This is the Photo Business Help podcast, a place for photographers who want to earn money with photography and live a better life. I'm your host Natalie Jennings.
Since going full time in 2010, photography has brought me more freedom, income, and opportunities than I ever imagined. It's been so positive for me that I want to show you everything I know. You'll learn more than just business-y things. So including my favorite ways to be mindful and happier on this journey.
Today I am going to talk to you a little bit about welcome sequences. This has to do with email lists.
I've done a couple of shows about email lists and why they're important.
Today I want to talk about what a welcome sequence is, and why should you implement one in your workflow.
First, I just want to catch you all up on what's going on in photo business world.
If you missed last episode, I revealed the new and exciting launch of photobizhelp.com so that's super cool. What ended up happening when I first started this podcast, my main business JenningsPhoto, which is a lifestyle photography business, I added a little podcast link to to the website.
So you can see all of the past episodes there, up into a certain point. I started shifting them over to photobizhelp.com and I'm excited that I have a place to send listeners of this show. This is a little bit more on brand, I guess you could say.
What is a welcome sequence?
A welcome sequence does a few things. Once someone opts in to your email list, whether it's a form on your website or a pop up or a freebie or something that you've offered once they opt in, they should get an email. And that first email is the beginning of what's called a welcome sequence.
A welcome sequence is usually about two to five emails over the course of a couple of weeks.
So number one, a welcome sequence sets expectations for your new member.
It gives you a chance also to share your story with new people. It's easy to assume that if someone's found your stuff that they know everything about you already, but that's never the case. Or it's not often the case.
This welcome sequence gives you a chance to say hey to your audience and tell them a little bit more about your story and how you got to where you are and what it is that you're all about, and what it is again, that they can expect from you.
So sharing your story is a great way to help build a relationship with your new audience.
Another thing you can do during a welcome sequence is just drop some knowledge. What Why did they join your list? Maybe you have a fun fact you can share or maybe, like me, you're teaching something so you can share some valuable information. This also allows you to develop rapport with people. So if you're dropping value and you're serving your audience, then they're gonna come back and they're gonna want to open your emails when they arrive.
So setting expectations sharing your story, sharing knowledge, serving your audience developing rapport. These are all reasons for a welcome sequence.
It's not meant to sell things to people.
You don't want to be spammy. And you don't want to be pushing all sorts of deals and things in people's faces when they first join. Now how to go about creating a welcome sequence. That's something that I do know a little something about.
If you are interested in learning how to do this for yourself, I am offering a 90 minute one on one, build your list workshop with me over zoom.
Because of the crazy-current conditions in the world, I am offering this as a sliding scale. I want this to be accessible and affordable to anybody that's sitting at home really wanting some help with this because this is a huge hurdle for some folks.
And it was for me, it's just a lot of different moving pieces. But, it's a huge, huge asset to your business. Once you get it kind of up and running.
It's the reason that I sell out my mini sessions every year. It's the reason that my pay it forward campaign from a few weeks ago went so so well. It is a wonderful tool to have. And it's not that hard to wrap your head around once somebody kind of shows you the ropes.
