At the heart of every good email campaign is good quality data. Data acquisition can be costly and what you do after collecting an email address can define how your brand is perceived. It is often the first impression that people have of your email program and can have a long standing affect on your relationship. Welcome emails are a crucial part of the customer lifecycle and in many ways they are the inertia that gets your email program started.
When I sign up to a brand and don’t automatically get a welcome email it makes me wonder if the sign up actually worked. I expect this feeling is common. You want the recipient to feel the exact opposite. You want them to feel glad that they have just given you their email address and informed about what they are going to receive in the future.
It is also a great opportunity to drive new subscribers to your preference center to capture their unique requirements. This allows you to tailor their email journey with your brand to ensure you’re always delivering content of interest.
And don’t stop at one welcome email. You should have a series of emails triggered from the subscription that lead the recipient to your initial goal which might be an online purchase or requesting more information.
This welcome series can also help with deliverability. Your not adding untested email addresses to your main email program. Use your welcome series to remove bounces and other unwanted subscribers. If your welcome series contains 4 or 5 emails and a recipient shows no engagement then is it worth adding them to your main email program ? Possibly, but you might consider putting them in a different pot that gets mailed less frequently until you get some engagement.
In short your welcome series should:
- Build trust – The from domain and branding of your welcome should be the same as your regular communications. Encourage the recipient to add to their safe sender list and set expectations of what they will receive and the frequency.
- Reinforce your brand – The design, tone and copy should match your brand and again set expectations of the type of email they will recieve.
- Drive engagement – Through a welcome series you can encourage the recipient to become more engaged with the brand aiming towards your final goal.
An automated welcome program is often overlooked because people are busy concentrating on their regular campaigns that drive ROI but by implementing a welcome series you can boost the engagement of your new subscribers and hence leverage this ROI.