The exact startup email funnel to get customers

Here is the exact email funnel I use to turn free users into paying customers. 4 emails. And one of them does the selling.

I will show you exactly what to write in each email, word for word, so you can just copy it.

My name is Oskar, I’ve been building startups for over 10 years and this is the funnel I used in my 2 startups.

Before we write any emails - there is one thing you need to do.
And without it, it won’t work. Imagine you have to pay €9.99 for a product before you’ve even tried it.

Would you sign-up for that?
Probably not, right?

Because you have to pay for it right away.

So, the first step is - you need to offer a free trial or a free sign-up.
And once someone signs up for the free trial, that’s when the emails start.

Our overall goal is to get people from free to paid.
And we use 4 emails for that.

Each email has one specific goal. And the first one is where many founders already make a huge mistake - including me when I started.

When I started, I had one email. A welcome email.
"Hey, thanks for signing up - glad you're here". That was it.

And guess what happened?

People signed up. They clicked around in my product, tested it for 5 minutes and then they left. They never came back. And they never upgraded.

Because I made one big mistake.

A welcome email is nice, but just saying "Glad you’re here" is not enough.
In our first email we want to show people that one feature that solves their big problem - right away.

That's called the wow moment.

Let me give you an example. Say your product is a reporting tool.
And it shows agencies how their Meta and Google ads perform - in one dashboard.

The wow moment is not the settings page. And it's not filling out a profile.
It's the second they connect their ad account and see all their numbers in the dashboard.

That's when they think, okay, this actually solves my problem. So, the job of our first email is to lead people to that moment - connect your ad account.

I will show you how to write this email word for word in a second but remember this - don't show people your 20 cool features.
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I mean, it might feel like you’re helping people, but it’s really like a tennis coach explaining spin on your forehand when you don't even know how to hold the racket. It’s just too much in the beginning.

So, the first email has one link and one action.
Let’s say Sarah runs a small agency and signed up this morning.
Send this:

Subject: You’re in! Here are your first steps

Hey Sarah,
‍
Oskar here - Thank you for signing up.
Super excited to have you here.

First thing to do:
Connect your ad account.
It takes 2 minutes, and you'll see how your Meta and Google ads perform in one dashboard right away.

[Connect your ad account]

And if you have any questions, just hit reply.
I'm happy to help.

See you inside,
Oskar

That's all. We lead to the one big thing that solves their problem - having all your ad numbers in just one dashboard. And that’s how we get people to start using our product.

Real quick - I built a cheat sheet with all 4 emails, so you can just copy and paste them. You can get it right here:

Now, two days after email 1 we send email 2. This one is key.
Most founders skip this and it’s a big reason why nobody upgrades.

In email two, we build trust.

Wait, what?
We’re not hard-selling our stuff or offering 90% discounts for three months? No. We’re just building trust.

Now, early on you don't have case studies.
And you don't have ten happy customers who could give you a testimonial. But you have something nobody else has: The reason you built this.

So, tell people why you built this product and what the problem actually cost you. And then you simply link to the same big feature as in email 1.
Send this:

Subject: Why I built [product]

Hey Sarah,

When I started running ads for clients, I always had to log into 2 different dashboards. Every week I spent 5 hours pulling numbers out of Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads just to find out which ads worked.

I remember one month I spent €2K on ads that didn't work - and I only noticed weeks later.

That's actually the reason I built [product].

You can connect all your ad accounts and see exactly which ad works and which one you need to change. It takes just 2 minutes:

[Connect your ad account]

Best regards,
Oskar

Email 3. You send it 4 days after email 2.
By now people have seen your product. And they know it's free.
Thing is, if free does the job, they have no reason to pay.

So, in email 3, we show them what they’re missing.
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But just like before, we don’t list every cool feature we have built.
We pick a second big feature - that solves a second big problem they have - and we show how it helps. That’s important. We don’t show what it is - we show what it does. Send this:

Subject: Send reports to your clients automatically [show benefit]

Hey Sarah,

I know it can be tedious to send your reports manually to your clients every week. That’s what the Pro plan is for.

You simply connect your client once and it sends them a performance report every Monday - automatically. So, you don’t have to build your reports by hand every week.

If you want to save a couple of hours every week, you can upgrade to the Pro plan right here:

[Upgrade to Pro]

Best regards,
Oskar

One benefit. One link. We keep it simple. And I like to add a number to it. Like, you save €X or X hours per week. If people like your product and this benefit right here is strong enough, they will upgrade.

But if they don’t, email 4 does the selling.

Most of the time, there are 2 reasons why people haven’t upgraded by now:

1. They forgot about you
2. Something is holding them back

This email handles both.

You let them try your pro plan without risk, and you ask what's holding them back. I like to give people 7 days of Pro for free. That's enough time so they can actually use it, and it costs you almost nothing.

So, if they have not upgraded yet, send this email 3 days after email 3.
But remember - only if they have not upgraded yet. If you send "I noticed you haven't upgraded yet" and someone already paid, that’s embarrassing.

The subject line is just: What happened? And I really like this one because it reads like a message from a person, not a campaign - and it worked really well for me.

Subject: What happened?

Hi Sarah,

I noticed you haven’t upgraded yet.
If you’re unsure if [your product] is right for you, I’d like to give you 7 days of Pro for free. Just use the code TRY-PRO to give it a try.

You can start right here:
[Try Pro for free]

And if you're still not sure, I would love to know what’s holding you back.
Just hit reply and let me know.

Best regards,
Oskar

Now you have four emails.

1. You lead people to the big feature
2. You build trust
3. You show a second big feature
4. You ask for the upgrade

But what do you do if still nobody upgrades?
Well, you improve your emails.

You basically track a couple of metrics, update one email at a time, and see if it worked. But here is the important part:

Don't track open rates.

Apple Mail changed a couple of privacy settings so your open rate isn’t reliable any more. Rather track what each email is supposed to do.

• For email 1, that's how many people clicked the link in the email and got to that wow moment.
• For email 2, same.
• For email 3, how many upgrade to Pro.
• For email 4, how many people upgrade and how many reply.

Oh - and one more thing - I was chasing random numbers for far too long. So don’t Google "What is a good email click through rate for my startup?".

It’s always better to create your own benchmark.
I mean, it´s your product, your users, and your numbers.

So, track your own numbers for 3 weeks. That's your baseline.
Then find the weakest email and fix that one. Only that one.

And then, track again.

When I started, I sent one welcome email. And nobody upgraded.
So, use those 4 emails instead. And then just measure.

Now, if you want help with all of that - check out my startup mastermind.

I’ll help you write those emails so they fit your startup. Plus, you’ll get personal coaching from me and you can talk to other founders to see what worked for them. You can join here: