(I like it... with caveats)  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Hey, Sorry about missing last Friday. I’ve been dealing with something pretty tricky recently which is dominating my time – more on that soon. But I didn’t want to go another week without giving you something to work on as we have quite a lot of ground to cover. As a reminder, we've been talking about email a lot this year for rather obvious reasons; in uncertain times it's best to fortify your castle. The welcome sequence is something we probably didn't discuss enough, until recently, when we covered: the importance of a good welcome sequence (catch up here) how to nail the right tone (read that here) It's been a lot of foundational principles – big picture stuff. Today, we get into the weeds. the perfect welcome Let’s sketch out the perfect welcome sequence in broad strokes (before drilling down on the first step). Or, at least, a version of the perfect welcome sequence. Because this structure is endlessly adaptable – and you really should adapt it to your own circumstances. And to your own audience, even more importantly, and the list you run. But this should help you see what notes you must hit, and where you can add extra flourishes when desired. The basic template consists of five parts, although note that the first is essentially a pre-step and the final one is strictly optional… and more suitable for authors who have been around for a while and who have larger catalogues. So, the “core” is just three steps, which should squeeze into the restraints imposed on most free plans. 1. The double opt-in – aka the subscription-confirmation. This is a critical technical step but also an opportunity to do several important things. 2. The cookie. That freebie should go out ASAP but how you do it is really important. 3. The check-in. Some important housekeeping disguising a few subtle asks. 4. The salesy email. Yes, we want to make money too… 5. The surprise cookie. Strictly optional. We have just enough time this week to break down the double opt-in email. Now, this is not the place for (yet another) debate on whether to use double opt-in or not (we have covered it several times before, such as here). Double opt-in is recommended by every deliverability expert going, every major EMS too and it’s also the official advice given out by Gmail. That’s the end of the discussion as far as I’m concerned and you have my official permission to ignore the loud voices advising against it (who have very little to say about everything else in this here paragraph!). If you are with EmailOctopus, that it is one of the few providers that doesn’t enable double opt-in by default and/or give you a strong push towards switching it on. So, make sure you do that. Most authors probably have it switched on and don't realise it. And/or aren’t aware that you can – and should – customize the “subscription-confirmation email” that goes out to readers for several important readers. Many also don’t think about the page that readers are sent to after they hit that confirm button. Why waste this opportunity? confirming the details It’s important to pay some attention to the mechanics of the double opt-in – rather than just relying on the defaults. On most providers you will have an opportunity to play with some settings and customize the messages. Both have huge value. But there is danger here also. The subscription-confirmation email is arguably the first step in your welcome sequence. We don’t normally think about it in those terms, but this is the very first emails your readers are likely to receive – which makes them very important indeed in terms of deliverability and setting the right tone (as well as presenting that aforementioned opportunity). Being the first email you are sending to new subscribers, spam filters will be on high alert as it has no historical communications to rely upon. Which I means I advise going super minimal here and also being exceedingly careful in the language that you use, especially in that subject line. I will avoid any sensitive words like free or deal or sale, or anything that can trip overly sensitive spam filters like ALLCAPS or exclamation marks. I will put a big red button in the email itself to maximize the amount of people clicking and confirming – because if they don’t confirm their subscription, they won’t join your list and you can’t pester them after the fact either. But other than that I will not insert any extraneous images or links – indeed the only other link in the email will be the mandatory unsubscribe link in the footer. Which is rather superfluous as they haven’t yet subscribed to your list, but that seems to be hardcoded by most providers, probably to prevent nefarious types circumventing that requirement. When it comes to Settings, just make sure that double opt-in is indeed enabled, otherwise this email won’t go out and subscribers will be auto-confirmed to your list – which is definitely not advised – and that any setting like “Auto-confirm subscribers” is switched off. This confirmation is definitely something that we want new subscribers to do manually (and then the first email proper, containing their free book, will be sent immediately once they hit that button). Aside from the technical and legal side of things, you are also training your subscribers in a behavioral sense to look for your emails, open them, and click something in the contents. However, there is one more setting which you should pay attention to – and this is where the opportunity lies. redirect 4 success New readers confirm their subscription by hitting a button (or a link) in your emails. Links have to go somewhere, so most email providers just send your readers to a generic, boring, and useless page like this one from Kit. However, you can change the destination of these buttons or links, and you can send your confirming readers wherever you like. That could be to the page for your main series on your website, or your author page on Amazon, or your cheap Book 1, or anywhere you like, really. That’s the easy option. But if you want to earn bonus points, consider building a custom page on your website which can then link to all those things and continue the onboarding of new readers into the World of You. And if you want a big gold star, you can even record a video message to welcome them to your list, like I do on my welcome page here. This kind of personal touch can really boost engagement throughout your welcome sequence, meaning that readers exit with very high open rates – which is one of your key aims. Recording a video like that might be less work than you think. I broke down the process in this newsletter from 2023 – where you can also see examples of my subscription confirmation emails, how I design my buttons, and how I encourage readers to add me to their Gmail contacts to maximize deliverability. Hope you found this useful. Next time: the cookie email. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Lecomte de Brégeot with Paris 1985. Interesting Paths, Apartado 108, Loja CTT, Lagos, Faro 8601-902 ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile​