
Last updated on
April 6, 2023
With an ROI of 4200%, email marketing has become the go-to method of increasing leads and sales for businesses. The main aim of marketing emails is to coerce potential leads into subscribing to your newsletter or providing them with information on your products or services.
Therefore, whenever a new person subscribes to your newsletter, it is essential to build a relationship with them. And welcome emails are the first step to that end. 73% of senior marketers say that emails are the best way to build and foster relationships with people on your email list.
First impressions are always important. Therefore, making a good one is critical if you want your subscriber list to grow or your products to sell more. A welcome message that can capture the attention of your prospects is what you should aim for when making that first impression.
A welcome email is anything but generic. Words, when carefully crafted, can help avoid spam trigger words. Thus, well-drafted welcome emails can charm prospects and make sure that they stick around long enough to get to the end of the sales funnel.
A welcome email is the first email sent to new subscribers of newsletters and blogs or to product buyers. They are sent to establish a relationship with the new subscribers. Welcome emails can be used to deliver special offers and videos, or they can be used to say hello to the subscribers.
Leaving a lasting impression on anyone can help them remember you, whether a friendly gesture or a smile. Welcome emails do the same. Whenever a person subscribes to your blog, newsletter, or visits your eCommerce store for the first time, you must welcome them with personalized and eye-popping welcome emails.
These emails can include a simple hello, a thank you or specific offers related to the products bought or viewed by the customer. Also, you can impart your brand's values to your subscribers and customers using your welcome messages to tell how you started your brand and what values and principles your brand stands for.
Welcome emails have the highest open rate of 91.43% and a click-through rate of 26.90%, which is 4x higher than any other form of marketing email.
Research revealed that 76% of subscribers expect welcome emails after a subscription. Moreover, users engage 33% higher with a brand that sends welcome emails.
With the importance of welcome emails established, let's check what benefits you can reap by sending these emails.
Welcome emails with compelling and personalized subject lines, high-quality content, and a clear CTA are more effective in increasing customer engagement with your emails. Welcome emails are 86% more effective than newsletters. Moreover, this allows businesses to engage with their customers quickly and coerce them to act.
With welcome email campaigns, businesses don’t have to write emails to prospects, which is time-consuming. With a series of welcome emails, they can send emails with one click and get done with it.
Welcome email series reduce time and provide businesses with total control over which campaigns to send to their customers and subscribers. With an automated welcome email campaign, they can welcome hundreds of leads and guide them to the next stage of the campaign.
When prospects receive welcome emails in their inbox with clear and eye-catching subject lines, interesting content recommendations, and clear CTAs, the chance of such an email going into the spam folder is reduced significantly. Moreover, the unsubscribe rate decreases when recipients receive emails that contain appreciative gestures like a thank you note or “welcome to the community, John.”
Welcome emails are all about forging relationships and inducing loyalty among the recipients. Therefore, with a perfect welcome message consisting of engaging subject lines like, “welcome aboard, Anna,” Anna will feel a sense of belonging and remain with the brand that sent the message.
Interaction is vital when it comes to fostering customer loyalty. By providing opportunities to interact with the company, like linking social media pages to your welcome emails, customers will start to feel that their favorite brand cares about them.
For a welcome email series to have the desired effect and results, the following components should form the cornerstone of your welcome emails.
Make the subject lines short and to the point. Moreover, make it clear who the email is from. Also, adding words like sale, news, bulletin, and video has been shown to increase open rate and click-through rates.
Making the content of your welcome emails highly engaging can significantly improve click-through rates. Also, by adding links to exciting content on your website in your emails, you can keep the customers interested in your brand.
Make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Welcome emails that come into the inbox with personalized offers based on the customers' information can help drive interest and educate the customers about your products and services.
A clear and precise call to action is a cornerstone of an influential welcome email series. With a well-placed CTA, you can drive prospects towards exploring your products and services more.
Provide your leads a chance to opt out if they aren’t interested in hearing from you. Make unsubscribe options a part of your emails. This way, you can allow prospects to control how much they want to interact with you. Provide an unsubscribe button at the footer of the email. Also, you can ask for feedback on what made them unsubscribe.
Certain welcome emails are known to drive customer engagement. They are as follows:
People who have subscribed to your newsletter or your blog will want an immediate response from your side. You can send a short hello email with warm greetings to introduce yourself or your brand to prospects. Also, it can include offers for first-time subscribers.
After subscribing to your blogs or newsletters, a get started email can help guide your prospects on how they can begin their journey with you. The emails should show them what your brand is all about and how it can add value to your life.
Welcome emails bearing new offers like an additional discount code of 10% and a buy one get one free offer; enjoy a high open-rate and click-through rate. Also, the inclusion of invitations to events drives higher user engagement. Also, welcome emails are a great way of showcasing your product lineup to prospects.
