While it may be a cliché, it’s true. The first interaction of the brand is critical in setting the tone for the entire customer experience. And as companies turn to digital and seek ways to build human connections with their customers, the welcome email stands out as one of the best opportunities for relationship building.
In fact welcome emails have the highest open rates, up to 60% and are sought after by customers as well. It makes them feel valued and turn to your service more often. In a survey it was found that 74.4% customers expect a welcome email when they sign up for a new service.
Welcome emails are important. No two ways about it. Read on to learn some tips on how to craft the perfect welcome email.
1. Go creative or go home!!
Your welcome email is an entrée at the dinner party. Serving it top notch is a must, for it’s the star of the show! You may choose to keep it with or without fuss and flash, but the perfect entrée should be satisfying. If the entrée impresses you, you are most likely to enjoy your dining experience. If it’s not to your taste, you are most likely to judge the party on that bad start.
It’s something worth getting too worked up over. I would say fuss over it, include great design, big bold fonts, and graphics that gets your customer’s focus right to your products. Instead of writing big boring monotonous emails, why not try using postcard like formats which are interactive as well as informative.
Here, Netflix welcomes their customers with a simple introduction, providing a link to their website and giving a basic information about the customer subscription but making you feel welcome at the same time by getting the message “Thanks for joining Netflix”
2. One size doesn’t fit all. Customize your content.
When people subscribe to your email list, give them something customized to their interests. Try including an offer or useful tips or a whitepaper along with the welcome message. Let’s say you own an ecommerce store and the user came browsing for baby products. When she signs up, add an e-coupon inside your welcome email. Or if you are a SaaS company, why not offer an e-book on the information they were looking for? Customizing according to your subscribers’ interests makes them feel you pay attention and hits the right chord at the first instance.
3. Give what they expect
You ensure a simple checkout process on your website. Why? Because customers expect the checkout process to be convenient and fast. The simpler it is, more likely it is that the customer will buy the service/product. Customer likes a product, clicks on a couple of buttons and the product is well on its way to him.
Your goal from an email should be no different. Your goal from your welcome email is to introduce customer to your brand and improve the onboarding process. Your new subscriber may want to know more about your product and services and how you will add value to their lives. Give what they seek.
Take a look at this welcome email from GoodReads, a company that helps people find and share books. In their welcome email, they educate the subscriber on how to make most of GoodReads.
4. Keep it short and simple
The welcome email should be able to get the point across, be brief and shouldn’t contain information overload that’s confusing and unnecessary. Decide what you want to achieve from the email and just focus on that. Some examples are:
- Shop now
- View Demo
- Follow Social Accounts
- Here’s what you can expect from our emails
- Update preferences
Take a look at this short and no fuss email by Trello. Gets users to what they want in a jiffy and sure must be getting the best click through rates for this one.
5. Include relevant links
Add quick links in the email to simplify and speedup the purchasing process for your subscriber. If your company has an app then adding links to that app and highlighting benefits or features of the app makes it more likely to be downloaded. Looking at their interests and adding links to those products increases the chances of a customer using or buying them by 50%.
Also, links to other companies or services associated with your company or service can be mentioned. But, avoid focusing too much on them.
6. Don’t ignore design and your mobile readers
The perfect design for your welcome email is not just the one with attractive and eye-catching images but also one that is responsive so it represents your product or service in a positive way. Ugly design is one of the fastest ways to drive away your customers and gain bad publicity. Imagine an ecommerce website using poorly shot pictures of its products with insufficient lighting or unappealing backdrops/ surroundings. It is an instant turn off.
So is the case with non-responsive email. This email was not optimized for mobile readers and worst thing is, none of the icons/ text are clickable.
What to avoid:
- Emails with large photos that take ages to load show up as big blank email when opened
- Call to action buttons that are small and click-unfriendly
- Cramped up content that’s hard to read – use one or maximum 2 columns in your mobile email layout
7. Focus on the subject line
The customer is most likely to open the email if it has a catching subject line and begins on an interesting note. The beginning gives an impression of what will follow and a customer is most likely to read till the end if the beginning of the email catches their interest.
8. Avoid time lags or delays.
Being fashionably late to make a grand appearance is traditionally accepted in a party, but don’t ever try that with your welcome emails. There can be absolutely no excuse for not delivering these all too important emails well on time. This is where choosing the right email delivery service that can deliver your emails speedily and to the inbox plays a crucial role. You’ll find this article on how to choose the right ESP helpful.
This report by Experian shows the importance of timing in welcome emails.
9. Do not reply – a strict no
A do-not-reply email doesn’t just sound outright unfriendly, it can also affect your email deliverability. A no-reply email conveys that conversation is not welcome. And as logical as it seems not to use a no-reply, there are many organizations that continue committing this mistake. Don’t believe me? Do a quick scan of your inbox and you’ll be surprised to find dozens of such emails. Here’s why you must stop using no-reply email address right away.
10. Follow email laws
There are laws about sending emails and as an email sender you ought to be aware so you don’t flout the rules and attract penalties. For instance, in many countries, sending mails with no-reply address is not allowed. And as per the latest GDPR law, it’s required that your customer gives an active consent to receive emails from you and is not tricked into receiving emails through pre-ticked boxes. Few more rules for email include –
- Making it easy to opt-out of your emails
- A recognizable sender name
- No misleading subject lines
- Adding your postal address in email to build trust
Know more about laws that govern emails such as CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR and steps to get compliant.
I hope you find these tips useful and are successful in creating the perfect welcome email
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sakshie Pathak
Marketing Executive At Pepipost
Sakshie is a computer engineering graduate and a big time MarTech enthusiast currently working as a marketer at Pepipost. Her areas of interest include growth hacking, social media marketing and storytelling. She is an avid blogger for her own company’s blog and also likes to share her views and ideas through guest blogging.
please visit https://pepipost.com/.