Welcome. So glad you could make it.
How to welcome your new subscribers like a boss
It was a random day of the week, and it happened not that long ago. This is as precise as I’m going to be, because these details are not important to the story I’m about to tell you.
What you do need to know is that I have just typed in my email address to the ‘sign up to my newsletter’ field, clicked ‘submit’, and was preparing to roll my eyes at what will happen next.
Usually one of two things happens:
Nothing at all – which is super annoying, but more on that in a sec.
I get a welcome email – and that is, often, just as infuriating as point 1, but for completely different reasons.
Not getting a welcome email is disappointing because I’ve just expressed interest in interacting more with this person (or a brand), and all I got in return was being left at the entrance to a party with no host to point me toward something that would interest me most.
All I got was ‘thanks for coming’, but now it was up to me to figure out exactly what this party was, who was here, and so on. First impression? Like I said – annoying.
Not to mention a wasted opportunity, since the welcome email open rates are among the highest of all emails (an impressive 83%). That’s not a lever you want to leave on the table…
Option 2 is worse.
I get an email, but it’s like being greeted by a host who won’t stop talking.
If you’re interested in this, here’s the link
If you want to find out more, click here.
To see the latest offer, it’s this link.
To learn more about me, this link
Ironically, the most tempting link is the ‘I changed my mind’ link that unsubscribes.
I don’t get it. Why would you give me so many options? The website had lots of options to ‘browse’ through and figure out if this is something that would interest me. I picked the newsletter option, and all I get is more of the same – options… again!
And the cruel irony is, every option added to an email is a micro-decision handed back to the reader. By the fifth one, the brain does what brains do when overwhelmed — it picks none of them. More choice, less action. The opposite of what anyone wanted.
Here’s what I think happens. The sender genuinely wants to be helpful. They’re thinking: the more I give them, the more value they’ll see. But there’s a difference between a gift and a pile of things left on the doorstep.
It’s as if the host wants to have all the conversations with me all in one go, but I’m not ready to see their childhood photos yet… I’ve only just arrived…
The welcome email really has one job – to welcome.
That’s it.
I don’t want to know about what you sell, how it all started, or what others thought about working with you… At least not yet.
All it really needs to say is:
‘Welcome! I am so absolutely thrilled you could make it tonight. Come on in, let’s get your coat. Before you grab a drink, I have to introduce you to Sarah…’
Notice what that doesn’t include. There is no mention of the host’s credentials, no tour of the entire house before you’ve taken your coat off. There is no agenda for the evening slipped into your hand, nor any mention of the charity donation box they feel strongly about.
It’s simply a welcome.
Because when someone has just handed over their email address — and let’s not forget that in 2026, that is something — they’re asking one question, and one question only: did I make the right call?
That’s the only thing worth answering in the welcome email. Make them feel that what will be sent to their inbox will be worth the space it takes up. That the promise made on the sign-up page — whatever it was — is going to be kept.
Then, and only then, suggest ONE thing – what they should do next. A next step so obvious and so easy that saying no to it would feel almost rude. That might be: ‘reply to this email with one word that describes why you signed up,’ or ‘read this one piece that explains exactly what we’re about.’
This all sounds almost insultingly simple. And yet the vast majority of welcome emails don’t do it. They skip straight past the welcome and into the pitch, the portfolio, the testimonials…
I get it. We are here to do business, so you do want to tell me about the offers, products, and services that everyone loves you for.
But does it have to be in the welcome email, though?
You can do something else instead.
Send a series of emails.
Yes! Precisely. You need a welcome sequence.
Because as we have just discussed, there is a limit to how much one email can do. Especially at the very beginning of a new acquaintance.
One email cannot create the connection that only time makes possible. And yet, bless them, so many senders write their welcome email as if it can. As if twelve links will somehow create more value than one thoughtful direction. A volume of options is not a substitute for quality of intention. It never has been, and it’s not going to start now.
Remember also, I just signed up to receive your emails, so let me receive a few first.
A sequence is like a conversation that unfolds at a pace the reader can actually keep up with. Like greeting someone at the door, then catching them at the bar, crossing paths in the hallway, and finding five minutes together before the evening ends.
Each interaction is short. Each one leaves your reader feeling slightly more like they know you.
This works because of one simple truth about us humans: we need more than one interaction to warm to people. Each exchange earns a little more attention, a little more trust, a little more of the feeling that this person is worth listening to.
By the end of a sequence, they know how you see the world, and ‘I feel like I know you’ is the closest thing to a purchase trigger that exists in this business…
So…
Which version of the story does your ‘sign up to my newsletter’ tell?
Are your subscribers coming to the party not knowing what is going on, or are you talking at them for 10 minutes before they even came through the door?
Or perhaps you already have a sequence running, and you’ve been nodding along smugly since paragraph three — in which case, you may carry on.