Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

Growth In Reverse Podcast - 3-Step Onboarding
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Dylan Redekop: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Growth and Reverse podcast. My name is Dylan

Chenell Basilio: and I'm Chenell

Dylan Redekop: and Chenell we are gonna talk to our lovely listeners today about. Email onboarding. And that sounds maybe a little bit boring, but I think it's actually really interesting and so many people do it wrong and we are still figuring out how to do it right.

But one thing I love that you've created is you've put together a, at least a bare minimum, like a three step onboarding process that came together when you were preparing the Growth In Reverse community. Isn't that right?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally. So I see all the time, like even through our newsletter roast that we're doing here on this channel and the podcast, um, I see so many people who just kind of skip these basic steps. And I think it can really take a vi, like a, a new subscriber a long way in terms of like building trust with them, making sure that they actually signed up for the thing they wanna be part of.

And just kinda like showing them around in a sense of like, Hey, welcome to the party. Here's what you can expect, kind of thing.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, and having [00:01:00] them basically be more engaged right off the bat. I think that's, I think that's crucial, and a lot of ESPs, email service providers like Kit and Substack, et cetera, they have these kind of built-in tools that simplify this process for you. But those are like the defaults that we maybe would recommend.

Steering clear of they're fine at the start. Sure. Better than nothing. But one of the first things I'm thinking of, and I'm jumping ahead a little bit here, but a teaser is like when somebody signs up for your newsletter, then takes you to this success. Thank you for subscribing like this default page that's to complete dead end that will kill engagement.

So I guess my point is we wanna go over this whole onboarding process so that you can get the most out of a new subscriber

Chenell Basilio: yes. And while this might sound like an episode for beginners, this is a mistake. I see so many adv advanced people making because something breaks or they start using a new form and then they're sending people to a different page that they didn't really realize that they were doing.

So listen up. 'cause I think this is important for almost every [00:02:00] newsletter operator out there.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, we're gonna cover basically the, the bare minimum of three steps that you need to onboard somebody properly. And then I think we'll get into even a more nuanced onboarding sequence that's, you call like a five step onboarding and there's some more nuance there that we'll get into. But, um, just a little teaser for later that you wanna listen in because you might have the three step already down, but there's a few more steps you can add to make this, uh, an even more engaging experience for your subscribers.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. Yeah, I'm excited.

Dylan Redekop: Sweet. So then why don't we kick it off? What is the first step to having a really great onboarding experience for a new subscriber?

Chenell Basilio: Yes. I think it starts with the landing page, which is obvious and you might not actually even think about it 'cause. They're not subscribed yet, but they're about to be. And so this is one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle. If you don't get this right, you won't get a new subscriber or at least as many as you could, so it's definitely an important piece of this.

Dylan Redekop: Absolutely. And you talk about you've got a product called [00:03:00] the growth Vault and you talk about in the growth vault there's three main things you want your landing page to be. Do you want to explain those or do you want me to tease them?

Chenell Basilio: yeah, why don't you go ahead and tease them and I'll log into the growth vault and see what you're referring to.

Dylan Redekop: That's kinda like the three, let's call it the three Cs of your landing page. You want your landing page to be clear, credible, and compelling. Let's go over these each just really quickly we won't go into too much detail 'cause they're self-explanatory, but you want it to be clear, right?

Chenell Basilio: Clear. Yes. I see so many people who like, they're trying to think of their business in like this very clever way of like why you should subscribe to this super unique thing when they actually could just be using less words and have a clear statement of what the person's gonna get. But they might say, like, I don't, I'll have to think of a, a good example, but I see often people will like drag out like the most simple, basic.

Sentence or explanation of why [00:04:00] you should subscribe. And they're like, you're gonna get the most unique. And they use all these huge words. And I'm like, just make it simple. Like what is this person gonna get?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. I had a, I think we did roast a few months ago where the person almost had a paragraph in their, on their landing page before the, before you enter your email and sign up, and it just, it seemed too much and we really figured out that you could probably boil it down to. A very simple sentence, and so you, I know you wanna explain why your newsletter is so awesome and why people should subscribe in as much detail as possible.

It's so tempting to try to feel like you have to convince people, but if you can really boil that down into one sentence, you're gonna be much further ahead, more likely.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And it is very tempting to try and add like everything under the sun to that little description, but you also wanna leave some intrigue, get people excited of like why they're gonna join and clear. Over. You want it to be clear instead of clever like I was mentioning before. So yes, in the length of the thing, but also in the words you're [00:05:00] using and try not to use these like 12th grade words or whatever they call 'em.

