Hey everyone! Nicole here with one last MailChimp tutorial for you: creating your welcome automation.

(Not quite ready for this step? Start here.)

If you’ve been following along on this series, you’ve already made a MailChimp account, set up your email list, and put together a download incentive that folks receive when they sign up.

This is great for getting folks to join your list — but why stop there?

What’s going to keep them engaged once they’ve grabbed your freebie?

That’s where your welcome automation comes in.*

*Note: this option is only available for paid MailChimp subscribers. Read along below and see what it involves before deciding to make the upgrade — we happen to think automations are totally worth it!

What’s a Welcome Automation?

We’ve previously talked about welcome emails — these are what you use to hook readers in once they sign up for your list.

And it’s not enough to just have one email. A series of emails can help establish you as a trusted source.

So the first step here is to write out your welcome series. We recommend a series that follows roughly this order:

• Share your freebie
• Share more resources
• Check in
• Offer your services

(Having trouble getting started? You can go ahead and steal these templates.)

You might be thinking: wait, do I have to remember to send all of these??

Great news for you: the answer is no!

By using an email marketing platform, you can actually outsource the work of sending all those emails out. So you can set it… and forget it! Your marketing platform will do all the work for you after that.

And there you have it: your welcome automation is ready to go.

So now that you have all your emails written out, how do you actually go about setting them up? Let’s walk through creating an automation together.

How to Create an Automation in MailChimp

For this, I went ahead and recorded some instructions to help get you set up. Watch the video below:

Go Forth and Newsletter!

Now new subscribers will receive your automation and your regular newsletter. You’ve officially graduated from email marketing 101.

Well done!

(Now just make sure you’re using best practices to send your best newsletters ever.)

And I hope you’re feeling inspired to keep learning how to optimize your email marketing! There are plenty of other ways you can take advantage of automations — Here are some ideas to get you started.