Gregg Blanchard August 18, 2021
A quick one today and probably my last of the week (going camping with the fam tonight, woohoo!), but something I think is a great topic.
As I've gotten deeper and deeper into the world of email marketing, I've signed up for more and more folks' personal newsletters. Sometimes it's a freelancer with tips, other times it's a thought leader with curated lists of insights, sometimes it's just someone popping in occasionally to address some hot topic.
Just as you'd expect from email experts, almost all of these have fantastic welcome emails. And most will usually have something like this toward the bottom:
That's enough about me, tell me about you! Hit reply and share why you signed up, what's your biggest challenge, and how I can help. Can't wait to hear from you!
It's a fantastic idea. I really do love this strategy.
It builds a relationship with the audience, gets people engaged beyond opens/clicks from day one, and starts conversations that can lead to all sorts of fabulous things.
There's just one problem: (almost) nobody writes back.
Instead of a conversation started, these are almost always dead ends.
I know this because I've made it a habit to take a few minutes and reply to these 'say hello' welcome emails as often as I get them. But it took replying to more than a dozen of these before I finally got a reply. And who was the awesome person who replied to my reply? Kaleigh Moore.
Like many other welcome emails, Kaleigh promised to write back...
But unlike all the others to that point, Kaleigh actually did! Earlier this year I wrapped up my day by writing her an email...and...she replied the next morning!
It was short and sweet, but after batting 0.000 for so long, was fun to see.
Perhaps the most interesting part was that the first person to follow up on this promise wasn't even an email marketer. Her niche is writing (although she covers email a bit with her focus on ecommerce), so it was kind of interesting that she walks the walk and follows through on this strategy more than some email experts do.
Nice work, Kaleigh. Keep it up.