Today I’m sharing a guest post from Bev Feldman, owner of Your Personal Tech Fairy is a marketing technology consultant + strategist. She helps mission-driven solopreneurs and small business owners to automate their email marketing so that they can focus their time and energy on doing the client work that they love.​ ⁣This post is so important for my clients who have just finished a project with me. We have your newly designed website live with your irresistible freebie (lead opt-in) connected. Now what? Bev is here to explain… [line] You’ve invested the time & money to build a beautiful website and freebie to attract clients and donors. And now people are signing up for your newsletter. That’s awesome!

So what next?

That’s where email marketing automation comes in.

(And I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds.)

Email marketing allows you to connect to your audience on a deeper level by sending them content and updates that demonstrate how you can help them or show them the benefit of donating to your nonprofit. Setting up automations through your email service provider (ESP) allows you to both automatically send out series of targeted emails and to personalize the experience. That way your emails can help to nurture prospective clients and donors while you focus your time on the actual work.

Ready to dive in? Here are three steps to take ways to roll out the red carpet for people once they hit subscribe through email marketing automation.

Personalize your double opt-in

You’ve likely received the default email from at least one business after you subscribe. “Click here to confirm your subscription.”

There’s no connection to your brand in those in that first email subscribers receive from you. (Not to mention everyone has seen it by now.)

Whether you’re offering a coupon code, a handy checklist, or a free mini course, make your first interaction in their inbox memorable and leave potential clients and donors actually excited to open that next email from you.

Instead of leaving the default message, spend a few minutes personalizing the automated email subscribers receive after signing up for your newsletter, aka the double opt-in). Here’s a few tips to help you get started:

• Make sure the branding (i.e. colors & images) matches that of your businesses
• Change the subject line of the email so that it both reminds them of what they signed up for while also enticing them to actually open the email
• Update the language in the body of the email so that it sounds like something you would say — for example, the first line in the double opt-in email subscribers receive when they sign up for my list says “Woohoo, big virtual high five for signing up for the T.E.A.C. Method guide 🙌”
• Change the copy on the confirmation button with something more in-line with your brand instead of the default “click here to confirm your subscription”. You can also remind them what they’ll be getting once they confirm their subscription

Want to take it a step further? Using your email service provider’s automation power, you can create an even more personalized opt-in sequence that also catches people who forget to confirm their subscription with that first email.

Create tags to identify clients and donors

Whether a subscriber purchases a product or service or donates to your nonprofit, it’s helpful to have them identified in your subscriber list. That way you can avoid emailing them about something they have already purchased, or you can send people a follow-up email down the line that says based on something they purchased before, they may want this follow-up product or service.

Additionally, most ESP’s have ways to automatically tag or group subscribers based on an action they take. For example, if a subscriber schedules a call, tag them with “booked a call”. (Or even if they click to book a call but don’t, this can be really handy information to have down the line.)

There’s no hard and fast rule for how to tag subscribers, and you can always add tags, take them away or rename them later. Just create a tagging system that makes sense to you.

Give a deeper dive into your business and how you can help or connect

Beyond that initial double opt-in email to confirm their subscription, sending an automated follow up welcome email — or even series of emails — can be a really powerful way for subscribers to connect to your business or nonprofit.

A welcome email sequence is an opportunity to explain who you or your nonprofit are, why or how you can help, and when they can expect to hear from you. All of this ultimately increases the chance that subscribers like, know, and trust your business or nonprofit so that they are more inclined to hire you or make a donation in the future.

If you’re interested in learning more about setting up a welcome email series and harnessing the power of automation, you’ll learn how when you sign up for my free T.E.A.C. Method.