10 Ways to Increase Welcome Email Effectiveness

This is a guest article from SalesWings.

SalesWings is an intelligent lead scoring and website tracking add-on which aligns sales and marketing around the hottest leads. It helps sales reps reduce lead qualification time by offering them insights into the nature of the leads’ interest based on website activity, as well as enriched contact information about the lead’s profile. This leads to a better collaboration between marketing and sales, faster response rates, and an increase in deal closing rates.

As customers, we’ve all been there.

You want to know more about a brand. You’ve browsed a website, seen something you like, but you’ve already had an expensive month. You really can’t, shouldn’t spend any more this month. So you sign up to a newsletter.

A confirmation email hits your inbox. You click, and you’ve subscribed.

Then, nothing.

A week goes by and the brand you were hoping to hear from - just a quick, hello, nice to have you onboard, doesn’t send anything else. Well basically, this means you have probably already forgotten them - right? Not a good thing for you as a company.

When a new or existing customer gives permission to be contacted, brands should quickly welcome them with an email. Recent research shows that email marketing still generates a 4,400% ROI. For every $1 spent, brands generate an average return of $44.00. At SalesWings, we know the value of email - our lead qualification tool is designed to track and highlight sales-ready leads’ from email marketing campaigns - as email nurturing increases a team’s pipeline thickness and lead quality.

Time to start using welcome emails!

Don’t be a brand that stays silent until you’ve got a sale or new products. Send a welcome email. Unlike other email marketing campaigns, welcome emails have an average read rate of 34%, which is 42% higher than average read rates (24%), according to Return Path data.

Get your new subscribers engaged from the start. Encourage them to take action, while the relationship is new, fresh and exciting. Make them feel special, happy to have signed up to your email alerts. Here we give you 10 ways to increase the effectiveness of welcome emails.

#1: Don’t delay

Most marketers send welcome emails on the same day someone subscribes. According to research, 75% send these emails on day one, whereas only 5% wait more than three days.

Not only is this the best time to encourage a follow-on action, such as buying a product with a special welcome discount, or a social media follow, but this way you can test new email deliverability rates.

Welcome emails arrive in 93% of inboxes, but they are more likely to get marked as junk or spam. An opened and read email is a good indication of interest. At the same time, those who don’t read a welcome email only open and read 5% of any future communications. This means if a welcome email is delivered, opened and read, you’ve got a good chance of engaging the customer again and encouraging a purchase. So give them your best content!

#2: Segment your new subscribers: Send appropriate content

Knowing more about new customers is the best way to segment your audience.

Segmenting your leads intelligently is key as it allows you to reach people in a more personal and appropriate way. One way to achieve intelligent segmentation is by using real-time contact data enrichment, which gives you more information about your tracked marketing leads.

#3: Write an engaging subject line

Keep it short, sweet, engaging and welcoming. You could personalize with the customer’s first name. An offer isn’t always necessary since research shows that offers in the subject line only have a read rate of 20%, compared to an average read rate of 34%.

Also, don’t be too creative. After sending out billions of emails on behalf of customers, Mailchimp found out that a simple, descriptive email subject such as “Company Update June” has better email open rates than crazy teasers.

#4: Personalize the greeting

“Hello”, “Hi,” “Hey”, or worse, “Hi [value missing]” is not the best way to greet a new subscriber.

Assuming you asked for a name when they were subscribing, now is the time to use it. Personalized subject lines generate 26% higher open rates. At minimum, “Hello” or “Hey” followed by the customer’s name, but personalize this more depending on your brand tone of voice.

#5: Make sure they know what happens next

Don’t leave subscribers wondering. Tell them how often you will send emails. Let them unsubscribe, or change frequency, if they want. Give them the option to personalize what you send, which will help you segment your database more clearly, therefore increasing open, read, click-through and conversion rates.

What happens if someone subscribes just before they go on holiday? Or you send an email campaign which includes a percentage of work email addresses and they’re on annual leave? Either you get radio silence, or an out of office. This can be irritating for response and open rates, but it can also be an opportunity. With LeadGnome and their automated response email mining tool, you can collect more information on your customers from out of office responses.

#6: Give new subscribers a welcome freebie

Everyone loves a welcome freebie: “Make me feel special!” Give new subscribers something, such as a discount on their first purchase. Big discounts, such as 25% or more will get noticed and read more than lower discounts, with a read rate of 53%. However, most brands stick to the 7% - 20% discount rate, which doesn’t generate quite as much excitement.

#7: Ask for a social follow

Make sure you give new subscribers the chance to follow you on social media. Unless that is how they found you, they don’t want to hunt around for your social pages. Not only will this boost social metrics, but you are giving them many more chances to see your content, engage, tell others and make a purchase.

#8: Ensure they can unsubscribe

Standard practice, we know. But we couldn’t publish an article about email marketing without reminding you the importance of the unsubscribe option. At least this way you will know they are not interested in future communications.

#9: Say Thank You

Sometimes you just need to say it: “Thank you”. Not only does this get you off on the right foot, especially if you throw in a welcome freebie, which could include a gift or discount code, but it sets the tone and integrates a simple yet heartfelt message with your brand voice. Companies are nothing without customers, so be sure to thank them.

#10: Set the right tone

Brand voice has a big impact on the emotional connection between a customer and business. Set the right tone from day one. Your emails should sound like your business. If you are friendly and sassy online, then come across the same way in your emails. More formal, professional sounding web copy should be reflected in emails too. Start off on the right foot.

Key Takeaways:

Welcome emails don’t need to include everything we’ve listed here, but timing is a must-get-right. When writing them, think about the needs of your new customers, what you can offer, how to come across using the right tone and make sure to include the most relevant asks, such as a social media follow or referral. Most of all, you need to start the relationship off the right way and encourage future actions from the customer. Want to get our Welcome Email as an Example? Well inscribe here!

About the author

Ina Simeonova is Digital Marketing Specialist at SalesWings - lead scoring and website tracking add-on which upgrades traditional email marketing software with predictive lead scoring, lead website tracking capabilities and intelligent real-time contact data enrichment.