9 Must-Have Items to Put in Your Welcome Email
Over the past several years, people have become accustomed to building personal relationships with a business via email. They reject companies and service providers where they don’t feel they’re being honored.
Your first email to them, your “Welcome” email, can begin that relationship, and turn a one-way conversation into a conversation that goes both ways between your business and your customer. Make it count.
Send the first email out automatically, within a few minutes after a person subscribes and opts-in to your email list. It can be one email, or a series of emails, triggered by a person’s joining.
Some tips on what you should put in your first email:
- Welcome them to your community. Remind them how they got on your list – did they sign up for a free offer, or did they make a purchase from your online store?
- Thank them. Acknowledge that you’re grateful they chose your content, or for their purchase.
- Talk to them about what they’ve signed up for. What kind of content can they expect? If they bought something from you, let them know how to access that item or when they can expect to get it.
- Give them more than they expected. Offer links to important and helpful content on your website, or links to audio files, documents or webinar and video content.
- Tell them how often they can expect your emails. You should be sending email newsletters at least once a month, but once a week is better.
- Provide them with links to your social media accounts as another way to connect.
- Answer frequently asked questions. Are there questions that pop up all the time, that an FAQ could answer quickly?
- Continue the conversation. If you promised something in return for their signing up, make sure you give it to them. You can also follow up to make sure they’ve received your email, ask them to fill out a survey about what they think. Remember: Even if it’s free, they’re still a customer. They’re consuming your content.
- Tell them how to unsubscribe. It’s important that you give clear instructions on how to get off your list.
Doubling down with a double opt-in
Sometimes, asking people to confirm their email address – known as a “double opt-in” – will be your first electronic correspondence with a client. By asking people to double opt-in, you’re ensuring a quality list of real email addresses. The double opt-in is meant to get people to click on a link to confirm their email address. Some people don’t do this right away – or they don’t do this at all – so you might have to send a reminder. You can also check the list of people who signed up but didn’t confirm their subscription to check for obvious misspellings in their email addresses.
A well-crafted welcome email – whether it’s confirming a person’s subscription or offering immediate access to your content – can build trust and a rapport with your audience. It sets the tone of future communication, starts a conversation, helps reinforce your brand and message and acknowledges how important they are to you. Consider it your calling card; it’s your one opportunity to knock their socks off with meaningful content that solves their problems or answers their questions. You want them to open future emails from you. Be warm, professional, helpful – and human.
I’d love to hear from you.
Are you sending out Welcome emails? Do you add anything to them aside from the 9 items listed above? Do you send them automatically or manually? Share your story, comments and questions in the Comments area below.
The purpose of a headline or subject line is to grab the reader’s attention and motivate them to want to read further. If you can’t get them past the headline, the rest of your copy is wasted, no matter how elegantly it’s written.
We’d all love it if we could close every deal or every sale with a new customer in 30 minutes or less. But that rarely happens. A sales cycle can last up to six months, depending on how much research the potential customer has done before he or she comes to you.
