Engaging Welcome Emails: Best Practices with Great Examples

Everybody knows that the first impression counts the most. That’s why we don’t show up late for an important meeting, don’t eat fries with garlic before a first date, and bother to iron our whitest shirt for a job interview.

The same diligence should be applicable to welcome emails as well. You’ve put a lot of effort to gain your subscriber’s email address, and now your task is to meet their expectations with the very first email.

How Well-Thought Welcome Emails Can Benefit Your Marketing Efforts

1. A welcome email campaign is a great tool to introduce your company to a new subscriber. Based on it, people unaware of your product can get an idea of how your business is managed. A clear friendly email with a piece of useful and relevant information implies that further interaction with your company would be as friendly and beneficial.

What's more, people like stories. So give them some. Tell how you started, what your mission is, and what makes you speacial and unique. Introduce your team members and how they ended up with you.

Today, it's also essential to declare your eco-friendliness and conscientiousness. Tell what you do to take care of environment, like using sustainable and recyclable materials, cutting on packaging waste or reducing your carbon footprints. More and more people are more likely to trust brands with corporate social responsibility, and a green philosophy is its inevitable component.

2. It sets the tone of your further communication and tells the customers what kind of content to expect for in your campaigns. People are more likely to open an email knowing they won’t waste their time on poorly designed pieces of information.

What's more, engaging welcome emails give you a good start in terms of deliverability and domain warm up, especially if you're only getting started with marketing. The thing is a welcome email has the highest open rate (on average, about 50%). People open messages from new senders out of curiosity and excitement, eager to see something new. A high open rate characterizes you as a trustworthy sender in front of email clients. And the better your sender reputation, the more likely your campaigns are to land to Inbox and not to Spam. 

3. A welcome email allows to set preferences  If you, like many companies, opt for a simple subscription form (name, email address), a welcome email can offer new subscribers to set up campaign frequency and the topics they’re most interested in. By doing so, you reach two goals: let your readers know your value their opinion and collect additional information for more accurate targeting.

4. A small discount included in a welcome email, be it a free download, exclusive offer, promo code or a research report can show your subscribers straight away what a good choice they’ve made by joining your team. And the more relevant and useful your deal is, the more chances people would want to share such a finding with their friends.

5. Welcome emails are automated. You create a simple workflow that automatically sends welcomes to all new subscribers, without you configuring each message manually. 

6. You can send a welcome email series. Sometimes, one message isn't enough to hold everything you want to tell your new audience. Instaed of writing long user-unfriendly copies, send several drip emails that will each fulfill a different purpose: thank people for joining you, ask to verify their address, introduce your team, and offer some bonuses for linking you on social media.

7. Finally, automated welcome emails are easy to create. Simply select the template you like and fill it with the relevant content. One good image and a couple of warm words are enough to set a good start.

By the way, these are two of free welcome email templates you can edit in our drag-and-drop builder. Go to Gallery to see more and pick the one that fits your particular needs.

Great Welcome Email Examples and What to Learn from Them

So how to write a good welcome email? A well-known Asian proverb says it’s better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times. So let’s have a look at how different brands have managed to come up with awesome welcome email design, and what we can learn from them.

• Thank your subscribers.

Your subscribers trusted you and proved their trust by sharing their personal information, an email address at least. A brief friendly thank you is the easiest yet utterly effective way to demonstrate you appreciate their trust. Best welcome emails are always thank you emails.

• Let them know now they’re part of the family.

Human beings are social animals who want to be in the company of friends and likeminded people. Using in your welcome emails such words as Family, Crew, or Team, you set the idea for your subscribers that they have become a part of something big rather than simply confirmed a subscription.

• Get personal.

Addressing by name doesn't equal personalization, at least not for all campaigns. Bulk promos and service notices are impersonal by default, and people don't expect them to sound like an old friend. However, a welcome email is where you can apply a bit of personalization by addressing a new crew member by name (provided you know it).

The method is worth using the more so because it's not technically complicated. You add a corresponding variable where you want the name to be in the template, and the system automatically replaces it with the contact's name after they've subscribed to you.

• Let them know what to expect from your campaigns.

There’s no need to include a massive description: a well-written sentence will let people know what to look for inside your campaigns. A non-formal style and a friendly tone are more than welcome (pun intended).

