How do I get new subscribers to open and reply to my welcome email?

The welcome email is the first thing a new subscriber gets from you. Three things matter: when it arrives, the subject line, and what we ask people to do.

How fast should the welcome email arrive?

Within five or ten minutes of signing up, automatically. I think that's key. The person should get it while they still remember signing up.

Alex, who runs Mount Juliet Buzz, told me on my podcast that his open rate fell from about 72% to 65% after he started getting signups through a Facebook group partnership. My fix was a tool like Zapier pushing each new email into Beehiiv almost instantly so the welcome lands minutes later. I'd also give those people their own welcome sequence that mentions where they came from.

What should the subject line say?

If your welcome email has your lowest open rate, work on the subject line first. Tell them they're in, and put the city name as the first or second word so it reminds them they signed up for this and want it.

Ours has been a curiosity question: "Missing out on [city]'s best secrets?" Good subject lines usually involve a question or leave people curious. It's not easy, so build a custom GPT to help you write them.

What should you ask people to reply with?

Something that takes zero thought. We used to ask things like what's your favorite restaurant and got very little back.

"If you ask someone what their favorite restaurant is, they have to think about it."

Then I saw someone suggest asking people to just reply "yes." We tried it and suddenly I was getting all these emails.

Does formatting the ask matter?

I think so. In one rewrite, I made the ask a bold line near the bottom, "Your quick reply helps me," with stars at the beginning and end. Replies went from about one a week to one to three a day. My guess is the stars and bold make it pop, so more people do it.

Put the signup survey on the page right after subscribe, before the welcome email arrives. More in one welcome email or a sequence and where to send people after they subscribe.