold segment. And in this time, you might decide to offer them a little something to welcome them back to really get them back on track if they're interested. So depending on what you are offering, maybe you're selling digital downloads, or online courses, you might give them a coupon to come on back, you might give them a bonus of a special of a workshop you might offer them, and maybe an older download that you have that you haven't, you know, bring it to the archives for them, whatever you think it might welcome and entice them back to support the original mission, whatever they originally signed up for, and help them take action on that.

So that's an option. And then of course, you're still going to have reminding them that they can either a unsubscribe right now, no problem. You're welcome back anytime, here's the unsubscribe button. Or be if you'd like to stick around, click here, let me know because in a week from now, if I haven't heard from you, I'm going to move you on the list and basically tell them like I never want to be a part of your inbox, I only want to send you things that are valuable to you. And so let me know if it still resonates if you still want this. And so that goes on to a third email. And I do that you want usually about three days later. And this is decision time email, right. So you're gonna give them a very specific reminder of what to expect from me on your list what you offer, remind them about the whatever Welcome back thing you have to offer them. And then you're gonna lovingly and kindly ask them to make a decision.

So say, I love you to be here, I'd love to support your journey, you know, and but if this isn't right for you, right now, if I don't hear from you today, I'm gonna remove you from my list. Of course, again, repeating you welcome back any time, I'm going to be here for you, if now's not the right time, that's I totally understand. And then you're going to give them a chance to again, click in Yes, I want to stay, they got a thank you page. Thanks for letting me know. So glad you're here. If they do not click unsubscribe, then at the end of the sequence of three emails, what you're going to do is you're going to delete anyone who did not ask to stay. And what that's going to do for you is one, you're going to get a whole bunch of folks off your list, so maybe you won't be paying for them. So your bill might reduce a little bit. But you're what you're really going to do is you're going to have a list now of people a group of people on your receiving your emails, who are more interested, who are warm, who want the information you have, and then your open rates are going to improve and your click through rates generally will improve.

And this can help you ahead of a launch to really clean up your list. So that is the first email sequence I suggest getting onto your calendar to do this year, I generally recommend doing them twice a year, but you can even get them on once before the end of the year be great. And ahead of a launch email number two would be a reengagement sequence. So you would do a reengagement sequence, if your open rates were low, your sales were low, and you realize that you hadn't actually emailed your list for a while either before you launch the last time you realized that had been a while and then all of a sudden, you just showed up with a launch, sending them sales emails, or you know that you have a launch planned, let's say eight or 10 weeks out or even 12 weeks out, and you want to reengage the relationship and you want to nurture that relationship before you go in there with a big sales pitch. So I find that people who haven't been in touch their lives on a regular basis, they often ask whether to address whether they have been absent or not.

And I think that depends on your preference. The truth is, most likely people haven't noticed that you have been showing up your inbox a lot. We all have busy inboxes likely they have seen you on Facebook or Instagram if you've been showing up there. So they may not have realized that you're not in their inbox. Or maybe they have and you're going to hear some beautiful Welcome back emails and so glad to hear from you. But whether you choose to address the evidence or not your choice for me, I had to reengage my list. At the end of last summer, I would take a longer absence. I hadn't been emailing for quite a while due to pandemic fatigue.

My kids being home virtual school, it's just one thing that I let slide. And so I called it out. I said we'd been away a lot in the summer and I finally gotten around to unpacking the suitcase that had been sitting there and that I went into story but how that related to me realizing like I've been putting off I'm putting off unpacking from the summer I'm putting off sending an email. Here we are and here I am. So just really simple have segwayed into it. So when you're reading this reengagement sequence, there's four important emails you need in here. So email one would be to tell a story to reconnect. So you heard how I mentioned just a really simple story about we went away to college the lot. I had, that suitcase had been putting off opening it just like putting up emails, here we go. So doesn't have to be a big long to do about it. And then you can tell the story of reconnect and offer something helpful. So you can offer a resource, a podcast of yours swipe file. If you have some different audiences.

This might be the time to segment so for one of my clients, we realized that she had We've been running to her list for about six months. And she has a variety, she has three different sort of clients on that list. So we on that first emails, you know, acknowledged, we've been absent and said, we want to send you something that we think be really helpful. But of course, we wanted to apply to where you are in your life right now. So with that in mind, could you please click here, and then we'll send you that free thing, essentially. So you can do a question like that if you have different types of people on your list, or again, if they're all looking the same type of stuff, you have one client type, then you could give them something you can give something similar to you did Nicole describers sequence. So I often find this is a good time to, as I mentioned, put into like a really great podcast, you've had a lot of feedback on or pull a workshop out of your archives that you haven't used for a while.

