There’s a big possibility that the very first email you send to your new subscribers is sabotaging everything you’re trying to achieve with your email marketing. This may sound like a bold claim, but it’s true.

The email that delivers a freebie to someone who signs up on your list is one of the most important you’ll ever send. For one, it has the highest chance of getting read. So if you don’t use that email wisely, you’re making a big mistake.

The most common mistake people make when sending their very first email is simply saying, “Hey, here’s your freebie you wanted to download” and that’s it.

So what should you do instead?

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Be Intentional About Your Emails

It’s crucial to be intentional about the emails you send. This doesn’t mean you have to be overly tactical or strategic, but it’s something you need to be thinking about.

Every email you send to your audience is training them either to expect that you’ll provide value or you won’t. That means you could unwittingly be teaching them to expect that your emails are gonna be boring and should be ignored.

When you’re intentional, you’re gonna start the relationship with your audience on the right foot. Your very first email is an opportunity to begin the process of building a relationship and the know, like, trust factor.

As you write your first email, you want to focus on connection and avoid bragging about yourself and giving them a list of your credentials. 

What you want to do is establish that you’re someone they should be listening to, and you do this by showing them that you’re someone who understands them. That’s where my CATCH framework comes in handy.

The C-A-T-C-H Structure

Before you freak out about what to write in your first email, I’ve got you covered. I even created a framework to make it simple.

Congratulate

This one is simple. Congratulate them on downloading the freebie. Just say, “Hey, congrats on grabbing [the freebie].” And then put the link there. This offers a straightforward way to welcome them and give them the thing they asked for.

Acknowledge Their Frustration

This is the next step where you start to go deeper. In this phase, you’re acknowledging the struggle they face. You’re trying to make them believe that you understand their pain and that you’re gonna help them.

When people sense that you feel their pain and struggles, it positions you as someone they want to listen to. So when you’re acknowledging their frustration, you’re setting up this kind of empathetic feeling.

When you’re able to describe their frustrations, they feel your empathy and understanding of what they’re going through. For them, you become a trusted guide who can provide solutions.

This Tells Me About You

This means that you’re gonna make a big deal of them downloading the freebie and that downloading your freebie tells you something about them. Hint: it tells you that they’re among those who are headed toward success in whatever it is you help them with.

Acknowledging the pain relates to this because you’re saying, “The fact that you downloaded this freebie tells me that you’re one of the people who can overcome that challenge.” So you need to be able to tie it in and explain why.

Credibility

This is where you quickly talk about why they should listen to you. It’s also where you can add some personality to your message. You can mention your credentials and some interests, whether you’re into beer brewing or pop culture, and maybe even crack some bad dad jokes.

Just make it quick and don’t spend a lot of time here. People don’t want to hear you bragging about yourself. Just give them a reason to say, “Hey, here’s someone I should trust.”

Hook

The last piece of the structure is a hook to the next email. So if everyone is going to get the same next email, you should put a hook in that will make them want to read it.

In the last section of your email, you’ll add a line about what topic your next email will have. For example, one of the hooks I used is about the time my wife sent me an unusual text, and so my CATCH email said: “In my next email, I’m going to tell you how I managed to stay married, even after my wife texted me: ‘Why are you sending me pictures of you with random women?’”

When you do that, people are gonna be curious and will want to see what this is about.

Time To Write A Better Email

So that’s the plan for the first email you’ll send your subscribers. Again, congratulate them on taking action, acknowledge their struggles and pains, talk about what it tells you about them, credibility boost, and hook to the next email.

There are other sequences or types of emails that you’re going to need to send to your list in your email marketing journey. If you want to learn about the rest, I have a completely free program called BADA$$ Email Marketing, which is inside my totally FREE program, BADA$$ Online Marketing University (BOMU).