I recently came across a retail brand and fell in love with the quirky products they offered. Being a savvy shopper (and email marketer) I signed up for their mailing list… and voila - a welcome email telling me about the brand, which I can tell expect in their future emails and, of course, a welcome discount! Perfect!
The welcome email is the first email from a company to their new family subscriber. It's not just an instant notification of successful subscription, but a great opportunity to connect with the potential customer and understand their likes or dislikes. In fact, we've found that welcome emails average 4x the open rate and 5x the click-through rate of a standard email marketing campaign. It's a powerful thing.
Be quick about it
Immediacy is the key to good welcome emails. In fact, 74% of consumers expect a welcome email as soon as they sign up. With that expectation, wouldn't you want to make the cell phone number list most of that engagement? Send a quick welcome email that guarantees subscribers a successful signup while starting a great conversation. Need more reason to be fast? Consider this: 45% of first purchases made by new subscribers happen within 24 hours of signing up.
Personalize it
We're in an era of personalization and you need to go beyond just "Hey [First Name]". When registering, ask for more information than just an email address or a first name. For example, ask for a postal code. This can be used in the welcome email via local store information (powered by dynamic content). If you don't want to collect information on the front end, use the unprecedented attention welcome emails receive to request more information in the email itself. Every additional data point you can collect can be useful in terms of list segmentation and delivering relevant content later.
Keep your promise
Keep every promise you make and only do what you can keep. If you promise a signup incentive, information, or offer, deliver it. And also keep the promises you make in the welcome email later. Any good relationship is built on trust - don't abuse yours.
Keep it simple
More than half of all emails are now opened on mobile devices. With smaller screens and even smaller attention spans, you need to make sure your welcome email is focused on welcoming the new subscriber, telling them (briefly) about your brand and stating the desired call to action. Simply put, though, you probably can't tell them everything about yourself in one email. If you want to tell your subscribers more, a series of welcome emails is a great option.
What Goes Into a Great Welcome Email Series
A series of welcome emails can do wonders for your email marketing program. Listrak tracked the email campaigns of 1,000 major retail companies and found that a series of welcome emails generated more revenue on average than a single (or no) email. welcome email.