Customer appreciation should be a part of your email marketing strategy. When a new user signs up, send an email to thank them for their interest in your products. It can help nurture them towards purchase completion.
Some examples illustrate how to write and send the most compelling and engaging welcome emails. These are the following:
The welcome email from Upworthy is an excellent example of an initial hello email. Minimalist in design and style, it does a great job of enticing the reader into exploring more of its services.
Lyft, with its email marketing campaign, does a fantastic job of acclimatizing its customers on how to use its services.
Birchbox is telling the first-time user the basics of their subscription. Moreover, the email also contains a call to action button that allows the user to explore more.
If you want to include offers in your emails, look at what RXBAR has included in their welcome email. The call to action button is visible, and the content is engaging.
Kate Spade’s thank you emails also include offers and discounts. It is a great way to allow first-time users to engage with their emails and get to know more about the products being offered.
Ambercrombie & Fitch does a decent job reaching out to its customers, whenever they buy from their stores online. The content is to the point and communicates the messages perfectly.
Whistlefish uses a minimalist yet highly creative email design to onboard its customers by offering discounts on its products on Easter. The Easter email theme also is a contributing factor to driving engagement.
Fitbit sets the expectations of subscribers looking to make themselves healthy with a get started email. It offers a step-by-step guide on how you can make the most out of their plans.
Nuage's welcoming emails have a simplistic design that does the job. The email tells the prospect what they can expect and provides them a link to the login site.
Six Things welcomes new prospects and informs them of the company's mission in its first emails. Also, after signing up, they offer to keep the opportunity up-to-date on new developments.
Welcome emails from Curology guide the prospects about what they will be receiving when they become their customers. For further engagement, they have also linked their social media handles.
Funfit has done a great job of writing welcome emails. Their email offers promo codes and guides the prospects about their reward system.
Hims uses a minimalistic design for its welcome emails, but it is enough to send the message. Customers are notified about their inclusion in the email list.
Casper is a mattress company with beautifully designed welcome emails. The copy of the email perfectly aligns with the design originality. Casper offers a 100-night free trial of its products. Also, the CTA’s are well thought out.
Evernote keeps it simple, precise, and to the point. Their email doesn’t beat around the bush and tells the prospect how you can use Evernote for better note-taking. According to research, human attention spans are short, i.e., 11 seconds. Therefore, keep things clear and concise in your welcome email series.
Headspace uses a unique animation style to craft its brand identity. Moreover, they have provided all the information on how to sign up for their services. Furthermore, they have used a strong lead magnet, the 10-day free beginner's course.
Glossier’s welcome email is an excellent example of how to make initial contact with your prospects. It is a perfect email to send to people interested in skincare and beauty products. A CTA is used after the email copy to allow the customers to explore the brand more.
Hello Print’s welcome emails are a perfect example of how to acclimate your prospects to your brand's workings. Also, introducing the customer support service team is a great way to make your customers feel welcomed and appreciated with any query.
Starbuck - the biggest coffee company globally, also has strategically planned its welcome emails. Their emails are simplistic and minimalistic in design. Moreover, they highlight all of their services as well and provide social media information as well.
John Lewis welcome’s its prospective customers using highly minimalistic designed emails. The emails offer information on new products and newsletters. Also, CTAs are placed at the top and the bottom of the email.
The thank you email from M&S is the perfect promotion. It includes all of their service features. The CTAs are rightly placed, and all the social media information is also displayed.
CB2’s hello emails give the prospect information regarding their expectations, including product announcements, special offers, and exclusive deals.
Michael's offer email is a great example to learn from. It appreciates the subscriber for subscribing, but it also highlights the brand's many offers and has a clear CTA.
From Claire’s welcome email we can learn how effectively the CTAs have been placed to guide the subscriber to visit the store. Also, the email touches upon offers that the brand will share in the future.
Walmart does an excellent job of highlighting the ongoing Christmas sale in its welcome email. The clear CTA “Shop all specials” will help in conversions.
Mari Smith’s thank you email is an excellent example of giving the prospects the option to unsubscribe from the newsletter if they don’t find it interesting. Also, a link is attached to the Facebook page for prospects to reach out.
Wisitia’s hello email is precise and to the point and highlights exactly what the company is all about.
Zocdoc onboarding email is interesting as icons are used to highlight the features of their services.
Steven Alan’s welcome email is extremely minimalistic in design. Also, a link to the brand’s Instagram is also attached at the bottom.
When forming an email marketing strategy, the welcome emails are the essential part of your email series, for they make the first contact. Therefore, you can write highly engaging welcome messages by following the steps.
Your emails should set the expectations of your prospects. They should become aware of what your brand is about and how it can meet their needs and exceed their expectations.