Try and keep the reading level for your words down to like seventh grade if you can.

Dylan Redekop: in terms of clever too, like you might want to be tempted to use some like puns or jokes or like some witty vernacular, but I would steer clear and just make it, yeah, make it clear. You can, you can like be fun with it, but make sure even if you're being fun with your headline or your sub headline of your newsletter make sure even if it's fun, that it is still clear what people are getting.

Chenell Basilio: Definitely, it's so easy to confuse people right outta the gate and then they're not gonna subscribe 'cause they don't know what they're gonna get or what you're talking about. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: And now credible is the next C. So can you talk a little bit about what you mean by making the landing page credible?

Chenell Basilio: So credible can be conveyed in a few different ways. So you wanna tell people why you are the person they should be listening to or subscribing to. This can come across via social proof. This can even be like, I've been in this. Space for 15 years. I have this [00:06:00] experience that's credible.

You're just trying to convey to the this person who barely knows who you are, that you aren't just like some fly by night person who doesn't know what they're talking about and why you should listen. You're actually conveying some of that. So social proof's great. If you can say years of experience for me in the beginning, like I didn't know newsletters at all, so I was just saying I spend 30 hours a week on these things and that shows some credibility because I'm spending a good amount of time, probably more than anyone else wants to think about a specific newsletter.

So that kind of helped as well. And so it also builds in like intrigue of, oh, this person is super knowledgeable about this topic. Let me see if I can learn from them.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. I think there, we think, we talk about even the, um, what is it, the. Social proof Avalanche is another example of credibility

Chenell Basilio: From Eddie Shleyner

Eddie Shleyner That's right Yeah,

Dylan Redekop: At very good copy.com. Credibility can come into several forms. One of them is social proof. One, like you said, is just like, where you say, I've been working in this field, 10 plus years of experience working [00:07:00] with.

A certain demographic and or working in a certain niche or like you said, I study 30, I do 30 hours a week of research so you don't have to kind of thing. All those things can lend credibility to the content you're

publishing And then Eddie Shleyner's social proof where you just get to his landingPage@verygoodcopy.com and you just scroll and you see all of the social proof with a lot of recognizable names as well, people. You have probably seen on LinkedIn or Twitter or in kind of the digital realm who are. Saying great things about his newsletter. And of course we don't all have those connections, but if you have people who are replying to your newsletter saying, Hey, this was amazing because this is so good, like you can still clip those quotes and you can hide the faces if they haven't given you permission, but you can clip the quotes and share that stuff too.

And one other thing I'll just say too, like on your landing page Chenell you've got I think you've got little avatar. Circles of people's bios and it says, trusted by or read by, 40,000 plus creators or something along those lines. So that's [00:08:00] another way that you can do it in a simplified version.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah and I guess social proof, like we were just alluding to testimonials, number of subscribers people like sharing your content out in the wild, like you can screenshot something like that and use it. And I like to use a tool called S-E-N-J-A. S-E-N-J-A there are previous sponsor of the podcast but there, it's a great tool to capture all of that so that you can display it on your landing page.

Dylan Redekop: Yep. They make it super easy. So check out Senja if you can we're not getting paid to plug them here now, but they do really have probably the best solution for collecting social proof, at least that I've come across across. One other way you can also do this is I've seen quite often people, include logos of companies where readers of their newsletters work. And so that can be a really interesting way to lend some social proof. There's a quick, you can, export your CSV of subscribers and just do some quick searches in there to see if there's companies company email addresses that might be recognizable or that might make sense to share [00:09:00] or you can use, there's some scraping tools.

Also, I think that you can import your list into LinkedIn. Whether or not that's, I dunno, on the. The white hat end of things, I'm not sure. But you can do that too, to include those logos

Chenell Basilio: There's tools like a MegaHit is one does that. It is a paid tool. You can also probably just like export your CSV and drop it into ChatGPT and say, Hey, can you gimme like a list of companies where my subscribers

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: And then you can just like scroll through and see which ones are relevant. So like for me it would be like if somebody works at Kit or beehive or Substack or whatnot I could put those logos on my landing page and say, trusted by. employees at, I probably should do that.

Dylan Redekop: I'm sure you have a few kit readers beehive subscribers as well.

Chenell Basilio: and substack. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, exactly. No it's really common to see, especially in the B2B space, like read by people at, apple or Google or Microsoft or, some of those big what

Chenell Basilio: do they call those FAANG

Dylan Redekop: Companies. Including those if you have 'em. Wouldn't be a bad way to go about it. Especially if you're [00:10:00] maybe a little bit of a smaller newsletter and you don't maybe have a ton of testimonials, but you could still, if you legitimately have subscribers who work at those companies, why not add those logos onto your landing page.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Now two things. So that is also good for a sponsorship like media kit or a page to say here's where the readers that of my newsletter work. That can help you get sponsors. But the second thing is that you can also. Include logos. If you've done any consulting or freelance writing, or you've been featured in a publication and now you're in a different industry, like you can still put those logos on your page too.

