hello there: meet your new welcome email

For most companies, one of the best open rates they get in their email marketing is on the welcome email. Your welcome email is your first chance to let a new subscriber know what you’re about. It’s an opportunity to catch them when they’re still at their desk or on their mobile device and they’re eager to receive email from you. So how can you get the most out of your welcome messages?

#1 – Act fast.

You’ll see a higher return if you can send a welcome email within 5 minutes of sign-up. Chances are high that the new subscriber is still online and can open and read your message.

#2 – Include a call to action.

Go ahead and invite them to act now! They want information. They’ve said they want to connect with you. It takes more than a little interest for a prospect to give up their (real) email address. Maybe they’d like to buy their first product now, too? Maybe they want to read back issues of your newsletter for all the tips they’ve missed. Maybe they also want to see the conversations happening on your social media pages. Just like in any auto-responder, including marketing messaging can help drive conversions while the prospect is hot.

#3 – Test for success: HTML vs. Text.

Test sending an HTML email vs. a text-only email to see how it affects your click through rate. A plain text email is just slightly more likely to make into in the Inbox of someone you haven’t talked to before. However, the gorgeous graphics and clean calls to action of HTML email marketing may incite more click-throughs. Only your own subscribers can tell you which is best for them.

#4 – Personalize.

Hopefully you caught more than just their email address on that opt-in form. Greet them with their first name when you welcome them to the club. Sign the email from their preferred location or a store near the zip code they provided. Personalization makes any email marketing campaign more effective. Go the extra mile by personalizing their instructions on how to add you as a Safe Sender depending on which ISP they’re using. Gmail handles it slightly differently than Hotmail, etc.

#5 – Check in regularly.

Last but not least, test out your own automated welcome campaign regularly. Sure, it was great when you set it up six months ago, but have you seen it lately? What do you promise your subscribers? Do you have new marketing messaging you could spruce it up with?

Want to get set up with a welcome message for your subscribers? Email expert@emfluence.com to see a live demo of the emfluence Marketing Platform. Or if you’re already a proud Platform user, email your account rep for help setting up an automated welcome message.