According to research, 91.43% of welcome emails are opened, and only about 23% of them are read. If your email doesn’t have a catchy subject line, it’s more than likely that your prospects won’t open the email.
Use concise subject lines, i.e., two to three sentences. Moreover, include relevant information in your subject lines, what you promote, and how it can benefit your customers.
And if you do not see desired results, conduct A/B testing to determine which subject lines are producing the best results.
The next step is to introduce yourself and your company to your prospects. You tell the prospects what your company is all about, what kind of products or services you offer, and how your company can provide value to your lives.
After introducing your company and yourself, tell them your brand story. When did the company start? What was the motivation behind starting your company? What is the mission and vision of your company, and how can new customers contribute to that?
Add video greetings in your email body. A video can increase engagement with your emails, for including a video will be considered a personal touch by your customers. Moreover, you can get your message through more effectively with a video greeting.
It is not a bad idea to keep your customers reminded about your products and services, and it can clarify the ambiguities if there are any. The benefit of showcasing your value proposition is that it reassures customers that they have made the right choice.
Moreover, it also allows you to showcase any ancillary products or services you might have.
A straightforward onboarding is necessary so that the customer gets familiar with what kind of services or products you sell. Ensure that all the onboarding process stages are completed, such as subscribing and profile making. You can guide the prospect through the entire onboarding process via your welcome emails.
You got your prospects to read your emails. Now, guide them to sign up for your blog. You can do this by listing out all the onboarding steps. These could include:
Showcasing the products and services is essential as it can help make your customers and prospects make an informed decision. You can also offer discounts to make the products and services more attractive.
Don’t send out generic email series and expect conversions. Personalized emails are the way forward to increase lead generation and sales.
A personalized email can induce a feeling of warmth and care in your prospects. And will make them think that their favorite brand cares about them.
How can you expect to convert a lead into a sale without adding a call to action? After a well-written email, a well-placed call to action helps prospects go to the next step of the sales funnel.
You must provide customer service information at the end of your emails. It will allow the prospects to engage directly with your business if they become interested. This way, you can quickly bring the prospects to the end of the sales funnel.
In your initial onboarding emails, you can offer prospects deals to entice them to check out and buy products. This way, prospects will explore your products and services more.
You want the user to see the value immediately in your products or services. You can share more helpful content, answer FAQs, or share tutorials regarding your product’s advanced features.
A coupon or access to free content as a welcome gift will help you nurture the prospects effectively and bring them to the end of the sales funnel.
Some of the best practices that you can incorporate into your email marketing strategy and ensure that your welcome emails become a success are:
Don’t wait days after someone signs up for your blog or webinar. Send them the welcome email immediately, and make sure that it is personalized. This way, you can impress the prospect with your efficiency and care.
Don’t just send a single email and think you are done with it. You are not! Sending a welcome email series is the best way to keep your prospects interested in your products and services. A welcome drip campaign can help automate the system. Therefore, saving you from manually sending the entire series.
Don’t use blurred-out and pixelated images in your promotional emails. This will put off the prospects from opening your emails again. Make use of high-quality images in your emails. This way, your prospects will get clear and concise information that can help them convert.
Four out of ten emails are opened on a mobile. Therefore, making welcome emails mobile-friendly is essential. Use images that can open on mobile phones and aren’t blurred out. Make sure that the content is written in a readable font and format.
Provide the links to your social media accounts so that the prospects can engage with you. Moreover, you can also provide customer support information in your emails. The customer service team will promptly address any issues your customer might be struggling with.
Email campaigns need captivating subject lines to succeed. Personalized subject lines and subject lines with emojis are known to have a high open rate. If you are confused about how to devise compelling subject lines, then here are some engaging welcome email subject lines that you can use in your emails.
Content copy for the email and landing pages share one similarity. Both are simple and to the point. The three basic email templates you can use for sending welcome emails are:
Building trust with your prospects is crucial before pushing for the sale. Therefore, according to ActiveCampaign, you should send 4-6 welcome emails and then analyze whether the prospect is interested in purchasing from you or not.
At the beginning of the month, welcome emails enjoy a high open rate. When it comes to the day of the week then, Thursday is the best day to send welcome emails. Similarly, early morning emails, at 8 AM to be specific, enjoy a high open rate, while those sent at 5 PM enjoy a high click rate.
Welcome emails are an essential part of email marketing. They are the first emails to be sent, these emails should be personalized for each customer, and they should have enticing subject lines and high-quality and engaging content. With your content, you should set the expectation of your customers, tell your brand’s origin story, add a video greetings message, and educate the customers about your brand's message.
Tags:
Hamna Abid
August 23, 2023
Hamna Abid
August 9, 2023
Hamna Abid
August 6, 2023