Within reason I don't know if there's like legal issues there, but from what I can tell, you can just put those logos on your site and just say worked. I've worked with. X companies and that kind of thing. And that can add credibility too. 'cause I know there's a lot of people listening who maybe they're just getting started, they don't have any subscribers.

So it's like, all right, what do I do here? So I think showcasing that you're the the person that's learning alongside your reader like I was doing in the beginning and say, I spend 30 hours a week, or whatever it is, be truthful about [00:11:00] that. Don't just lie about that. But then also you can add in companies where you've freelanced or done consulting for.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. As long as you're permitted. Absolutely. For sure.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: okay, so we got clear, credible, and the third C for the landing page is compelling. So what do you mean by compelling?

Chenell Basilio: So instead of just saying get the newsletter or sign up for the weekly newsletter you can explain more in depth. My favorite one that I keep harping on, I just can't get over how good it is Katelyn Bourgoin's Why We Buy, and Hers, her headline just says, become the smartest marketer in the room. And I feel like it just there's a mic drop after that 'cause it's so good. It's six, seven words. Seven words. And it's just tells you everything you need to know. Like she's gonna help you become a smarter marketer and you're gonna be above the rest of your peers because you read her newsletter.

Dylan Redekop: I love it. That's a good example even to share on the screen here because their sub headline is also very clear. Stop guessing what works. Get the free newsletter helping six thousand sixty three thousand three [00:12:00] hundred fifty three. So exact numbers as well, which is really interesting. Helping 63,000 plus marketing geeks to sell more and look

Chenell Basilio: like a genius using buyer psychology So.

it's

Dylan Redekop: a really clear premise. And it gives you some social proof right in that number with the 63,000 right there. And she also has some images of recognizable top marketers who are also subscribed on the page. So there's a lot of it's clear, it's credible, it's compelling. It's a really great example.

There's testimonials as you scroll down. So yeah, it's a really good example and I think you include this one in the growth vault as one of your main examples to, to follow, right?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, uh, I have a hard time finding someone who does all of the right things as well as Katelyn does. So I'm often shouting about her stuff and, you know, it just happens. But, uh, sorry if you're sick of hearing me talk about Katelyn's work, but it's just so good and such a good example to follow. I think so many people get, they don't know what to do, so they just write, join the newsletter, and I'm like, Ugh, you're probably killing.

[00:13:00] 75% of your conversions right there just in the headline. Because if, if people don't know what they're getting, it's not compelling. It's like, I don't want another email like, tell me why I should go ahead and let you send me an email. So become the smartest marketer in the room is a clear, easy way to showcase that.

And it's free. So you're gonna be above your peers for a free with a free newsletter. I think that's, that's really good.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it reminds me of the, those old Facebook ads that I think the Hustle had going either the Hustle Morning Brew was like, my boss thinks I'm really smart, but I actually just, read the Hustle every morning.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, they're still, that's still happening on Facebook. Like people are still using those ads and I'm sure they're doing super well.

Dylan Redekop: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I think those ads really crush it for the hustle, and it's still getting used by, of being copied and used with different memes and all that stuff. Too much success, I'm sure. Okay. So we've got, I think we've beat the landing page to death a little bit. But let's move on to the second step of the onboarding checklist and [00:14:00] that second step is.

Chenell Basilio: the almost there page.

Dylan Redekop: All right, and what's the almost there page?

Chenell Basilio: The almost there page is the most confusing name I've ever come up with for a page. I don't even know if I started this, but I just keep using it. It's essentially telling the person who just subscribed on the landing page to say, Hey, you're almost there. And so I think a lot of folks will use the default.

Welcome little message that comes up on a form that just says, congrats, you're subscribed, and then that's it. There's no redirect or it doesn't go anywhere else. But what I really, really, really love when people do is redirect me to a new page that has some basic info, but essentially the message is go check your inbox.

Dylan Redekop: And why would somebody want to have an almost their page? What are the advantages do you think of having that versus a default, even redirect to say a Kit stent standard page that says Success, you are now subscribed or success, go check your inbox.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So when you do that, it kind of like [00:15:00] ends the conversation, right? They subscribed, end of the conversation. Even if that little box says, go check your inbox. Probably not gonna do it unless there's like some super compelling reason that they need to do that. But on the almost their page, like mine is just me pointing and it says like, go check your inbox, or Hey, you're almost there.

