Email Collection & Strategy - You're Losing Money if You Don't Have a Welcome Series

No matter your business size. If you aren't collecting and sending emails, you're losing money.

The Story

(I begin all of my articles with a personal story for two reasons: 1) To provide context from my own experience. And, 2) To demonstrate that my articles are written by me and not AI generated.)

From age 14-23, I knocked on thousands (maybe tens of thousands?) of doors selling goods. As a 21-year-old entrepreneur, I maintained maps of neighborhoods that indicated which home owners I had spoken with and which home owners I had not. Knocking on doors is hard work. Whether hot or cold, raining or snowing - my rent was always due, so I always needed income which meant, no matter the weather, I was out knocking. 

The experience of being rejected 20, 30, 50 or even 100 times before you secured a sale gave me great respect for the value of a lead. One someone said, "I might be interested. Can you call me later?" I would write their name on number on a  small lead card with a call back date. That lead card to me was a golden ticket. I put them in a lock box, organized them by date and on the morning of the call-back date written on the card, I would call the contact back. I never missed a call-back date. 

In the pre-internet age, door knocking and cold-calling were the hardest parts of selling. Finding a qualified lead took work. And when had that lead in your hands, you guarded it, worked it and made sure that you did not take it for granted. 

The Lesson

When I was hired as the president of a multimillion dollar e-commerce company in 2012, I couldn't believe how many people simply visited our website every day and entered their emails, asking that we send them information about our products. I was amazed how hundreds of people would sign up on a daily basis. I was equally baffled at the sales culture within the company that took those contacts for granted. 

Emails were being used just once or twice. There was very little personalization. There was no follow up after orders were placed. There was no reward system for regular, loyal customers. There was just a batch-and-blast send every day to customers that had recently interacted with a previous email. Since there were new emails being harvested every day, there was very little value put on the emails we had previously harvested. 

Thomas Paine once said, "What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly..." and so it was with the value of each email subscription obtained by this company. We changed that culture immediately. 

When someone takes 30 seconds out of their day to give you their email address or their cell number to receive texts, it is a great privilege that you have been given. That email is one of your most valuable assets. The email wouldn't have been provided, had you not exerted a great deal of effort in requesting that it be shared. It means that you words were heard by someone with general interest who is saying, "I'd like to hear more, can you call me later?" It's a golden ticket. And what are you going to do with it? 

The System

There are several methods by which we obtain emails:

1. Emails are provided when a customer purchases a product. 
2. Emails are provided via a pop-up when a customer browses your shop. 
3. Emails are provided via marketing ads that request emails.
4. Emails are provided in person at farmers markets and trade shows. 
5. Emails are provided in return for entry to win a prize.
6. Emails are provided for educational purposes - to learn more.
7. Etc.

At the time that the customer provides an email, you need to have a system to ensure that 100% of those emails are given a full opportunity to convert into a sale. Not a single email can be forgotten, lost or inadvertently deleted. Imagine how much value you place on that email if you had to knock on 50 doors in bad weather to obtain it. You would never let a single email "slip through the cracks". So you need a system to make sure that you reward your email subscribers with informative content relevant to their wishes. 

Back in the pre-internet days, you needed a team of phone callers to manage your leads. It was the only way to reach out to hundreds or thousands of potential customers that provided their contact information. Today, in 2025, a single person can manage regular contact with hundreds of thousands of people with some initial effort in setting up an automated series of emails. 

Create an Email Welcome Series

For $20/mo on Mailchimp you can develop an email campaign system that can be managed by one person no matter the size of your email list. Setting up your welcome series may take several hours or even days. But once it is in place, it requires little to no maintenance and potential customers will be contacted regularly and automatically. It's the email version of "Set it and forget it". 

A welcome series is a set of pre-created emails are sent to your customers at intervals that you choose. (Once a day, once every other day, once a week, month, etc.) Most entrepreneurs initially create their welcomes series with the singular intent of generating immediate sales. And while that is the goal, you don't want to hit your would-be customers too quickly and encourage them to unsubscribe. 

You need to carefully select your intervals and you need to carefully build each email with the customer experience in mind. 

