How to Write an Outstanding Welcome Email

| 3 minutes read

Welcome emails have some of the highest open rates of any type of marketing email, and represent a huge opportunity for email marketers. And yet so many marketers simply send a ‘thank you for subscribing’ message with a copy of their privacy policy and leave it at that. If you are one of them, you’re missing one of your best chances to convert them into both buyers and regular readers. Take a look at the message you are currently sending out, and if it looks a little sparse, consider re-writing it to include:

A Thank You

Though your welcome email shouldn’t consist entirely of a ‘thanks,’ it does need to incorporate a thank you somewhere near the beginning. Remember you subscribers are doing you a favor by opening up a channel for you to market your business, so you need to be grateful for the opportunity. Show a little appreciation and get things started on the right foot.

Personalization

Some smaller marketers send out the same emails to all of their subscribers, but what if a portion of those readers only want to hear about sales and specials? Or just want an update when you post something new? If you flood their inbox with every, single email you send out, they are going to stop reading your emails. Give new subscribers the chance to opt out of certain types of messages – that way unsubscribing isn’t an all or nothing option.

Reminders

First, remind them how they subscribed in the first place – it may seem silly, but some people just don’t remember checking that little ‘subscribe’ box on your site, or giving their email to a sales clerk. Something as simple as ‘thanks for subscribing with your last order’ will remind them that they actually wanted emails from you, which helps with the next reminder; adding you to their safe senders list. A lot of people don’t do this because it requires that they actively green-list your email from the spam filter, but if they remember exactly why or how they subscribed, they are more likely to make the effort.

A Way to Catch Up

Chances are good that you probably have a solid backlog of past content, so if you’d like to generate traffic to your blog and site, use the welcome email to feature some of your most popular articles. If your subscribers like what they see, they’ll happily continue to read any future articles you might plug. You can also take this opportunity to catch them up on any sales or deals that started before they subscribed. This will help your conversion rate and ensure that they perceive your marketing messages as a valuable source of information, rather than simple advertisements.

Call-to-action

Finally, remember to include some sort of call-to-action somewhere in the email, or a link to a landing page with an effective CTA. CTAs need to clearly deliver some sort of value and inspire urgency, without relying on cheap ‘car-salesman’ gimmicks and phrases like ‘Act Now, Supplies are Limited.’ A landing page with a countdown clock will, for example, inspire urgency without making your subscribes feel like you are trying to con them into buying something.

Conclusion

A welcome email should be exactly what the name entails – welcoming. Be warm, friendly, grateful, and helpful. You wouldn’t immediately rush a customer that walked through your doors to tell them what they should buy and do, would you? If you did, they’d turn right around and never come back. Your welcome email sets the tone for the relationship between marketer and subscriber. If written properly, your metrics can drastically improve. But, if you don’t put much thought into them, don’t expect your subscribers to stick around for long.

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