Pre-pandemic, I had the opportunity to speak on a Digital Marketing panel for our local Chamber of Commerce Annual Business Summit. I shared a 1-hour slot with two other digital marketing professionals, so we each had less than 15 minutes to present content that we felt would help the attendees succeed in their digital marketing efforts. Now, in the Church of Email that is Me Given an Opportunity with a Microphone and an Audience, 15 minutes is not a whole lot of time. I had to really drill down to identify what would make the biggest impact for the majority of the attendees. Where do you think I landed? I landed on the welcome email.

I am so passionate about the Welcome Email because there’s a huge gap between customer expectations and what businesses actually deliver in this space. I’m passionate about the Welcome Email because it is the first impression your business gets to make in your subscribers’ inbox. And I’m passionate about the Welcome Email because if you nurture your leads, they’re going to spend more money with you!

Why aren’t more businesses sending a welcome email?

Is it tech overwhelm?
Content development?
A bit of both?
Neither?

I’d love to do more research on this very topic, but for now, I want to be sure that I’m backing up my passion with action! I’ve written about turning a welcome campaign into a welcome series. I’ve done a round-up of my favorite Welcome Emails back in 2018. You can even learn about welcome emails in my free email course, ‘Send Email, Make Money’. Yet, there isn’t anything dedicated solely to creating content for your welcome email on my blog.

Get ready for Welcome Email 101, also known as “Email Marketing Success in 10 minutes or less a day.”

Okay, I’m going to spare you the part where I introduce myself and say that “Email Marketing is more than my bread & butter… it’s my jam.”

EMAIL IS A POWERFUL WAY TO INCREASE CUSTOMER VALUE & NURTURE NEW LEADS

Email Marketing is DIRECT. Email Marketing has a high ROI. And if you’re trying to reach millennials, email is a great place to be: 73% of millennials identify email as their preferred means of business communication [1].

But YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME TO SEND ALL THE EMAILS. Am I right?

Creating an email campaign can be time consuming, and frustrating, and soul sucking. And most of us are sending emails to our entire database. I call this the push and pray method, where you “push” send and “pray” that sales come!

But what if all that work could be doing work for you and growing your business throughout the year?

I am not here to tell you to send more email. I’m here to teach you how to send more relevant email! Push and pray is one to many. To send RELEVANT email, you gotta shoot for 1-to-1.

WHERE DO I START? START WITH YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Have you ever done a Customer Journey map? There is a path every customer goes through to get from not knowing anything about your business, to being (hopefully) a lifelong customer and loyal brand advocate, out there selling your business for you. The terminology varies, and there are all kinds of rabbit holes you can go down within each stage, but here’s the terminology I use when talking to my clients.

Awareness > Consideration > Purchase > Onboarding > Expansion > Advocacy

At every one of those stages, there is a datapoint or customer action that can trigger an email campaign.

What I do with my clients is install an email marketing automation system that sends relevant email at KEY points in their journey to nurture them to the next level. Today, I’m going to teach you about the most important element of this system. If you start here and don’t get any further, you’ll be lightyears ahead of many businesses.

I’m going to teach you to create a winning welcome email.

Your welcome email is your business’s first impression in the customer’s inbox. And there is GOLD in them there hills, friends.

Research shows that ¾ of us are expecting a welcome message after we subscribe [2], and these emails have a dramatically higher open rate than any other marketing messages. Meanwhile, just over ½ of retailers are actually sending an immediate welcome, according to the 2021 Email Marketing Census! That’s a big gap!

Not only will you be delivering on customer expectations when you get that automated welcome email in their inbox. You will probably be driving to the bottom line, big time. On average, 320% more revenue is attributed to welcome emails on a per email basis than other promotional emails [3]. So your welcome email not only can create that great first impression and be the first step in a long and prosperous relationship. It can straight up seal the deal and be a moneymaker for you.

You could be making money from your welcome email while you’re sleeping!

Now, there are all kinds of technical hoops to jump through to make sure your welcome email is delivered automatically, but the good news is that there is the internet. There are YouTube videos and email platform-specific documentation that can make you look like a Lord of Technology in no time. And for my wine industry friends, I’ve created the Digimatic Starter’s Bootcamp where I actually walk you step-by-step through turning on an automatic welcome email in MailChimp or Klaviyo. You can learn more and sign up right on over here >>

But let’s talk about the content. If your welcome email is your business’s first impression in the customer inbox, you want to make a FANTASTIC first impression.

You know me and keeping score…

When a subscriber signs up to hear from you, it’s because they actually WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! There’s never going to be a higher point in their email engagement. They’re actually looking in their inbox to find your welcome email. Capitalize on that high engagement, would ya? You need to send your welcome email automatically and immediately!

Your welcome email should SAY THANK YOU!

Customer attention is CURRENCY, even if it doesn’t have an actual monetary value associated with it yet. You wouldn’t make a sale without saying “Thanks”, would you? Be sure you genuinely express your appreciation for your customer’s permission to engage in their inbox.

Give your customer something to do next in your welcome email

An email campaign without a call to action is a waste of your time and your customer’s. Sorry. I know it’s harsh. You need to give your customer something to do next! Encourage them to engage with you on social media. Give them an easy link to start shopping online or plan their next visit. You can even just ask them to watch their inbox for your next email. If you don’t, you’re missing an opportunity to get your customer to take the next step in their relationship with you.

Your welcome email should deliver whatever they signed up for

Some retailers offer a pricing incentive to first-time subscribers. B2B companies might offer a free resource guide. Lifestyle brands might offer their “Top 5 Tips for an Epic Summer Shindig” in exchange for a customer email address. Whatever you promised at the point of signup, be sure that your welcome email delivers that value and makes it easy for the subscriber to engage with.

Sometimes this item and the one above can get bundled together for an epic 30 point jackpot! Be sure you deliver the value your customer anticipates RIGHT FROM THE START.

Reiterate the #1 thing of value your email program offers

See my post on acquisition and fishing with the bait you cast.

Encourage whitelisting and set expectations on frequency with your welcome email

This is less sexy, but no less important. If your welcome email doesn’t let your customers know how often you’ll send them content, they might be surprised to hear from you three months later. And if you don’t encourage them to whitelist your email sending domain, your messages might end up in the spam folder, junk folder, or promotions tab. None are great spots to be if you’re trying to stay connected to your new subscriber. These nuts and bolts will help increase engagement over the long term.

So, what next?

One common hurdle in creating a welcome email was that business owners and many-hat-wearing marketers were overwhelmed by the idea of starting from scratch.

So, I created a Mad Libs Welcome Email. This downloadable Word document is plug & play. To get it, just fill in the form below. You’ll have it delivered to your inbox immediately! Then, swap in your business name, program value and cadence, drop it into your ESP and be off to the races with your own 100-point welcome email.

I’ll also add you to my weekly email, if that’s cool with you. I share best practices and resources every Friday designed to help your business build deeper, more profitable relationships with your customers (while you sleep)! If you aren’t into that thing, no worries. Just click the unsubscribe link in the email I just sent you. My feelings will only be a little bit hurt.

Summin’ it up

So what about you? Do you have a welcome email in place? Take a moment in the next few days to use the Winning Welcome Email Scorecard and see where you land. If you fall under a 75, make some changes to ensure that your welcome email is optimized to capitalize on your high customer engagement! And if you don’t have a welcome email in place, take a minute, download the Welcome Email Mad Libs and go to town. I’m here to help you succeed, so hit me in the comments or send a direct email if you have any questions!

SOURCES:
[1] Adestra
[2] Blue Hornet
[3] Easy SMPT