Hey everyone!

This is The Steal Club, a newsletter for creative entrepreneurs.

We share weekly lessons, strategies, frameworks, and templates to grow your audience and business. “Stolen” from the best creators in the industry.

You might notice some design changes compared with the previous email. I just switched from ESP and I'm tinkering with how this looks.

Any feedback will be more than welcome!

Time to read: 3 minutes, 24 seconds

This issue is brought to you by

From 5 replies a week to 10 replies a day

I used to get 5 replies a week to my welcome email (if lucky).

Now I get 5-10 a day.

All it took was making 5 little changes to my welcome email.

In this Steal Club issue, you'll learn what these changes are, why they work, and who I stole them from. But if you are in a rush, here's the full welcome email so you can steal it right now:

Why does a welcome email matter?

Building an audience on social media is like constructing a building on rented grounds. It’s fine until the landlord (aka Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…) decides to kick you out.

No one can kick you out from email, though.

That said, a Welcome email is a must-have if you are building an email list.

There are a few reasons why you want to have a good Welcome email:

• It’s the first impression that people get from you
• It allows you to build a 1:1 connection with your audience
• If you get replies, it’s a good signal for email providers that your emails are legit

I was making two main mistakes with my Welcome email before:

• Too many asks (people feel overwhelmed)
• Too many links (people have TOO many choices)

Links to my products, links to past issues, too many questions about the reader…

It was cluttered.

Below are the five changes I made (of course, stolen from other creators).

#1 Action-oriented subject line

This is important because it lets the receiver know there’s something to do with that email.

In my case, I use "Welcome! (response needed)" 👇

“Response needed? Why? Let’s open and find out.”

This is what goes through your audience's mind 👆

#2 Give context on what to expect

The first part of the email tells the audience what to expect from my future emails.

It's also written in a way that makes it about them, not me.

#3 Made it easy to read

The email is formatted in a way that makes it easy to read. For example, it has bullet points and a ton of white space.

Before continuing to the last two points, a brief message by one of our sponsors:

#4 Reduced the friction to reply

The second half of the email focuses only on getting the audience's reply.

You can do that by handling their objections ("takes only 30 secs") and giving them prompts to reply to.

#5 "Do things that don't scale"

If they aren't sold by now on replying, they will be after this line.

I offer to help them directly with one concrete suggestion. It's free, no strings attached, 1:1 access to me.

I hope that this helps turn them into an engaged subscriber in the future.

These changes have been insanely valuable. I'm not after replies just because.

These replies are nuggets of gold. Inside each is a problem that someone in my target audience is facing.

That's idea, content, product, and service fuel.

What else could you ask as a creator?

💰The stash

[NEWSLETTER] Understand why people buy stuff in 3 minutes a week. One of my favorite marketing newsletters. Check it out!​

[THREAD] Really cool story from a Standford business class​

[FREE WEBINAR] My friend Kevon is running a free, live, 2-day bootcamp on developing a crystal-clear show-your-work strategy that leads to consistent audience growth. It's happening on the 27-28 of September. Last chance to Sign up!​

Note: some of these links are affiliate links. That means no extra cost for you, but it helps support this newsletter. I only promote things I've used and trust.

And that's it for today!

How did you find this week's email?

• ​👍 Worth it​
• ​😐 Meh - was ok.​
• ​👎 Not interesting to me​

Thanks for being part of the club!

Alex Llull Thief Master The Steal Club Share this newsletter | Say 👋 on Twitter | Sponsor this newsletter

PS: I'm putting together a live workshop around "Time management for creators: how to create a sustainable creative schedule to make content" (title is work in progress).

If you are interested on learning how to develop a regular and consistent content schedule, batching content and developing a sustainable posting system, reply to this email with the word "Time" and I'll send you more info!