Subscribers who receive welcome emails show 33% more long-term engagement with a brand.
My Emma – email sending platform
You may have a lot of information you would like to share with your new subscribers and possibly more than one important call to action that will enable them to use your products or services to the full extent.
As we know, people tend to skim-read their emails and it’s therefore best not to cram too much information into your welcome email. Rather break it down into shorter sections and spread the content over a series of emails that you can send over a period of time. This is known as an email welcome series.
Ideas for your welcome series
Here are some things you may want to do:
- Share the story of your brand or company
- Introduce key team members
- Tell people about your most important or unique products or services
- Find out more about your new subscribers – encourage or incentivise them to share their preferences and some personal information.
- Encourage them to “white list” your email address to ensure your mail reaches their inbox
- Get new subscribers to connect with you on your social media channels.
- Get people to visit your store or physical location.
Write something for each of the points you have chosen and organise them into separate emails.
Here is an example of a welcome series:
Staying with the Strava example from my previous post about welcome emails here are four emails from their new welcome email series. The purpose of their welcome series is to onboard new athletes signing up to the Strava app. Starting on the left is the first email the new athlete receives and moving across to right are the subsequent emails. Each email aims to educate about another feature of the Strava app and encourage athletes to keep using it.
Image credit – https://dribbble.com/jordanhsu
Remember to keep your new subscribers separate from your other mailing lists for the first couple of weeks so you don’t bombard them with too many emails.
Creating your Welcome email series.
PLACEHOLDER
Your first email
The first email goes out immediately once your new subscriber has signed up. It should contain one or more of the following:
- a welcome note
- a teaser of what’s to come in your next email
- a discount offer on your product or service if there is one
- steps to white listing your email address (which you can also do on your opt in confirmation page)
Your second email
Send this email 1-2 days after the first email.
This is a great time to get to know a little more about your new customer by asking them for additional information. For example:
- their date of birth
- their preferences
- their location, and more.
It all depends on your need in order to make your communications more personal and relevant. You will use this data to segment your lists and to send targeted email communication. For example, if you have retail stores throughout the country then it would be a good idea to ask for your subscriber’s location. Once you have this information you can direct them to your nearest store in one of your emails.
An online form is the best way to capture this information and the details should be updated automatically in your system. This information can then be used to trigger other emails. Email sending platforms often include form building functionality which allow you to embed the forms directly in your website pages.
This email can also introduce your product categories or services offered.
Your third email
Send this email roughly 2-3 days after you send your second email.
The focus with this email would be to invite your subscribers to connect with you on other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to name a few, really anywhere you have an active and established presence.
Getting your email subscribers to follow you on other platforms will help turn them into loyal brand advocates and perhaps brand ambassadors in the future.
Do these 3 things for each email in your welcome series
For all the emails you plan to send in your welcome series you need to do the following:
- Prepare the copy. Remember short emails perform better than longer emails.
- Select appropriate images to use in your email – get your graphic designer to help. Your text to image ratio should be about 60 / 40. Meaning your emails should have more text than image.
- Remember your subject line, pre-header text, and call to action for each email.
Welcome emails tend to get about a 50% open rate. However, just because your new subscribers are expecting a welcome email doesn’t mean they’ll open it. Be sure to craft a compelling subject line and pre-header text to help ensure they will. You may even want to make it known the number of emails in the sequence and include this in your subject line. For example “Name, welcome to ACME company – here’s something we think you’ll love (email 1 of 3)”
I am sure you already have some ideas about what you would like to share with your new subscribers.
How to set up your welcome emails to be sent automatically:
Once you have decided on a workflow and all your email are prepared and tested you can go about setting them up for automated sending.
Email sending platforms are pretty similar in the way they do this. Here are some examples that show you how to set up your welcome automation for some of the more well-known email sending platforms.
https://mailchimp.com/help/create-an-automated-welcome-email/
https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5520-automated-emails?lang=en_US
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-automation-guide/
There are many reputable platforms to choose from. Some of them include automation features for free and on other platforms it will be a paid feature.
If you need help to decide which platform will suit your needs, please give us a shout.
Were you impressed by any particular brand’s welcome series? If so, please share that with us by commenting below.
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