But you know, that is helpful. Sometimes I've even given something from one of my paid products, like it could be an email that's really timely, like, here's an email template that you can use and send and tweak to send out this fall. I'm thinking fog. That was a time I did my reengagement, whatever it is, it's sort of a gift to reconnect email number two, you build on the story from the first email, but you really make it related to the work you do. And you want to offer some kind of teachable moment, and an opportunity to connect with you. And so it could be for example, hitting reply or booking your call. So since I had mentioned that we had been away at a cottage lot over the summer, I built on that story by talking about how my 12 year old son had introduced the family to a card game called unstable unicorns. And we played this every night at the cottage with a couple colleges over the summer. And every night we pull it out, we obviously we play like often till like midnight, kids a little bit older, or we could do that it was a lot of fun. Sometimes he's in heated feelings.

But we connect this to my audience was I talked about how there was this one card that nobody ever wanted to get, it's called the nanny cam card. And when if you have the nanny cam card, you place it down on somebody. And when it doesn't mean that you can actually see their hand so you can see all the things their cards can do. And nobody wants it any him card placed on us. But how I connected this to my audience was I what I said was that I realized as a copywriter that there is no nanny cam card for copywriting that, you know, you might wish that you could see behind the scenes, and how to write a sales page or how to write copy. But without that card, how do you know it really goes into a sales page, you can try to recreate what you see out there. But without somebody actually telling you the secrets with their holding in their hand, you'll never know and you could never use it to improve your game. And so from that, I offered people for my email number two, a chance to do a free sales page review. And I never have done that before with my list.

So I sent up a little form I made that they could fill it out. And I said in the next seven days, I would do that. So that was email number two building on that first email offering teachable moment, an opportunity to connect email number three, we remind them why they're on your list and point them to a few of your top resources. So building on why you and why they're here reminding them about that. So I would share if you have a blog or podcast episode, something that is free and easily accessible, that they can go and build on whatever you've been chatting about in emails, one and two. Email number four is a perfect time for you to share a story about you know, dig into a little bit about who you are, what you stand for, and remind them of the work you do at this time. If you'd like you can go ahead and offer them to book a call with you. Or take the next step that could be join a free Facebook group, watch a webinar and maybe that leads into your offer, or even offer them something that is more of a lower ticket offer. So that is your chance to do that.

And so that is the reengagement sequence again, you're going to use that reengagement sequence. If you haven't emailed your list for a while. You want to reengage relationship, help people know your best resources, hear some stories from you get access to a few goodies that maybe you haven't used for a while, remind them why they're there, why you're the person to learn from, and then offer them a chance to take the next step with you whatever that would be.


This episode of the launch playbook podcast is brought to you by my free launch maps, your complete step by step map of all your launch assets. So you know exactly what messaging notes to hit, and when to share each piece of copy. Because I know that you have signed up for many freebies over the years only to be disappointed with the Canva PDF that really gave you any info. But I promise you the launch maps aren't that when I showed these to my OBM she literally walked off the screen that I was giving away this for free. This is the exact launch Map Template I use for every single one of my one on one clients. And inside you'll be able to personalize tweak and repeat a strategy for your messaging for each and every launch from pre launch to post to go and get your free lunch map at WWW dot Sara vartanian.com/launch-map.

 

Email sequence number three is the waitlist sequence. So this one does more to do with launching. So if you have a waitlist and you have the bandwidth to do this, there's a possibility that you can actually sell out to your waitlist before you launch. Or you can open it up early. And you could, you know, validate your offer and already have a bunch of folks who are warm and excited to work with you. So a few ways to use a waitlist sequence, you could use it to bring people along in the journey as you create the offer or even as you have a current cohort go through your group. So for example, one of my clients has, you know, really had a really warm waitlist. And we actually almost sold out all the spots to it before she launched. But then once she launched now to the people who are on the waitlist, since she's giving little tidbits and little examples of what other current numbers are doing. So in that waitlist emails, she's showing maybe a little clip of a coaching call a little bit of a training, celebrating some wins from what people have been doing. So it's getting folks excited and bringing them along the journey, and also helping to knock away some of those objections they may have around like, well, what's really in it, and it's successfully possible right away, or what's happening in the first few weeks.

And so that's one way to use the waitlist sequence, you can use it also to dry out excitement offer that sneaky peek behind the scenes, as you're building it or getting ready to launch, you know, so giving folks a tour of the dashboard, you're setting up right or some of the resources and going through the more slowly and explaining why you put them in there, or sharing your framework for success. All those type of things that go on a waitlist sequence, you do not have to write a lot of emails for it, it could be something that you are dropping, maybe like once or twice a month, as you're inspired as you're building, it depends on what you're getting what you're the bandwidth for, and what is realistic for you.