Go check your inbox. And then people can click over and drop right into Gmail or whatever email platform they're using to actually read their emails. But the, the big part of this is like one of the most important pieces of. A new subscriber journey is getting a reply from them. It's gonna help with deliverability, it's gonna make sure that your emails actually land in the inbox versus promotions or spam in the future.

So if you can get them to reply, that's like a gold standard metric. And one of the best ways to do that is to continue the conversation, right? So they subscribed. But wait, you wanna go check your inbox to make sure that you actually, see that email, open that email, engage with that email.

Dylan Redekop: [00:16:00] Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really important part of this whole game, if you will. And you can even, I think one example that you share in the Growth Vault is what Tom Alder does on his thank you, or is almost their page. He's got check your Gmail and check your Outlook, I believe are the two kind of buttons. And you click on either or depending on which email service or email provider you're using, email client, and it will take you directly to your inbox and filter a search. To find that email, which is called a sniper link. That's right.

Chenell Basilio: So those are sniper links. And so I have the same thing. We actually, both me and Tom both stole this from a newsletter called Growth Design. They're such an underrated newsletter. If you're in like any user experience field, go check out the newsletter. So good. But yeah, so it's essentially a button or a link that just says, click here to go to Gmail.

And once you do that, it opens up. Their Gmail inbox with your email [00:17:00] address filtered. So the only thing they see when they open their inbox is an email from you. So they're not getting distracted. They're not opening this other thing or checking their calendar or checking like a bank statement that came through.

It's only gonna be filtered for your email. So it's such a small thing, but it's so impactful when you can get people to stay focused throughout this journey and get them to actually open that email.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. And even if you can, I've seen people even do the kind of the countdown timer. You have x amount of time to go open your email. And yes, it's probably not true and it can feel a little bit gimmicky, but I think there's also a way to add a bit of urgency, at least, to, to getting people to make sure they opt in.

If you are doing double opt-in, check their emails and make sure that they confirm. The almost their page can be, you can be creative with it a little bit, I guess is my point, right? It doesn't have to be just like, almost there. Check your email. 'cause then you're really, in some ways no better than just the default.

ESP almost their page.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I [00:18:00] think if you can give them a reason to continue on and say like the, almost their language is essentially saying Hey, you're not fully subscribed yet. Make sure you head over there and like fully subscribe. I'm not a big fan of double opt-in. I think we've talked about this before, but I like doing a false double opt-in where there, it looks to the user, like of an actual double opt-in.

But if they don't actually click that button in the first email the button that says Hey, click this link to confirm your subscription, it doesn't mean that they're actually gone. They're just, you can keep messaging them until they either do it or they don't, and then you can unsubscribe them.

'cause clearly they weren't interested.

Dylan Redekop: Can I share my screen really quick?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally.

Dylan Redekop: Katelyn Bourgoin how she's so good at all this stuff, right? So if you go to sign up at Learn why we buy.com and you enter your email address, her almost there page. If you can see it is pretty awesome, right? She got a little, this visual or sorry, this like [00:19:00] animated arrow that says, I've got a surprise.

You're in now. Go check your inbox. Like right now, I've got a surprise for you and you're not gonna wanna miss it. So that's what I was meaning by like making sure. You can have fun with it and also like really incentivize or tease people or open this like curiosity loop for people. Wait, what am I gonna get?

Or what's going on here? Like, why do I want to go check this email right away? Because we all get tons of emails all the time, and many of us are subscribing to a lot of newsletters. So giving people a reason to go there and focus their attention, like you said and not get distracted. And, them engaged really is what you're doing throughout this process.

I think that's really important, and Katelyn does a really good job of it here.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I'm not surprised. I think, yeah, I've seen this before and I forgot that she had this, but yeah, it's the same thing. I'm not a huge fan of using like timer scarcity unless you're making it super obvious that you're like kidding around. But it could be something like a picture of you running and you're like.

Hey, I'm running to, to the inbox. Am I gonna beat you there?

Dylan Redekop: [00:20:00] yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That could

Chenell Basilio: like something fun. I think that could be interesting.

Dylan Redekop: I could also see using a timer if you were actually legitimately, honoring it to some degree. I get, I think the h the thing that drives me the most crazy is a like open cart timers or when they're not true or any kind of you need to respond to this email in 10 minutes, or, stuff like that.

