The Power of the Welcome Message

Since cardcommunications began, we’ve always taken advantage of the welcome email – it acknowledges the new subscriber and it’s our way of saying thanks for signing up! But over the years, we’ve been enhancing our welcome emails to do more.

But before we get into that and based on research and findings from MarketingSherpa, let’s agree that the recency theory is reality. Having agreed on that, let’s also agree that failure to send a welcome message to new subscribers is a huge opportunity missed.

So given response is driven by recency of opt-in, it’s logical to predict that new subscribers want to hear from you (that’s why they signed up!) and that they’re most likely to open and click those first few emails you send (they want to hear from you!). Right? Right. It’s also logical to predict that if you continue to deliver email content that’s timely, meaningful and relevant, these subscribers will continue to keep opening and clicking over time. Right? Right.

Now that you’re hopefully convinced a welcome email is a must, let’s talk about how you can maximize the welcome message! Here are eight ideas:

1. Maintain an email archive and direct new subscribers to it via the welcome email! If you’ve been publishing an e-newsletter for several months or even years, you’ve got a ton of great content that should be available for immediate gratification to the new subscriber!
   Tip: Make the archive a link from your welcome email.
   
   
2. If you’ve got an audience that loves great deals, offer e-coupons via the welcome email. Be sure to code the e-coupon so you can track its success and ROI. Bonus: this tactic doubles as an email sign-up incentive too!
   
   
3. If you’ve got an audience that wants to be first to know about new trends, offer special reports or whitepaper downloads via the welcome email. Bonus: this tactic also doubles as an email sign-up incentive!
   
   
4. Reinforce the importance of adding your email to the new subscriber’s address book. Here’s what we say on our welcome letter: “Plus with all those hyperactive email filters and blocks, please take a moment and add cgardner@cardcommunications.com to your address book. This will help ensure we make it to your inbox! Here’s how…” – NB: Since explaining this on the welcome letter might already be too late, remember this advice should really be applied on the actual sign up page first!
   Tip: Want to use our “how to” tip – go right ahead! Here’s the page to point to…
   
   
5. Reinforce your commitment to permission-based email marketing and privacy.
   Tip: Include a link to your privacy page.
   
   
6. Encourage new subscribers to forward the email on.
   Tip: Include a send to a friend link right in the email itself!
   
   
7. Include your contact information – phone, email and web site.
   
   
8. Want to get really fancy? Develop a special welcome series of emails with the key objectives being: 1. Welcoming the new subscriber 2. Setting expectations 3. Gathering any profile information that you didn’t feel comfortable asking for in the subscription process. This longer welcome series might be perfect if you only do quarterly e-newsletters (i.e. if someone just missed your Summer e-Newsletter, should they have to wait 3 months to hear from you? A welcome series is also ideal if you have a long or semi-complicated sales cycle that requires some “hand holding”.

Making the welcome email work for you takes the right plan with the right technology. You can make this a painful, manual process or you can make it a seamless, automated process. The choice is yours. We can help.