Inside the 60-email sequence that tripled her click-through rate
With Kristin Lawton
Kristin Lawton had a problem a lot of us have: a welcome sequence that did the job, but didn’t do much else. Three to five emails, mostly about her, nothing that made people stick around.
So she rebuilt it into a 60 email choose-your-own-adventure experience. New subscribers “enter the bar” and start making choices: a base spirit, a flavour profile, a cocktail style, a garnish. Each choice unlocks a different email path. By the end, they’ve built a fully custom cocktail recipe and learned Kristin’s brand voice along the way, without it feeling like a pitch.
If someone doesn’t want to choose, they’re not left behind. They drop into a “dealer’s choice” path that delivers the same experience, just pre-selected. Engagement on that path is just as strong as the interactive one.
The result: her overall click-through rate jumped to 6% after launch, well above the typical 1.5–2.5% benchmark, with open rates and unsubscribes holding steady.
Here’s some of what the episode covers:
The tech stack running it all: Kit (ConvertKit) for automations and tagging, plus a Notion database to track which emails mention which offers
Why she built the sequence to “train her audience to click” from the very first send
Her monthly “Mixologist Playbook” — a forward-looking newsletter (not a recap) that’s consistently her best-performing email
An AI-personalised 6-month anniversary email that generates a custom cocktail using each subscriber’s first name
Her biggest email marketing mistake: a typo in her own launch-day brand tagline
The one thing in a sender name that gets her to unsubscribe on the spot
If you’ve ever wanted your welcome sequence to feel like an experience instead of an introduction, this episode is full of ideas you can steal , even if your brand has nothing to do with cocktails.
Click here to listen to this episode 👇
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Meet the Guest
If your brand had a favorite bartender, it would be Kristin Lawton.
She’s the Chief Brand Mixologist behind District Brand Bar, bottling business owners’ brilliance into signature brands that are unmistakable and the obvious choice.
With 20+ years in brand strategy, Kristin built the Signature Brand Framework to align credibility, personality, and expression into a cohesive brand system that carries the weight of your marketing. A dash of AI powers the process, training custom tools on each client’s voice so showing up feels consistent, confident, and unmistakably them.
Her ecosystem of offers, from the high-touch Signature Brand Experience to The Brand Bar subscription and AI-powered tools, ensures brands don’t just launch strong. They stay sharp.
Around here, AI is the barback. The brand is the star.
Pull up a stool.
P.S. Kristin’s “Signature Brand Marketing Style” quiz is the entry point into the whole experience take it yourself via the link in the show notes.
See you behind the scenes,
Dr. Sapphire
Email Marketing Experiments