Broadly speaking, there are two types of emails:

1. Content
2. Promotional

Content emails are built for educational purposes almost exclusively. They educate and inspire your customers to create or to learn something new. They are informative and may include information about your company, your history, your values. Content emails tend to have very high open rates and very low unsubscribe rates. But they also generate very little in sales. 

Promotional emails are the emails most entrepreneurs want to send immediately. They highlight sales, new products, promotions, deals and reasons to buy now. Promotional emails generate more in revenue than content emails, but their unsubscribe rate is high as they tend to scare away customers with their aggressive offers and "SPAM" look and feel. 

So when you build your welcomes series, it should include a soft, seamless blend of content emails and promotional emails. Of course, content emails can include sales (meaning you can build a hybrid of both), but you will find that most of your traffic will come from the top 1 or 2 blocks of your email, so your prime space on top as well as the subject of your email, must be one or the other. It cannot be both. 

We have created a 21-email onboarding system that works as an effective starting point for all businesses. Developed with nearly a decade of trial-and-error applications within our own businesses. They require some work to set up which we can do for you, but once created they can be left to simply do their job so you know with confidence that every email you collect will be properly utilized and the customer will be rewarded for providing you with their email. You will educate your customer, you will have low unsubscribe rates and you won't just get a first order, you will get subsequent reorders. 

Our goal is not to make one-time customers. Our goal is to make lifetime customers. 

The 21 emails can be sent daily over 3 weeks, every other day over 6 weeks or twice a week over 10 weeks. We have seen success in all three intervals. Once a week is too few to maintain "front of mind" status with your customers. We recommend daily or every other day. 

Here is how block #1 (the top block) of your welcome series emails should be structured:

1. Content: Thank you for signing up. What to expect. X% Off first purchase. 
2. Content: About our company. 
3. Content: Most popular blog article
4. Content: Return policies, product guarantees, why they matter.
5. Promotional: Your favorite products and why - X% Off 
6. Content: What customers think about you. Reviews. 
   
7. Promotional: Sale today (this week/month) only. 
8. Content: Blog article
9. Promotional: Product pairing Buy X get Y
10. Content: Blog article
11. Content: How we give back.
12. Promotional: Free Shipping over $X
13. Promotional: Customer favorite sales
14. Content: Blog article
15. Promotional: Have you used your sign up discount yet? (See email 1) 
16. Promotional: X% off all 1 week only
17. Content: Blog article
18. Promotional: Product pairing Buy X get Y
19. Promotional: Gift cards
20. Content: Blog article
21. Promotional: It's your 3 week anniversary - biggest offer of X% off next order. 

You see how we begin content heavy and then end the series more promotional heavy. Remember, great content usually results in high open rates and low unsubscribe rates, but lower sales. You're planting the seeds of loyalty in those emails. Promotional emails should provide higher revenue, but will have lower open rates and higher unsubscribe rates. 

What you are learning in the welcome series is what your customers are interested in, what deals convert into sales and how long it takes a customer to convert. Over time, you may move email number 14 to the 7th spot, or email number 4 to the 20th spot as you see how they convert. You may toss out email number 12 altogether and introduce something new. No two businesses are the same. Our goal here is to give you the starting point we wish we had when we started our first business. 

Usually, the system is set up so that when a customer makes their first purchase they are removed from the welcome series and immediately assigned to a new customer series that is shorter and more promotion heavy. That's why we offer our biggest discount at email 21. Anyone receiving email 21 hasn't purchased yet so we want to learn what it takes to get that person to buy. 

The interactions here also feed into the strategy of the new emails you create and send every week to those that have graduated from this list. The emails above will teach you what your customers are most interested in, ensuring that your regular emails are tailored to their wants and needs. 

We follow the same template above when a customer makes their first purchase and moves to the first-purchase series which is geared more towards rewarding them for their purchase, reassuring them of their decisions and inventing them to buy again. Then, using segments, we regularly reward our top customers, recurring customers and those that have remained active on our email list for extended periods of time. 

Following the 21 email system above will give you a fantastic start and ensure that not a single email is wasted. You worked too hard to get that email. Don't let them slip through the cracks. 

And if you need help setting up your campaign, our team can deliver a finished 21-email welcome series to you. We would love to help. 

Enjoy the journey!