Should a local newsletter send one welcome email or a welcome sequence?

For a long time all I sent new subscribers was one welcome email. That's common. But I've been racking my brain for at least six months about how to get paid within a subscriber's first days, and one email doesn't do much of that.

What's the case for a sequence?

One B2B company I've followed sends an email every day for a subscriber's first seven days. That's a lot for local, but the idea is right: the first days are when people pay the most attention.

For a new brand, a warm-up sequence also buys time. I start ads with a welcome and warm-up emails and send the first real issue around three weeks in.

What should the first emails do?

• Welcome them. This is the most important email in the setup.
• Nudge the survey. If they didn't fill out the survey at signup, say in the first or second email that you'd really appreciate it. There's no harm.
• Carry an offer. A local business can pay for an offer shown to new subscribers. If that covers your cost per subscriber, growth is effectively free.

What's the risk?

Turning the welcome into constant pitching. If you put sponsor offers in the sequence, design it so it doesn't feel like a pitch every day. You also have to sell the business and set up tracking. It's harder than it sounds.

What about automations after the welcome?

Click triggers. In Beehiiv you can set an automation so that when someone clicks a link, like a lead magnet, another email goes to them right away: hey, I saw you were checking this out. You know they're interested right now.

Pair that with survey tags. A tag like "interested in buying a business" can route someone into a five- to ten-email sequence for the matching offer.

Don't count on the welcome email for data

Put your survey on the page right after subscribe, not in the welcome email. My surveys get 50% or more there. Linked from a welcome email, the same survey gets about 2%.