By Chris Christoff, co-founder of MonsterInsights, a leading WordPress plug-in for Google Analytics.
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Business owners and marketing leaders across all industries understand the value of email marketing. Email is an excellent way to stay in touch with your audience and boost sales.
What if I told you the success of your entire email strategy is largely determined by the first message you send to new subscribers?
Today, we are talking about these initial encounters, also known as welcome emails. Welcome emails help establish trust with new subscribers while showing that your value proposition is more than a cash-for-product transaction. Normally, these messages are sent to users after they join your lead list or buy a product.
If you’re interested in writing compelling emails that lead to more click-throughs and engagement, keep reading. I’m going to go over four tips that you can use to start sending powerful welcome emails.
Start with a crystal clear subject line.
All good emails start with an eye-catching headline. If someone isn’t intrigued by the first line of your message, why would they bother opening it to read the rest of the email?
There are a few ways you can make your subject line clear and exciting. First, make sure your sender name is correct. This one small step can help ensure that subscribers know exactly who you are. Businesses that don’t bother making this adjustment tend to see their emails ignored, or worse, marked as spam.
I also like to include the words “thank you” in the subject line of our first email. "Thanks" or "thank you" are powerful words that can catch the attention of new subscribers. You’ll also want to add a little teaser that lets readers know what to expect when they open your message.
For example, when a visitor signs up for a free product demonstration, the subject line might read, “Thanks for joining! Here’s your demo link!” I recommend thinking carefully about the needs of your readers and how you can start offering value from the moment your email hits their inbox.
Introduce yourself and set expectations.
Once subscribers start opening your welcome emails, you should introduce yourself and set expectations. When you introduce yourself, make it personal but also relatable to your industry.
So, the owner of an email marketing SaaS might start their welcome email by telling users how they struggled to generate leads. As a result of their pain point, they created a product to help others in similar situations.
This type of storytelling is an excellent way to build rapport with your subscribers, which will likely result in these people opening future emails.
It’s also crucial that you set realistic expectations for your subscribers. You don’t want to tell people that downloading your social media plugin will result in thousands of new followers overnight. Instead, your focus should be on consistently growing social channels, not a precise number or super-specific outcome.
If subscribers see that you genuinely want to help them and you’re not overpromising, they will likely continue engaging with your emails.
Don’t wait to send your welcome email.
One mistake I see some business owners make is they don’t automate their welcome email. Users have to wait hours, sometimes days, to receive a simple welcome message after providing their name and email address. There are quite a few problems with this technique.
People are far less likely to trust you if you wait days to send your email. They may get annoyed and decide to unsubscribe before you ever send them a message.
You also risk losing potential customers because they found a competitor that immediately welcomed them after they joined their email list.
There’s also the chance that their passion and curiosity for your brand faded. If you had reached out to them as soon as they signed up, they might have converted on the spot. But because you waited, they lost interest and had time to reconsider whether they really needed your product.
The solution to this problem is simple: Create an automated welcome campaign for new subscribers. This strategy takes some pressure off your marketing team because the first message or two is on autopilot.
Let subscribers know what you want them to do next.
Another vital element I see business owners neglect when creating welcome emails is they don’t let subscribers know what they want them to do next. Your welcome emails should provide immediate value to your readers in one form or another.
You can include some of your top blog posts, a link to your YouTube channel, a segment-specific lead magnet and much more. If you don’t tell people what you expect them to do next, most will close your email when they are done reading without a second thought.
You can find out which call-to-action would be most effective by asking your audience to answer an optional question or two on your signup form. For instance, the email marketing SaaS we mentioned earlier might ask subscribers, “What’s your biggest email marketing pain point?”
Based on their responses, you can automate an appropriate welcome email that addresses these issues and ends with an irresistible CTA.
Welcome emails can quite literally make or break your email marketing strategy. The tips presented today can help you create a helpful, engaging and eye-catching welcome email that can keep subscribers opening your emails for years to come.