This is part 6 of 6 posts on getting started with Kit (previously ConvertKit). Check out the other parts here: Part 1: Creating Your Account, Part 2: Adding Subscribers, Part 3: Building Email Templates, Part 4: Sending Broadcast Emails, Part 5: Creating a Landing Page, Part 6: Sequences and Automations.

In this week’s Kit post, we’ll walk you through how to create a welcome sequence of emails and join them together by building an automation — no further work from you required. 

(Don’t have folks to send your welcome emails to? Look back at our last post to create a landing page that will build up your email list!)

Let’s get started…

What’s a sequence?

A sequence is a series of emails that are automatically sent to a subscriber when a specific trigger is activated. That could mean someone signs up for your freebie, takes a course with you, or buys a package you sell. Whatever the trigger, it’s helpful if they then receive a predetermined sequence of messages — and having the process automated will save you untold hours. (Note: sequences and automations are only available on a paid plan.)

It can be helpful if you have an idea of how many emails you want to send, what you want them to say, and the length of time between each one.

A typical sequence for a dog trainer might look something like this:

1. Welcome
2. Valuable content that relates to why they’re on your list
3. More valuable content
4. Check-in: how can you help them further?
5. Offer your services

Here’s how you do it in Kit…

Create your welcome sequence

From your Kit* dashboard, go to “Send” and then choose “Sequences”:

You’ll be taken to your sequences library, which already has some preloaded templates to get you started:

If nothing here grabs your eye, you’ll want to create a sequence from scratch. 

Create the first message

Click “+ New sequence” to be taken to your templates library. Choose a template to start building your sequence. You’ll be taken to the email editor. You may need to toggle between the “Emails” tab and the “Styles” editor tab:

Just as you did for your broadcast email, edit the template until you’re happy with how it looks (and reads). Once you’ve checked, double checked and triple checked for typos and other errors, it’s time to set your sending schedule for your first message:

You can choose how many hours or days after your subscriber receives their previous email the current one is sent. For your first email in the sequence, sending immediately is probably a good idea so they don’t forget who you are!

Next, edit your preview text:

Make sure you give your reader a compelling reason to open your message.

Once you’re happy with everything, you can go ahead and hit the big red “publish” button at the bottom of the screen. You can unpublish at any time by toggling off the ‘publish’ slider at the top of the editor. Your emails need to be published before they go live and will be sent.

Add the rest of your emails

Now you’re familiar with the editor and how to set timing between emails, we can go ahead and add the rest of your email sequence. Click on the “Emails” tab to see this:

Go ahead and click “Add Email.” Your original email template will be re-loaded for you to create the second email in your sequence:

You can change the template if you want to — or just make edits — and write your message in the same way you did to create the first one. 

Repeat this process until you have all the emails in your sequence. Be sure to check that all your emails are published, or they won’t be sent:

And that’s it. Your welcome sequence is all ready for you to use. 

All about Automations

If you followed along in our last Kit post, you should now have a landing page for your freebie and an email sequence. So now it’s time to put them together in an automation.

What is an automation?

An automation is a series of automated events that are triggered by certain actions taken by a subscriber. At its most basic it’s something like a welcome sequence of emails that are triggered to be automatically delivered at predetermined intervals when someone signs up for your opt-in. 

Automations can be complex but for now, let’s keep it simple.

Build your automation

On your ConvertKit dashboard, click on “Automate” and then choose “Visual Automations”:

You can either build from scratch or explore the templates. I’m going to build from scratch. 

Click on the “+ New Automation” button at the top of the screen:

Choose the Empty Automation template:

Then “Start Building”:

You’ll be taken to the builder screen.

First, change the name of your automation to something descriptive so you know what it does. Then think about the event that triggers the automation to run. 

In this case we’re building a welcome automation that’s triggered when someone signs up on our landing page. So, choose “Joins a form” as your trigger. 

Then click on the dropdown list to select your landing page:

Then click “Add Event” to have the event added to your automation:

You’ll end up on the “build” screen. Click on the “+” under the first event:

And at the next step choose “Email sequence”:

Select the sequence you want to use:

And then click “Add Action”:

Your finished automation will look something like this:

Congratulations! Your automation is now ready for review and being pushed live!

Make it live

To view the details of the specific steps, just click on them. You’ll be taken to an editing screen where you can tweak and change things from within your automation — which saves a lot of switching from screen to screen.

Once you’re happy with your work, toggle the button at the top right of the screen to “live” and then hit “Turn it on!” at the popup:

Now when anyone signs up for your freebie from your landing page they’ll be added to your list and receive your automated sequence of emails — without you having to lift a finger.

You may want to test your automation by signing up for your freebie and making sure all the automation steps run smoothly. Once you’re sure everything works, share your landing page URL in your social media bios…because if no one sees it, no one can sign up on it.

What next?

That brings us to the end of our Kit series. I hope it’s inspired you to get serious about email marketing. We’ve only taken a quick tour of the very basic functionality Kit offers, but it can do so much more.

Email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective, but it can have huge benefits for your business. Why not get started today?

*This link is an affiliate link. An affiliate link is a link that is traceable, so the company you are purchasing the product from knows that I referred you to them. They then compensate us for having made the referral — but you pay the same price, or a discounted price, depending on the company.