That's like probably 99% of the time the person sending it is not actually honest and is not gonna stick to this timer. It's just too ramp up scarcity and urgency. So I could see it being more fun if you actually stick to it. What parameters you'd wanna include with that Could be yours for the deciding, but, I think that you could have an opportunity if you could come up with something clever or fun to include. If you go check your in inbox and reply, then I will actually, fulfill whatever promise you make. That could be fun. Like I'll actually reply with one of my best tips or one of my, the free chapter of my book or, some, [00:21:00] or a discount code, like that kind of thing could be really interesting.

But just make sure you're, it's true. And you're not gonna send it regardless. You know what I mean? 'Cause that is super annoying.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, as I say all the time, I feel like it's very hard to build someone's trust, but it's very easy to kill it and make them not trust you anymore. So don't do anything sleazy or shady or anything like that 'cause people will remember that stuff.

Dylan Redekop: Agreed. Agreed. Don't be shady. Don't be shady. So after the almost their page, they've gone to your, gone to their inbox, found your either your double optin or your, your false double optin email. If you're not sure what false double optin email is, please send us an email and we can share a resource with you that explains that a little bit more.

But. They've gone, they've done that step and they've, they've opted in essentially they've confirmed their subscription. What is the third step to the onboarding checklist?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so it's a welcome email, pretty basic. Welcome email can, I've [00:22:00] seen so many different variations of this. You can have a very expanded welcome email. You can give them one thing to do, whether it's reply to that email, click a link, do something. And then you can add in multiple things in a welcome sequence down the road.

But I think a welcome email, what I'm. Leaning more towards these days is like focused one action one, maybe two actions. Like here's a resource you can check out, but make sure you hit reply to this first or just ask for the reply. I think that's actually a pretty. Impactful one and probably the one that you want most because replies show Gmail or any other inbox provider that, Hey, this person, I actually wanted to listen and hear from this person enough that they replied to their email.

So it looks like a friend eng interaction versus just like a spam type thing.

Dylan Redekop: yeah. This is massive for getting your newsletter into inboxes, which is notoriously harder and harder to do in this day and age with apple mail and mail privacy and all that stuff. So if you can get people to reply, [00:23:00] especially to your very first email. There is a much higher likelihood that they will keep receiving your emails in their inbox or their primary inbox, or not spam and all that sort of stuff.

So I am a big proponent of trying to make sure that you get a reply in that very first email. You can all, again, you can incentivize some people. I do this to be completely honest. I incentivize it saying, reply with word thank you and I'll send you I'll send you a. Surprise gift or something along those lines.

I can't remember the exact wording I used but I stole this right from, again, Katelyn Bourgoin, who we've mentioned ad nauseum here, but. She does it so well, and she basically says the same thing, trying to get that reply to her new subscribers. So she, and she basically makes it worth their while by promising a email that comes shortly after they reply, or within 24 hours.

That is a kind of a, I think a cheat sheet or something like that, that they get.

Chenell Basilio: Yep. Exactly. And the other thing this does is [00:24:00] like you're teaching your subscribers that you're going to either reply to these emails or that in the future they should continue to reply. I think sometimes when we sign up for a newsletter, we forget that. Exists and that you can reply in the future.

And replies to me, like I just recently had an email that I sent out that I got a ton of replies, and it's been honestly like a goldmine of amazing content ideas for the future. And so I am excited that people replied, but I have a feeling that I probably could have gotten more replies if my welcome email was more focused on that.

So I would like to test that out and see if that's an option.

Dylan Redekop: You mean your current welcome email for your regular newsletter signup?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, like I do get a lot of replies, but I think I can, I know I can do better. 'cause I had one in the past that I almost had too many replies and I had to turn it off. So I think I'm gonna change it.

Dylan Redekop: We and that brings up a good point what if you are, what if you're somebody who's listening to this and you're like I'm, paying for growth and I can't possibly reply to all of these welcome email replies. I guess so would, what would you say? [00:25:00] Do you have to reply to all these emails or how can you go about it differently?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah I try to I've fallen off a little bit here lately, but I'm still, I still have a backlog. I'm still trying to get through it, but what a couple things you can do to make this easier on yourself. You can, like in my welcome email right now, it says reply and say Hi Chenell, and like that is in quotes, so people often copy that, those two words and paste that in and just hit reply with that.

And I don't think they actually. Expect a response. So with those, like you don't have to feel bad if you don't reply to that, but if they say, hi, Chenell, and thanks so much. I found you this way and I'm so excited for this type of content. Like maybe that one gets a reply, but just a typical like short reply, just saying a couple words that you ask them to say.

I don't think you have to necessarily reply to those, but if you want to, you can. If you don't have a lot, I would suggest doing it,

Dylan Redekop: Totally. Yeah. I think if you, if you have the capacity to reply to your new subscribers who are taking the time to actually send you an email, I think that's probably a good idea. But again, if you [00:26:00] are like somebody like Tom Alder, who again you talk about in the Growth Vault, who he just has basically, uh, a call to action in his welcome email that says, just reply with the word hey.

And so.

Chenell Basilio: Yep.

Dylan Redekop: that doesn't necessarily give the. The new subscriber, the idea that he's gonna reply to them, and he doesn't even say, I'll reply. I reply to every email like some people do. He's just to make sure that you keep receiving my newsletter in your inbox, reply with the word hey, and then that should increase the chances of you receiving it.

I've even seen some people go as far as to say. There's one step you have to take, and this is in their welcome email. One step you have to take to make sure that you receive my newsletter is replying with whatever word or whatever replying to this welcome email and otherwise you may not ever get my newsletter again or something really like drastic and extreme.

And again that, I like that you are incentivizing people to reply to make sure like they still get your email, but I don't know if I'd feel comfortable using that exact. Verbiage.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I don't love that. 'cause to [00:27:00] me like that's just a turnoff in terms of you're lying to me in a sense of like fear mongering in a way. But I think you can word it in a way that's like. That's true and like genuine and makes you feel okay with it. 'cause we both just got cringey over that.

So that says something.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, no, totally. I wouldn't recommend doing that. I do think it's important though, and you can be honest, just the way inboxes work these days. If you don't reply to this, there's a chance you don't, might get my emails because of privacy and the strictness of some email clients.

So hit reply to make sure that you do actually receive 'em if you do want them.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I've just heard people say like, if you don't hit reply, you won't get my email. And I'm like, that's not accurate.

Dylan Redekop: I think that's shady. That's shady. Un although, unless caveat is if you have a automation that will. Only that will basically remove people from email list if they don't reply to that newsletter. And I don't even know if you can set that up in an ESP.

Chenell Basilio: be like a Zapier situation

Dylan Redekop: So if you are doing that, then you could legitimately say [00:28:00] it, but otherwise

Chenell Basilio: yeah. Yeah,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: it's a good test experiment to see if you actually get the replies,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Okay. Anything else about welcome emails that we should cover? I think

Chenell Basilio: you don't wanna talk about welcome emails anymore?

Dylan Redekop: no, I,

Chenell Basilio: Just kidding.

Dylan Redekop: I'd love to go on for another, day about welcome emails. I think one thing we did notice we published a newsletter roast last week, and one of the things we both noticed was that newsletter was trying to do a lot of things in it in the welcome email. And we just, I think we, the main thing we wanna hit home is whether it's a reply, whether it's clicking a link or checking out.

A piece of content that you find very important. Try to just keep the welcome meal focused on one action. I think that's the main takeaway and our preference and what we typically recommend people is to make that action a reply,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I was just pulling up their welcome email just to remind myself so it was, reply to this email, check out one of my three most popular pieces of content. Grab a copy of my book and. you [00:29:00] reply with a copy of your receipt, you'll get a cheat sheet. And I was like, this is too much.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. And all good stuff, but like that could be spread out over a nice welcome sequence, right? Like you could encourage the, was it a discount? Did he say If you send a reply or if you, it.

Chenell Basilio: oh, you get a free eBay cheat sheet or something.

Dylan Redekop: So you could spread that out being like, reply to this email and I'll send you a discount or a cheat sheet or, and then that could

Chenell Basilio: stop.

Dylan Redekop: full stop. And then the next email is what you promised. And then the email after that can be like, here's a copy of, or here's like my most popular, issue or, or blog resource, whatever that might be. Or you could even, you could even tease that in the reply, like I said in mine where it's like, reply to this and tomorrow I'll send you my number one piece of content that's helped X amount of people accomplish, Y goal. So don't try to cram it all into the first email.

Chenell Basilio: yeah, and of course like if you have a larger newsletter and you have goals and things you have to hit like [00:30:00] fine. But I still would really go after the reply first and then you can figure out like, Hey, we need to get first party data or whatever, and ask them specific questions that I can learn about them through.

That's great, but I think we just need to stay focused.

Dylan Redekop: How do you feel then about you just talked about first party data. How would you feel about doing a survey before you even send them a welcome email, like on a thank you page?

Chenell Basilio: So that's what mine is right

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I wasn't gonna call you out on that, but,

Chenell Basilio: Oh, come on. You can call me

Dylan Redekop: okay. Well then let's share your, let's share my screen here and we can show, uh, or you can share yours.

