Pop Quiz:
How many emails should you send someone the day they join your email list?
Go on, I’ll give you three seconds to answer.
…
…
… okay, time’s up. Pencils down, eyes front.
Your answers, please!
If you said “none” — bro, do you even email market?
If you said “one” — well, that’s pretty normal. And if you said “two” — you are clearly trying to be the smart kid who points out that the lead magnet delivery email counts as another.
(And if you said more than two — well, I hear Amway are recruiting?)
But the truth is …
it’s a trick question.
Fact is, there IS no optimal number of emails to send someone the day they join your email list.
Why?
Simple: because, while some people may respond better to simply getting a single, amazing welcome email … and then a follow-up email the next day, and another the day after that …
You’ll always have a handful of super-hot leads who are ready to move through your emails faster.
These people may respond better to 2, 3, 5, or even more emails the first day they join your list. And in fact, if you don’t send these super-hot leads more, you’re only going to risk making them go cool on you.
So how can you make sure your welcome sequence caters to both these super-hot leads … and your normal leads, too?
Hmmm … 🤔
*ahem* oh hey, didn’t see you there!
Well, it just so happens that, thanks to modern technology, I — Daniel Throssell, your resident email copywriting mad scientist — have invented a (literally) futuristic solution to this problem.
Introducing:
The Email Time-Travel Remote 🤳
Huh?
What the heck is a time-travel remote?
Well, that’s an easy one …
It’s a remote that lets you
travel through time. 😁
Obviously.
(You look at me, unimpressed.)
Okay, but seriously. In more boring terms, it’s this:
The ability for a subscriber to click a link to skip forward and receive the next email in the sequence on demand.
(At this point, you burst out of your chair in the audience screaming.)
“What?!? This isn’t new! I’ve seen people doing this before! All this build-up about some ‘new’ thing and this is what you’ve got? I want my money back!”
I hold up my hands for calm. “Easy there, tiger. I didn’t say I was the first one to do this. But let’s face it: you’re not doing it, are you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
(Then I mutter into a lapel mic: “Guards, see to it that that person meets an unfortunate accident when they leave this conference.”)
Anyway — I accept that the “time-travel remote” concept is not my idea. (Although calling it a time-travel remote — which I do in my emails, where I give one to the reader — is my idea.) But regardless, it solves one of the biggest mistakes most welcome sequences make: they tease “what’s coming up in the next email” …
AND THEN THEY MAKE THE READER
WAIT TWO FREAKIN’ DAYS TO GET IT!!!
This is dumb for three reasons:
First, it’s selfish. If your next email contains amazing info that could solve a subscriber’s problem … and they want it … why would you withhold it from them? That’s a very self-centred mindset.
Second, it lowers open rates. After all, when is someone more likely to read your next email — some random time 2 days from now, or right now when they’re in their inbox already reading an email from you?
And finally, it destroys engagement. New subscribers are most engaged just after they join your list. Yet by withholding info they might want for days, you’re literally making hot leads ‘cool off’ and forget you. Not smart.
The time-travel remote solves all these problems, by letting people consume as many of your emails as they want at once.
There aren’t really any downsides to this, either. If someone doesn’t want to click … fine. They don’t have to. And they’ll just get your emails as normal.
So, how do you set a time-travel remote sequence up?
It takes a bit of work, but it’s pretty straightforward. And the best part is, you can do it to your existing autoresponder with barely any tweaks.
Here’s how you can upgrade your existing autoresponder into a Time-Travel Remote Sequence:
Step 1: Build a webpage to “catch the click”.
People will land on this page when they click the time-travel remote links.
This page can be simple (you don’t need to spend a ton of time on this), but I suggest putting a bit of your personality into it.
Step 2: Add your ‘time-travel remote’ remote link to your emails.
In the P.S. or footer of each of your emails, add the link to the webpage you just created. (Optional: add some copy teasing what’s in the next email.)
in the p.s. of an email in my welcome sequence
Step 3: Set up the links in each email to trigger the next email.
In your email broadcast software, set up tagging so that whenever someone clicks the time-travel remote link in an email, they receive the next email in the series.
This last step can be a bit fiddly. Because this technique is quite innovative, many email broadcasters don’t support it natively.
So what I had to do was break up my welcome sequence into separate campaigns for each email, and made each one start on a certain tag (e.g. email 4 would be sent when the tag “welcome04” was applied).
Then I made sure that tag was applied whenever anyone clicked the time-travel link in the previous email, or after 24 hours, whichever came first.
It was a bit of a hack-job, but it got the job done.
And that’s it — you’re done!
Go forth and reap the rewards of higher engagement and open rates.
Of course, you don’t have to stop here.
In fact, you might have realised already: what if you actually customised the “link-catching” webpage … and made it say something different for each email?
Ah. Now you’re onto something. And in fact, that’s the exact premise behind my innovative Parallel Welcome Sequence … which you should check out if you’re interested in getting better engagement from your list.
Alternatively, just sign up for my emails below to see the time-travel remote in action.