Matt McGarry’s Post

I’ve generated 10,000,000+ email subscribers for clients in the past 2 years. Here’s a simple hack to take your open rate from terrible (30%) to world-class (60%): Nail your welcome email. Your welcome email is the most important email you send to subscribers. It’s your first impression. And a great first impression = better future engagement. → If subscribers take the right actions in your welcome email, your future emails will land in their primary inbox. → If not, they will land in promotions, updates, or spam. Here are two changes you need to make to your welcome email to boost the engagement of all your future emails: 1. Write a subject line that stands out and gives the reader a reason to open. Too many subject lines are uninspired, and give the reader no reason to open. Yours, for the sake of your newsletter, must give the reader a reason to open. Here are some examples you can steal: - Inverse Daily - ❗️wtf - Jon Morrow - Quick favor? - The Hustle - Look what you did, you little jerk... - Tim Bourquin - Who said you could join my newsletter? - Morning Brew - ☕️ Caution: Morning Brew coming in hot 2. Use my WE-PAC framework for writing body copy: - W - Welcome (welcome them to your newsletter) - E - Expectations (tell them what to expect from it) - P - Primary (ask them to move the email to primary) - A - Ask for reply (ask for a simple reply, explain why) - C - Click link (link to your blog, podcast, lead magnet…) Example below! (PAC = the 3 key deliverability actions to make sure your future emails land in their primary inbox.) 3. Measure against these benchmarks. Welcome email open rate: - 30%+ open rate = Very bad - 40%+ open rate = Bad - 50%+ open rate = Okay - 60%+ open rate = Good - 70%+ open rate = Great - 75%+ open rate = Excellent - 80%+ open rate = World class Welcome email CTR: - 1%+ CTR = Very bad - 5%+ CTR Bad - 7%+ CTR = Okay - 10%+ CTR = Good - 12%+ CTR = Great - 15%+ CTR = Excellent - 20%+ CTR = World class Tweak as needed. To recap: Write a great subject line, implement the WE-PAC framework, measure against the above benchmarks, and watch your engagement go up. Hope this helps!