📈 Steal These Scripts For Your Thank You Page + Welcome Email

Welcome to BetterLetter 📧

Last time, I walked through how to optimize your welcome flow for new subscribers (link here if you missed it).

We covered:

1. Co-registration widget (beehiiv or sparkloop)

2. Welcome survey

3. Upgrade page // Front-end offer

4. Thank you page

5. Welcome email

6. Welcome sequence

Today, I’m zooming in on the two bolded above so your newsletter engagement rates can look like this:

You’ll get:

• 🤔 How I benefited from confirmation bias

• 🎯 The exact scripts to steal for your thank you page + welcome email

• 📈 The thing 99.9% of people aren’t doing (warning: it’ll boost your open rates)

Let’s dive in 👇️

Helpful Links 🔗 

• 🐝 Your newsletter can now have a free app thanks to beehiiv (link)

• 👀 The best ad that came out of the CrowdStrike outage (link)

• 💰️ 72 niches with million dollar business opportunities (link)

• 📹️ David Perell x Harry Dry: This is the most enjoyable + educational interview about copywriting I’ve watched in a while (link)

• 🛠️ Our favorite newsletter tools: beehiiv (ESP), Descript (video editing), Sparkloop (growth & monetization), Typedream (custom landing pages), ElevenLabs (AI voiceovers)*

_{*These are affiliate links}

I Benefited From Confirmation Bias 🤔 

My first job out of college, I crushed my first project.

As a result, leadership labeled me as ‘high potential.’

And for the next 4 years, they viewed everything I did through a positive lens.

I got raise after raise, promotion after promotion. Making high six figures before 25.

Some of my friends had the opposite experience.

They struggled in their first 6 months.

Leadership expected them to struggle more. Confirmation bias went to work.

Many were asked to leave. Others quit.

It may not be fair, but it’s how the world works.

That’s the power of first impressions.

What does this have to do with newsletters?

What’s At Stake 🫰 

You can predict how engaged a new subscriber will be within your first few email sends.

(Hence, the Sparkloop + beehiiv boost engagement screening periods.)

People who don’t engage with your first 4 emails are unlikely to become raving fans in the future. No matter how good your newsletter is.

But the opposite is also true.

If you can get subscribers to engage (read, reply and receive value) from day one, you can earn their engagement for the long haul.

Case in point 👇️ 

Here are this newsletter’s welcome email stats:

And here are the overall stats:

The rest of today is dedicated to help you make a strong first impression so you can build a community of raving fans and have stats like these:

• High open rates (60% +)

• High click rates (20% +)

• Email replies (5% +)

Because here’s the point:

If you can get people to open your first 4 emails (and those 4 emails overwhelm them with value), good things happen.

Okay, enough theory.

Let’s give you the actual scripts.

Thank-You Page 👋 

🎯 Goal: Get the new subscriber to open your welcome email.

Step 1: Like I covered last week, give them something valuable in the welcome email. Make it a no brainer to go find it right away.

Step 2: Incentivize more than just opening the welcome email.

Remember this from Domino’s?

This is a well-documented design principle used by course platforms and SaaS products.

When people feel like they've made progress, even if it's minimal, they’re more likely to continue making progress.

But it’s something 99.9% of newsletter operators aren’t doing.

If you apply it, I bet it’ll increase your open rates for your first few emails.

Put something like this at the top of your thank-you page to immediately communicate: “you really want to open my emails.”

Here’s swipe copy below for your newly upgraded thank-you page 👇️ 

[Domino’s tracker image]

Welcome to [Newsletter Name]!

If you want…

• X benefit

• Y result

• Z outcome

Then you’re in the right place.

🗓️ Every [day] at [time], you’ll get [tangible, valuable thing you send them].

🎁 As a thank you for subscribing, I just sent you an email with a free gift #1 that helps you [XYZ].

If it doesn’t make it to your inbox, check your spam and drag the email into your primary folder.

Excited to hear what you think of it (I respond to all replies)!

See you in your inbox in 10 seconds 😉 

[Your name]

Welcome Email 📨 

🎯 Goal: Get them to reply + open your next email(s)

Step 1: Keep incentivizing the next step.

Put an updated tracker image at the top of your welcome email.

Step 2: Deliver what you promised on the thank you page.

Step 3: Ask for a reply.

• DON’T tell people to say ‘hi’ or ‘yes.’

  • It’s boring, forgettable and rarely elicits a reply.

• DO leverage what we know about people.

  • They love to connect with others around things they either LOVE or HATE. Think about something in your industry people love to talk about.

Here’s your swipe copy 👇️

[tracker image]

Hey 👋 

Thanks again for signing up to [Newsletter Name]!

You can expect [tangible, valuable thing you send newsletters about] every [day] at [time].

As promised, you can grab your [gift #1] below. 🎁 

But before you do, hit reply and tell me [thing you love // thing you hate relevant to niche].

And if this email didn’t make it to your inbox, drag this email into your primary folder.

Looking out for your reply,

[Your Name]

p.s. you’re only 2 more steps from getting [gift #2]. Simply read the next two emails I send you and it’s yours for free ($97 value).

👉️ The takeaways:

💡 Big Idea

You can predict your subscriber’s engagement based on how they engage within the first 3-4 weeks.

You only get one first impression.

Make it strong.

🎯 Goals

• Thank-you page: Get them to open the welcome email + plant seeds to incentivize future opens

• Welcome email: Get them to reply and/or open the first email

✍️ Tactics

• Use a visual tracker on the thank-you page + in the welcome email to incentivize the next step

• Deliver legitimate value in your first few touchpoints. Give away so much it hurts a little.

• 📈 Use the same emoji in the subject line of every email to build a visual association with your brand

There you have it. Get to work 🫡 

Until next time,

Isaac + Kieran

P.S. When you’re ready to grow your newsletter…

Let us do it for you. We onboarded this client two weeks ago and have brought in 1,900 US-based subscribers at a $1 CPA (with open + click rates higher than they had before hiring us).

We help creators, brands and ministries grow their newsletters so they can drive more sales and donations.

So if you want us to grow your newsletter for you and are ready to invest at least $2k/month on ads, book a call with us here.