Leading up to that launch, I would keep this pace personally like infrequent, and I wouldn't pace it according to when you're inviting new people to sign up. So as the closer you get to launch time, I would consider that you want to start emailing a little bit more, but really like Don't exhaust yourself, and you don't want to send your waitlist people too many emails ahead of time, unless you're going to do like an early bird, open cart sequence for them where you're going to actually open the cart and allow them to buy ahead of the regular lunchtime, buy a lot of days, I would also say make sure that when people sign up for the waitlist, that you acknowledge their action, and you asked for the consent to keep them updated. If they like a little bit of the behind the scenes fun, and tell, you know, tell them to stick around so that you can share when the doors are opening email sequence number four is a consent sequence. So this is the one sequence that I do think belongs right before every launch that you do.

So hopefully you're asking for consent, you know, in your emails already around and saying, Do you want to hear from me about this promotion. And if you're not, that's something you can start incorporating in. And it's a great reason to do this is because you actually have less people unsubscribe from your list, if you give them an opportunity to unsubscribe from a promotion, maybe now's not time, like they're not the right time in their life, you know, life's going on, maybe they're invest in something else right now, it doesn't mean they never want to hear about it. But now right now, they don't want all your sales emails. So I love to incorporate the opportunity for people to, you know, say that they want to hear from you, but also unsubscribe from emotion during an open cart sales sequence.

But that's something different than what we're talking about right now, a consent sequence would be a way for you to promote without feeling like those icky feelings without really triggering people and getting them upset, not surprised about this promotion. And also so you can keep a really transparent, authentic relation with people on your list. So I would say this is not really so much a sequence, but rather a heads up that your promotion is coming. So the way I would do it would be to emails, it could be an email that tells him this is coming. This is what you're building, you're excited about it. If you don't want to hear about it, no problem. I would not make it as a sell more as an update. This is what you're working on and why. And if you don't want to hear about a no problem, click here.

And you'll be removed from promotion. And just like with the call subscriber sequence, when someone clicks their that URL, you want to make sure their tag, no promo email, and then you also get acknowledged for their action by getting redirected to a thank you page that says something like thanks for letting me know you know, or no problem. My my methods dipped Are you on your word or whatever you want to do the thank you page but again acknowledging their action. So I would write one to two emails. In this consent sequence. It doesn't have to be just about the offer, because then you're veering into You know, being promotional without, again, getting their consent to have their promotion, but it could be segwaying from like maybe your maybe you did a podcast episode about something to do with your the topic of your promotion coming up. And then you weave it in, say,

I'm going to be opening the door soon. If you don't want to hear click here. Alternatively, you could add a PS to a few emails you have a few weeks out before you start promoting to give people the chance to stick around or not. But again, when you let people have this chance to auto promo, and you let them know if they decide to stick around, they can jump out of promotion, any time, you will find that you get less unsubscribes. And you have more people in that OpenCart lunchtime, who either a are thinking about joining are going to join or they're interested enough to stick around and see what it's about email sequence number five would be your list building sequence. So this is a chance to call in the people who love you love to serve and develop relationship.

And so if you don't have a list building sequence, it's something I would definitely get onto your calendar for this year. It is a way for you to build connection with folks before they work with you, you'll engage people who are right for your offer, you get a chance to share your values and your vision so that people know that you're aligned with each other, or they can leave if you're not, they know that they're in a safe space. Or they'll leave if they don't feel like it's right for them. It's an introduction to you and your work. And then you can help to filter people into the right offers for them. So again, you're sending only people offers that relate to things that they want. So if you have people on your list people that you work with who are sort of in different stages of their life, or have different needs, you're not sending them all just the blanket same offers, right, you have a chance to filter that conversation and get it to the people who really want it. And so oftentimes, I find that list building sequence is something that we know we've had to do for a while, but we may have put it off because there are so many other things to do, right as a business owner. But the more and more I dig into my one to one clients data and into their email provider and look at the information that we've looked at who purchase the more it reaffirms the fact that I see that people who are buying are so often the people who've already been on your list for 23456 months, they already have a relationship to you. So I would say the more that you can build up the connection, let them know what you're about the deeper chance you can have to build a relationship that will lead to them signing up for your offer if it's right for them. And it may not be you know the launch that you have coming up in six weeks, but it might be the next round you do in four months. Okay, so that's it.

Remember, don't feel you need to add in all of these sequences before every launch. It's something that you can work into your marketing calendar over the year. The key right now is to know which sequence might be missing from your current stack and incorporate them in. If you've any questions about these sequences, definitely hit me up in the Instagram DMS. That's where I hang out the most and I'd love to talk with them.

Thanks for tuning in to the launch playbook podcast. If you want to get weekly launch secrets in your ears. I hope you'll hit subscribe on iTunes so you'll never miss an episode. Because who knows? It could reveal just a thing you've been looking for to make your next launch a success. And be sure to leave a five star review on iTunes telling me how this episode inspired your launch plans. Until next time, keep putting your big ideas out into the world. I'm rooting for you

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