Welcome email sequence template: five emails, written out

How to adapt this without breaking it

Read all five before you change any of them. They are one piece of writing in five parts, and email three is the one the other four are built around: replace the belief in it with something bland and emails four and five have nothing to stand on.

Three things here are load-bearing. Email one contains no ask of any kind. There is exactly one call to action per email, and four of the five are free. And the order holds, because a stranger will not accept your proof until they have heard your claim, and will not read your claim until they believe you are a person.

Everything else is yours. Keep the bodies between 150 and 250 words, cut the sequence to three emails if you only have three, and add a footer with a working unsubscribe link and a real postal address to every message. The footer is not written out below because it belongs to your sending setup rather than to the copy, but an email without one is not a sequence you can send.

Email 1: Here is [the thing you signed up for]

Subject line: Here is [the thing you signed up for]. Preheader: Straight to it, plus what arrives tomorrow morning.

Here it is: [link to the thing, as the first line of the email].

That is the reason you are on this list, so I have put it at the top rather than making you scroll for it. If the link does not work, reply and I will send it again.

What happens next, so nothing arrives unannounced. Over the next four mornings you get four short emails about [the thing you teach]: who I am, the one thing I think most people get wrong about [the subject], a case where I can show it working, and one thing I would like to ask you. After that it is [one email a week or one a fortnight, whichever is true], and you can leave with the link at the bottom of any email.

No homework today. Go and read [the thing]. — [your name]

Why this email is shaped this way: it has one job, and every sentence spent elsewhere teaches the reader to scroll past you. The link is in line one because a reader who has to hunt for what they were promised has learned something about how you treat their attention. The only other content is what arrives next, because unannounced daily mail from a stranger is the most reliable cause of an early unsubscribe. There is no ask and no second link.

Email 2: Why I work on [the thing you teach]

Subject line: Why I work on [the thing you teach]. Preheader: The short version, and a question for you.

Short one today. You know what I write about, but not why, and the why is the part that tells you whether to keep reading me.

[Two or three sentences on what you did before, concretely: the job, the year, the place.] What I kept running into was [the specific problem], not as a theory but as [the client who kept asking for the same thing, the week lost to something avoidable, the number that would not move].

The turn came when [the specific decision or discovery, one sentence]. It cost me [the honest cost: a month, a client, a fair amount of money], and it is why everything I send you is about [the thing you teach] rather than [the adjacent thing people expect].

Tomorrow: the one thing I think most people get wrong about [the subject], which is a more useful email than this one. In the meantime, what are you working on? Reply and tell me in a line. I read all of them. — [your name]

Why this email is shaped this way: a reader decides whether to keep opening you in the first two or three emails, and that decision is about a person rather than about content. Named costs do the work, because a story with a price in it could not have been invented. The call to action is a reply rather than a click: replies are the strongest evidence a mailbox provider has that your mail is wanted, and the answers tell you what the list wants before you write anything else.

Email 3: The thing most people get wrong about [the subject]

Subject line: The thing most people get wrong about [the subject]. Preheader: It is not [the obvious culprit]. It is [your actual answer].

Most advice about [the subject] starts from [the common assumption]. I think that is wrong, and I think it is why [the usual bad outcome] keeps happening to people who are doing everything they were told.

Here is what I think instead. [State the belief in one sentence. Make it something a reasonable person could disagree with, because a belief nobody would argue with is a slogan.]

[One paragraph of the argument: the mechanism rather than the conclusion, and why the common assumption produces the bad outcome.] [Then one paragraph of the consequence: if this is true, the thing to do differently is X and the thing to stop doing is Y.]

This is the basis of everything else I will send you, so if you disagree with it the rest will be no use and you should leave with the link below. I would rather that than have you here out of politeness.

The longer version, with the reasoning written out, is here: [link to your single best free page on this]. — [your name]

Why this email is shaped this way: it answers the reader’s real question, which is whether your advice differs from the advice they have already tried and ignored. It leads with the disagreement rather than building to it, since the subject line has promised one. The invitation to leave is not modesty: a list of people who share your premise is worth several times a list of people who have not noticed it, and the unsubscribes it causes would otherwise have arrived later as complaints.

Email 4: What happened when [the belief was applied]

Subject line: What happened when [the specific case]. Preheader: The numbers, and the part that did not work.

Yesterday I claimed that [the belief, in six words]. Today, one case where I can show the whole thing, including the part that went wrong.

[The situation in two or three sentences: who, what they were doing, and the number that was not moving. Use a range with its basis, as in "around 200 sign-ups a month and fewer than one in twenty ever replying".]

What changed was [the one change], for the reason in yesterday’s email. Nothing else changed at the same time, which is the only way to say anything honest about what caused what.

[The result, with a range and a period: "over the following eight weeks, replies went from under one in twenty to roughly one in six". If you have no numbers, say what became possible instead, and say that you have no numbers.]

The part that did not work: [the honest failure]. [One sentence on what you would do differently.] A case study with no failure in it is an advertisement, and you can tell the difference as easily as I can.

The whole thing is written up here, with the [emails, spreadsheet, before and after] included: [link]. — [your name]

Why this email is shaped this way: email three made a claim and this one pays for it, which is why it is one case in detail rather than three in outline. Isolating a single change is what makes the result mean anything, and saying so is itself evidence that you know how evidence works. The stated failure does more for credibility than the result does. The call to action is still free, which matters, because the ask arrives tomorrow.

Email 5: One thing, and then I will leave you alone

Subject line: One thing, and then I will leave you alone. Preheader: What I do, what it costs, and what arrives from here.

Last of the daily emails, and thank you for reading four of them. Most people do not get this far.

So, the ask, once. [The offer in one sentence: what it is, who it is for, what it costs.] It follows from Wednesday and Thursday: if [the belief] is right, then [what the offer does] is the part that is hard to do alone.

[Two or three sentences of specifics, in nouns rather than adjectives: the number of sessions or lessons, the length, the format, the price with its currency.]

It is not for you if [the honest exclusion: you are earlier than X, you already have Y]. In that case the free material at [link] covers the same ground more slowly, and that is a perfectly good answer.

Here it is, if it is for you: [the offer, linked, as the single call to action].

From tomorrow this quietens to [one email a week, on Tuesdays], with no more daily mail. If that is not what you want, the unsubscribe link below works immediately. Either way, thank you for the week. — [your name]

Why this email is shaped this way: the ask is last because it is the only one, and it is stated once rather than woven through the week, which is the difference between a welcome sequence and a funnel. Naming who the offer is not for raises conversion rather than lowering it, because it makes the rest of the description believable. The last paragraph sets the cadence from here, which is what a reader most wants to know after five days of daily mail.

What to do after the fifth email

Stop. The most common way to waste this sequence is a sixth email that asks again. A reader who did not take the offer on Friday has not forgotten it, and a Saturday reminder converts a few people while teaching everybody else that the cadence you promised was not true.

Move the list onto whatever email five named, and hold to it. Then read the numbers per email rather than in total: the email people unsubscribe after is the one that broke something, and here it is usually email three, which is the right place for it to happen.