• Give people more options to reach you.

Invite your subscribers to follow you on social media, read your blog or check out a YouTube channel. The more channels they have to engage with you, the better: people who don’t like long blog articles may opt for more entertaining Facebook format, and video fans are more likely to join you on YouTube. If your welcome emails look like plain text messages, you can place clickable social media icons in your email signature. Professional sign-off at the end of your welcome series will make the communication more genuine, boost your brand image and allow running email signature marketing campaigns at the same time.

• Describe your benefits.

And this is one of welcome email best practies. Tell your customers how they can make the most of your company: describe all the services and reward programs that make a subscription to your campaigns differ from other similar offers.

• Tell about your values.

As I've mentioned above, modern customers like brands with a green philosophy behind. If you (hopefully) run any activity that aims to make this world a better place (for all creatures), speak it out. But don't slip into too straightforward advertising. Your welcome should be about well-being of Mother Nature rather than about how awesome you are.

• Share original content.

A short interesting story, recipe description, a piece of infographics with useful stats, a couple of free images, a funny GIF or video - make your subscribers anticipate for your next campaign.

• Ask people about their interests.

Show your subscribers you value their opinion. Offer them to fill in a little survey or answer a couple of questions: when (morning, noon, evening, weekends) and how often your readers want to receive your campaigns. Ask them to specify the topics they’re most interested in so as to compose more relevant offers.

• Send a welcome in their language.

Another way to demonstrate your concern is to speak with your subscribers in their preferred language. Most marketing communication today is done in English as it's the main language of the Internet. But your Spanish-speaking or Japanese-speaking community would really appreaciate you taking into account their comfort.

What's more, an email written in the customer's language helps avoid miscommunication. While it's hard to misinterpret promos (since everyone knows the meaning of the words sale and % off), service emails, terms of use, privacy notifications and all types of account confirmations are better to be written in the most understandable manner. This way, your customer support will have less claims like "I din't know it was required (prohibited, additionally charged) as the email was in English and I don't speak it well."

By the way, in our service, you can easily create multilingual emails within one template (which contributes a lot to welcome email automation). Set the default language, add additional languages and fill each copy with the right content. Switch between all copies in one click within one window.

• Consider taking advantage of emoji.

According to the 2019 Adobe Emoji Trend Report, 64% of users are more likely to make a purchase via an emoji, and 51% are more willing to comment on social media posts that use emojis. So why not include a smiling face or two to emphasize the idea that your campaigns can make people happier.

• Introduce your team.

People are more likely to read emails when they know there are real humans behind them. Besides enumerating the advantages your business has over other companies on the market, enumerate your team members who are going to help take advantage of these benefits.

• Tell your story.

Speaking of more welcome email content, don’t be shy to tell about your achievements. Has been shortlisted for A Startup of the Year Award? Regularly participate in local charities? Run free workshops for college students? Your customers deserve to know what makes your company the best option to follow.

• Give useful advice.

Sum up the key moments that may help use your service in the most beneficial way. Instead of just saying “Hey, buy our products,” say “Hey, this is how our products can help you succeed.”

• Show how you can simplify everyday routine.

If you have an app that can contribute to the convenience of your service, don’t forget to mention it in your emails. Because what is a welcome email? That's a message that aims to deliver value first. 

• Offer a gift.

Actually, this advice comes first in all welcome email series best practices. But I put it here as it's no rocket science to offer gifts whenever you want a response. Nonetheless, reward your subscribers for sharing their address with you. A small bonus or promo code won’t cost you a fortune but will show your customers why communication with you can be beneficial.

• Add product recommendations.

When you're offering a discount on the first order, consider helping people use it by showing some of your best products. A block with product recommendations can help you with it. Since the new person isn't familiar with your range yet, opting for best sellers, hot sales or staff picks will be the right strategy.

I wouldn't recommend including limited offers as people might want to use this promo code long after the offer expires.

Composing a great ecommerce welcome email for your customers is a kind of art, but make no mistake - the effort is totally worth it. From promoting your brand recognition to increasing the ROI, a well-thought welcome email idea can be transformative for your business. Understand the needs of your audience, pick up the right tone, provide valuable content and prove one more time your readers have made the right choice by subscribing to you.