Most welcome sequences tell people about you. Kristin Lawton's welcome sequence lets people build something with you.
Kristin,Chief Brand Mixologist at District Brand Bar, with 20+ years in brand strategy across politics, PR, and nonprofit communications built a 60-email choose-your-own-adventure welcome series where new subscribers "enter the bar," pick a base spirit, flavour, cocktail style, and garnish, and land on a fully custom cocktail recipe by the end.
It sounds like a lot of email. It is a lot of email. But her overall click-through rate jumped to 6% after launch , nearly triple what most lists see without any increase in unsubscribes.
In this episode, she walks through exactly how it's built, what happens when subscribers don't want to play along, and how anyone (not just a cocktail-themed brand) can build something similar.
INSIDE THIS EPISODE
1. Why Kristin built her welcome sequence as an interactive "choose your own adventure" instead of a standard intro series
2.How subscribers' choices (base spirit, flavour, style, garnish) route them down different email paths
3.The "dealer's choice" fallback for subscribers who never make a choice and why it performs just as well
4. The tech stack behind it: Kit (ConvertKit), a Notion tracking database, and heavy use of tagging across dozens of small automations
5. Why she rebuilt her welcome series to "train her audience to click" from the very first email
7. The results: a 6% overall click-through rate post-launch, with open rates and unsubscribes unchanged
8. Her monthly "Mixologist Playbook" newsletter designed to look forward instead of recapping the past
9. An AI-personalised 6-month anniversary email that generates each subscriber a custom cocktail using their first name
10. The email marketing myth she wants to bust: sending just to send is not the same as staying consistent
GUEST RESOURCES
Guest: Kristin Lawton, Chief Brand Mixologist at District Brand Bar
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/districtbrandbar/
Website: districtbrandbar.com/hello
My Quiz: What's Your Signature Brand Marketing Style:
https://districtbrandbar.com/quiz
EPISODE TIMELINE ⏱️
[03:34] – Kristin's path from politics, PR, and nonprofit communications into brand strategy
[05:30] – Building an off-grid cabin during the pandemic (and why she's banned from driving the tractor)
[08:20] – Kristin's "job description" for email marketing: keep them ordering another round
[09:45] – Her biggest email marketing mistake: a typo in her own brand tagline, sent to her whole list
[12:50] – Inside the Choose Your Own Adventure welcome series and how it works
[15:48] – The tech behind it: Kit, Notion, and layers of tagging automations
[16:43] – How her DISC-based brand style quiz feeds into the sequence
[18:44] – Why she scrapped her standard 3–5 email welcome series for something more immersive
[22:10] – What happens when subscribers don't make a choice: the dealer's choice path
[25:55] – The results: click-through rates jumped to 6% overall after launch
[30:39] – How the dealer's choice sequence works on the backend for non-responders
[31:51] – Her advice for building a choose-your-own-adventure sequence, even without a themed brand
[35:42] – The monthly "Mixologist Playbook" newsletter and why it looks forward, not back
[40:55] – The AI-personalised 6-month anniversary email that builds a custom cocktail from a subscriber's name
[46:02] – A common mistake someone who's just starting out can make when using this strategy
[51:41] – The email marketing myth she wants to bust, and the sender-name mistake that's an instant unsubscribe
[53:51] – Rapid fire: long vs. short emails, open vs. click rates, branded vs. plain-text design
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