Chenell Basilio: out.

Dylan Redekop: I have it open right now 'cause I subscribed while we were talking with like

Chenell Basilio: why don't you do it? And I, I'm pulling up the data that I have.

Dylan Redekop: . Okay, so this is the screen. I subscribed while we were chatting because I was just curious exactly what your onboarding experience was. And so after I submitted my newsletter this is the page I got brought to one more step and the URL is TY dash survey, which is thank you survey. [00:31:00] And then you have something by right message here, right? Which is a software that you can. Add onto your website or in your newsletter, if I'm not mistaken.

And it basically can be like, act as a mini survey and a a way to capture data.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And so essentially what happens is this helps me understand who's on my email list, right? So like, how many people actually have a newsletter? How many subscribers do you, might you potentially have? What tool are you using? And I think that just helps. In the future, like I can use this for sponsorship stuff, I can use this for my own email.

So like I can send an email only to people who have a newsletter, I can send an email to only people who don't have a newsletter. And so it just really helps you understand your audience. And there is, it's a huge point of value for for me, for potentially the sponsors I'm working with to know Hey, Chenell's List is actually valuable.

We have this stuff. The other thing is it helps me see who's real, 'cause a bot typically [00:32:00] they'll either go through and click like the first, one of the first couple questions or they don't do any of it. And so if I see a bunch of like weird emails coming through, I'm like, oh, none of them have right message data, so they're probably fake.

And so I'll just go ahead and unsubscribe to them.

Dylan Redekop: and

Chenell Basilio: But it's a trade off 'cause I'm not getting as many replies as we were kind of alluding to,

Dylan Redekop: yeah, so it, I guess it matter or it depends on what your. Your priority is right, because some people will be really,

Chenell Basilio: ConvertKit on there. Whoops.

Dylan Redekop: some people will be really data driven, right? That they need this data matters more than getting the reply because they're probably like a B2B, tech company and they really wanna know, the types of people they're subscribing to their newsletter and if they should do outreach, et cetera, et cetera.

Or they might be a bigger organization or a media, let's say a media type newsletter like 1440 or the Skim where they really are interested in their subscriber data so they can better understand their demographics and they can pitch specific advertisers and brands to sponsor their newsletters and say, we have your [00:33:00] audience.

Reading our newsletter. So there are different rhyme and reason why you might wanna do this over focusing on getting a reply to your welcome email. But I'd say probably most people who are listening right now are probably more leaning towards the smaller side and wanting to focus on making sure they're newsletters, hit inboxes as opposed to gathering all this data.

But you can do both too.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I don't know. And I could also have this survey on a future page. It just drops the number of people who actually complete it. And I get good people, like people will fill this out and be like, thanks for asking about me. I really felt seen and I'm like. I'm asking you for more and you're telling me that this make made you feel like seen, like I love that.

I think that's cool. But it was like a very surprising thing that I wasn't expecting.

Dylan Redekop: And then what have you gleaned or what have you done with the con, the data that you've gotten from this?

Chenell Basilio: Ha. I think the most I've done is sometimes I'll do coaching and [00:34:00] so I'll be able to send out to specific people who meet a specific criteria of Hey, let me send this offer to these people first, and then if it fills up, which it always does then I don't have to send it to the whole list and, so it like self-selects for different types of folks, which is nice.

Other than that, I honestly haven't done as much as I should be doing with this data. But.

in the future. I do. So

Dylan Redekop: Sorry, I'm just messing with your data now. Um, no, that's

Chenell Basilio: what'd you put in there? I couldn't see it. Nice.

Dylan Redekop: I did, that was the first word that came to my mind. I think this is cool. And this could be like something you could even, this could help funnel people towards like growth reverse pro. Like depending on certain attributes of what they fill out, you could then you could opt them into a community sort of sequence where they're maybe pitched on the value of that.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do with these surveys.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yes. That has been on my to-do list for a while, so I need to do that. It's create a specific one for growth and Reverse Pro or even the growth vault. So yeah,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Nice. [00:35:00] Okay, so we've talked about,

Chenell Basilio: I.

Dylan Redekop: we've talked a lot about welcome emails. We've talked about the three step on onboarding checklist. There is a five step onboarding checklist, which we don't wanna go into too much depth, but why don't you tease people as to what you would advise for a five step onboarding checklist.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so it's pretty much a similar flow, but you're also adding in like. So you still have the landing page, you have the almost there page, and then you have an almost there email, which we were kind of alluding to. We just kind of glossed over, which is like the false double opt-in. So you're either asking for someone to click a button and or reply to say that you're confirming, um, and then the welcome page after that.

So once they click on that, then they see a page on your site that says, Hey, thanks so much. Like, here's my best content that you can do, or. Drive them to something else that

Dylan Redekop: A survey.

Chenell Basilio: that you've shared or a survey, right?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. There's a lot of different opportunities there.

Chenell Basilio: Then the, the welcome email after that would be like, the more, following up [00:36:00] after what you've given

Dylan Redekop: Yep. So that's the five steps landing page, almost their page, almost their email, which is kinda like the false double opt in confirmation email. Then they click on that, they go to a welcome page that could have a survey, a resource, maybe a sponsor slot or like Olly Richards does. He's got the self-liquidating flywheel where he starts to try to pitch people on his webinar.

That's a lower ticket that helps fund his paid ads. And then either way they would get the welcome email then within a few hours or a day or so from clicking through on the confirm.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, exactly. So just a couple extra steps. But again, like I've, I like just focusing on the three step because I feel like it's the most, I don't know, it's easy to remember. I feel like people remember things in three. So if I can only give you three, those would be the three.

Dylan Redekop: Awesome.

Chenell Basilio: are advanced ones too.

Dylan Redekop: Cool. Yeah, this has been good. This is a good refresher and this is a good reminder too, that. One to make sure these three to five things are still working and optimized and [00:37:00] still relevant. We should probably be reviewing them on a monthly, or at least a quarterly basis. The other thing too, is to reflect on the data that we get from them.

So if trends are going down, like maybe our open rates aren't as high, or we're not getting as many replies to our welcome emails or, it's just a good reminder to maybe check and make sure that, nothing's broken or that maybe some messaging is getting stale. I know I want to go back into my welcome email and be like, am I really doing as much as I can on this email?

Should I be doing something different? So this has all been, this has all been very eyeopening, even just for me. It's a good reminder.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And again, like even if you've been doing newsletters and email for a long time, if you start a new form and then you don't link it to the right sequence or you're the right welcome email, like it could break certain things. So you wanna make sure these are happening all over the place, not just on the main opt-in too.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, and the more that you have including automations and stuff, the more complex, the more [00:38:00] complexity you're adding to your business. Which isn't a bad thing but it's definitely something that will require a little bit more maintenance than just a super basic newsletter and and automation.

If you're using a ESP like kit or beehive then these kind of things, you'll wanna definitely double check. With something like Substack, you don't necessarily really need to as much 'cause it's, there's not a lot you can really do with it. But there's probably certain things that you can still optimize with substack, like we talked about the landing page in your, making sure it's, clear and compelling and credible. You can still do that whether you're using Substack or different ESP and your welcome email, you can still tweak and optimize and make sure it's doing what it needs to for you in any ESP that you're using.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. So make sure all of your onboarding stuff is crystal clear, compelling, and credible. And then, uh, yeah, just make sure you're getting people through your little welcome email and getting them to reply. That's pretty much it. That's the gist of the whole thing.

Dylan Redekop: It is. And if you want that and then [00:39:00] a lot more I would highly recommend checking out your Growth Vault, Chenell's Growth Vault. You can go to vault dot growth inverse.com to take a look. And there are, geez, I don't even want to count the number of lessons in here and examples and templates, but there's retention.

Onboarding and fundamentals, growth, monetization. Those are just some of the main chapters. And you've got videos and tutorials on a whole bunch of subsections in these as well.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I'm getting ready to record one more too.

Dylan Redekop: Nice. Excellent. So this is an ongoing living resource. It's not a PDF guide or anything like that. This is a full blown, like, this is basically like a, um, I don't wanna call it like a. Course or anything like that, but it, it lives behind, um, a login and sign up and it's dynamic and, and ever evolving.

So go sign up and check it out. Again, vault dot growth reverse.com.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. Awesome. Hope to see you in there.

Dylan Redekop: Yes, that'd be great. That'd be [00:40:00] great. And if you have any questions about this episode or anything we've talked about, leave a comment or send us any questions you might have. You can check. I think we have a form at growth reverse.com/podcast if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, question.

Chenell Basilio: Questions? I think it's both. Either one. If you add an S or you don't add ness, you'll get there.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. We try to answer any question that we get.

Chenell Basilio: Nice. Awesome. Yeah, and we'll leave that link below along with links to Senja or Right message if you wanna check 'em out. And then, yeah, the vault, of course.

Dylan Redekop: for sure. Cool. All right.

Chenell Basilio: Cool.

Dylan Redekop: Good chat.

Chenell Basilio: you next time.

Dylan Redekop: a pod.

Chenell Basilio: See you.