Your welcome email is one of the most important messages you will send. It is a prime opportunity to engage customers by inviting them in with a warm greeting, but it also lets them know what to expect moving forward. Perhaps most important, it marks the start of what is hopefully a long, prosperous relationship. Here are four tips for making dynamic welcome emails:
1) Design for familiarity. First impressions are everything, and when it comes to email marketing, presentation weighs heavily into how your brand is perceived. Because a welcome message could result in your either gaining or losing the interest of customers, it is essential to make sure your email reflects the identity subscribers encountered upon signing up for your communications.
For most marketers, this means creating a welcome email that coincides with the design of their Website. If you collect new subscribers on your site, then your greeting message should be designed with the logos, colors, and other elements that reflect your brand identity. This creates familiarity that makes it easy for customers to instantly recognize you when your welcome email arrives.
2) Keep it brief. It is pretty easy—and tempting—to cram an email with too much information. It's natural to want to remind customers who you are, what you have to offer, and why that offering is the solution to whatever problem they’re facing. Hence the overwhelming desire to inform is something you need to be very cautious of when crafting your welcome email. Lay it on too thick in the beginning, and it might cause your customers to tune you out later down the line.
You can avoid this problem by understanding that your welcome email has the simple purpose of welcoming customers into the program. Therefore, the shorter and more focused you keep this message, the better.
3) Give ’em a sneak peek. While you want to be careful not to overload your welcome email, you also don’t want to miss out on the golden opportunities this message has to offer. Remember, this is your chance to engage your audience and start the relationship off on the right track.
A good way to do this and benefit both parties is to give new subscribers a preview of what you have in store for them. Have an exclusive sale coming up for your email-only customers? Mention it in your welcome message so that newbies can be on the lookout. It is never too early to build anticipation.
4) Reward the newcomers. Many brands have had tremendous success with incentive programs over the years. You can too, by using your welcome email to leverage the reward concept from the very beginning of the relationship simply by giving away something nice to newcomers who provide you with their precious contact information and time. Maybe you want to welcome in your new subscribers with a 10% discount off one of your hottest-selling items or convenient access to a report they can put to good use. The idea is to offer something that accentuates the initial greeting into the email relationship.
If you have been letting your welcome emails fly out there unattended, now is the time to give them the attention they deserve. This message is a powerful engagement tool, but it is up to you to seize the moment and capitalize on the opportunities. Hopefully applying these tips in your strategy will enable you to do just that.
Contel Bradford is the author of several books and an email marketing advocate for Benchmark Email.
