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Most email marketing advice was written for selling one-time offers. A course, a service, a product. Someone lands on your list, you nurture them, you pitch, they buy or they don’t. That’s the whole arc. But membership email sequences don’t work like that, and the way you build them shouldn’t either.
Why I Care About Membership Email Sequences
Before I started my business in 2016, I spent several years as the Director of Marketing for an e-commerce brand, where I was in charge of emails, social media, and paid advertising. That’s when it really clicked for me that for an online business, everything ultimately comes back to your email list.
Social media is great. Ads are great. Collabs are great. But if you’re not getting people onto your list and then actually doing something with that list, you’re making it a lot harder to sell to them!
So before I even launched my business, I started building an email list. A few months later I had around 1,500 people who had downloaded a set of free stock photos, and I pitched them on a stock photo membership called Styled Stock Society. I pre-sold it in 48 hours with no website, and no membership portal. Just an email, a checkout link, and a Dropbox folder.
That was almost a decade ago, and the vast majority of the 10,000+ members we’ve welcomed into Styled Stock Society over the past decade have joined via email. Not because I’m showing up to sell every day, but because I have an evergreen email funnel running in the background that sells even when I’m not.
Beyond my own membership, I’ve spent a lot of time auditing membership email sequences for other membership owners, so what I’m sharing here isn’t just what works for me. It’s what I’ve seen work and not work across a lot of different memberships.
There are a few things about building membership email sequences that are worth understanding before you write a single word.
The Lead Magnet That Brings People in Matters (A Lot)
Getting the right people onto your list is step one, but most lead magnet advice is generic. It tells you to create something valuable, which isn’t wrong. But “valuable” isn’t the same as “right for your membership.”
A freebie that works really well for a content library membership is going to fall flat for a coaching membership, and vice versa. When the lead magnet doesn’t match the membership type, you end up with a list full of people who liked the freebie but never quite understood what your membership was for. And no email sequence is going to fix that.
The type of lead magnet you create should reflect how your membership is actually structured.
So for example, if you have a resource-based membership like mine, where members pay for access to a library of content or assets, your lead magnet should give people a sample of what’s inside. Not a vague preview. An actual taste of the quality and format of what they’d be getting access to. That way, when they’re in your sales funnel, they’re not starting from zero, they already have a sense of what they’re buying!
But if you have a community-based membership where people are really buying connection and belonging, a static download like a pdf or template isn’t going to do that same job. You’re going to want something more experiential — a live event, a pop-up community, a challenge — something that lets them feel the energy of your membership before they commit.
And if you have a coaching or education-based membership where people are buying your expertise and some kind of ongoing transformation, your freebie should give them a quick win that’s a sample of how you think or teach. Something that helps them decide if you’re the right person who can help them.
When the lead magnet is right, the people who download it are already a fit before they ever see your sales page. They get the freebie, they immediately think “this is exactly what I needed,” and joining makes more sense.
Your lead magnet determines who comes into your funnel. Getting that alignment right is step one, before you ever send an email.
Why Selling a Membership Requires Different Messaging
Most offers solve a problem, but a membership solves an ongoing problem. That difference changes how you sell it, and the specific messaging in your membership email sequences.
When someone is considering joining a membership, they’re not just asking “is this worth it?” They’re asking “is this something I would keep paying for?” Those are fundamentally different questions. Your emails can’t just make a case that your offer is valuable, they need to make a compelling case for why ongoing access / support / education / etc. is worth the recurring commitment.
That’s a harder case to make, and it requires a different approach than what most email experts teach, because most email marketing strategy wasn’t created with memberships in mind.
When I talk about email marketing, I’m not talking about your weekly newsletter or the “hey, quick update” kind of emails. Those are fine, but what I really get excited about is about email automation — the sequences that run in the background, bring new people in, welcome them properly, re-engage members who’ve gone quiet, and generally keep things moving without you having to be constantly on.
The Sale Doesn’t End When Someone Joins
Membership growth is a cycle, not a straight line.
Yes, you’re selling to prospective members, but you’re also selling to your current members on the value of staying, on upgrading, and on coming back if they leave. All of that can be automated! That’s why a single welcome sequence isn’t enough, and why the most effective membership email sequences work as a full stack, not a single automation.
Here’s what that membership email sales system actually looks like:
- A main sales sequence for new subscribers, which converts the people who just downloaded your freebie into members
- A nurture sequence for colder traffic who need a little more before they’re ready to buy
- An onboarding sequence designed for retention, not just logistics. Keeping members is a sales strategy, and recurring revenue depends on it.
- A campaign sequence for promos and time-sensitive offers
- An upgrade or upsell sequence, because your current members are your best buyers and most membership owners aren’t selling to them nearly enough
- A cancellation / win-back sequence, because people leave for all kinds of reasons and the right sequence can bring the right ones back months later
Most membership owners have maybe one or two of these in place. The rest are either missing entirely or an afterthought. And the gap between “has one sequence” and “has a full sales system” is usually the gap between inconsistent membership sales and sales happening every single day!
Where to Start With Your Membership Email Sequences
If you’re reading this and realizing your membership sequences have some gaps, start with your primary sales sequence. That’s the one doing the most work (or not doing it). Get that built and converting first, then layer in the rest.
The goal is an evergreen email funnel that handles conversion, onboarding, retention, and re-engagement, so your membership keeps growing without you having to be constantly on. That’s what makes recurring revenue actually feel easier!
If you listened to this and thought, ok that’s me “I don’t have a sales sequence yet” or maybe you have one but you know it needs work and you just keep putting it off. Join us in Always Selling.