As a sales professional your job is to not only find and nurture leads, but turn these prospects into paying customers.
If you want to boost your sales and increase your conversion rates, having the right email strategy is extremely important. According to statistics, 73% of marketers agree that emails are a crucial step in the customer journey.
Attracting subscribers to your email list might be challenging, but if you have already built your list, there is still some work that should be done to make sure your emails are converting leads into sales.
A great way to start building relationships with your subscribers is to send personalised and compelling welcome emails that engage and start the reader on their journey to becoming a long term, valuable customer.
As many as 74% of people expect to receive a welcome email immediately after subscribing, those who don’t can quickly disconnect with your company and you’ll potentially lost the sale to your competitors.
Welcome emails are also 320% more efficient than other types of promotional messaging.
4 Reasons You Should Use Welcome Emails
1. They engage customers
Welcome emails demonstrate higher engagement levels than other types of emails. You can use welcome emails to engage with your new subscribers and to persuade them to take action. These initial emails also tend to get more clicks than other marketing emails, and they are opened more often. With a 50% open rate, welcome emails are 86% more effective than newsletters.
2. They decrease unsubscriptions and spam complaints
Welcome emails enable you to introduce your brand to your customers. When they see an email from you next time, they will know who you are and why you contact them. They will be more receptive, and therefore, they will be less likely to report spam or unsubscribe.
3. They increase customer loyalty
A good welcome email campaign can help you establish good relationships with your sales leads and encourage loyalty. They also enable you to communicate a sense of community. Customer loyalty is all about maintaining high engagement and staying in touch with your customers. You can not only welcome new subscribers to the community of satisfied customers but also provide links to your social media accounts, your blog, and website so that they can interact with your brand in different ways.
4. They create segmentation opportunities
You can use welcome emails to collect information about your leads so that you can use this information for targeting. You can even add quick surveys so that your sales leads can specify what content they’re interested in, and what offers they want to receive.
Top 9 Tips On Making Effective Welcome Emails That People Read
1. Send your sales welcome emails at the right time
If you fail to send your emails at the right time, you may miss out on some great selling opportunities. You can use welcome emails to grab your subscribers’ attention and stop them going to your competitors. However, if such emails arrive too late, your subscribers will be less likely to open them because they might forget about your offer.
According to statistics, 75% of marketers send their first email on the same day their subscribers sign up. We recommend that you also don’t hesitate to provide your subscribers with the necessary information as quickly as possible. Independent sales reps who sell B2B should always be sure to engage their prospective buyers by welcoming them with an engaging and personal email.
2. Put some effort into crafting clear and catchy subject lines
If you want your welcome emails to perform well, you should make sure that recipients will actually open them. People receive tons of emails every day, and they won’t open your emails if they don’t stand out. Therefore, it’s important to make your subject lines catchy, personal, and clear. Your recipients should understand the purpose of your emails immediately.
A great approach is to begin your subject lines with “Hello and Welcome” — such a simple approach is used by many successful brands, including Amazon and Airbnb.
Given that most people expect to receive opt-in confirmation, such a beginning of a subject line might convince them to click on it. Besides, you can use subject lines to define expectations. For example, your subject line might say “Here’s what you can do with our products,” “What’s next?,” “Get started with our solution,” or simply “Important information inside.”
A great practice is to personalize your subject lines using information from your subscribers’ subscription forms. For instance, you can address your subscribers by their name.
This way, you will boost open rates and make your conversation with customers more authentic. Personalized subject lines have 26% higher open rates. Keep your subject lines short and clear. Avoid words that are often used in spam emails, such as “free,” “% off,” “deal,” “webinar,” “wonderful,” etc.
3. Tell your recipients what they should do next
Don’t make your new subscribers wait. You can provide them with the necessary instructions and useful advice in your welcome email so that they will know how to achieve better results with your products or how to get a discount. Welcome emails also give you a good opportunity to share your best content with subscribers.
For example, SaaS businesses might want their subscribers to start using their software immediately. In this case, a company can send its subscribers a guide with tips on getting started or an explanatory video. If you have an eCommerce business, you might want your subscribers to make a purchase, so you can use a welcome email to offer your products or services.
4. Keep the promises you make to your sales prospects
Quite often, brands attract new subscribers with promises. For example, you may ask your website visitors to leave their email addresses to get access to a discount, ebook, updates, or premium content. It may come as a no-brainer, but we recommend that you never make promises that you cannot keep.
Besides, you should respect your promises and give your subscribers what they’ve been looking for as soon as possible. If you’ve promised a discount, download link, or coupon code, make sure to include it at the very beginning of your welcome email. This way, your subscribers will get the reward so you’ll be less likely to lose them, and you’ll also build trust.
5. Explain the benefits
Not only should you immediately give your subscribers what they’ve signed up for, but you should also make sure that they know the benefits of joining your community. If they will receive premium content, get information about the latest offers and discounts, or get any other membership benefits, welcome emails are the right place to include such information.
For example, Google starts its welcome emails with a brief “thank you” followed by a quick description of the company’s services and their features. By the way, Google, as well as many other successful brands, stick with a customer-focused approach, using “you” frequently in their emails and avoiding words like “we” and “I.”
We also recommend that you not only explain the benefits but also clearly indicate how often your subscribers will hear from you. This way, they will be able to build expectations that you will meet. In addition, they won’t be surprised when they see the next email from you, so they’ll be more likely to open it.
6. Include clear calls to action
If you want people to do what you want, the most effective approach is to tell them what exactly they should do. Keep in mind that not all CTAs are sales-focused. For example, you can also use such CTAs as “visit our blog,” “get inspired,” “explore,” “get started,” or “join now.” Thanks to such clear and effective messages, you’ll be able to guide your subscribers to a section of your website that meets their needs and interests.
You can also minimize your unsubscribe rate and improve the quality of your leads by asking your subscribers to confirm their subscription. This way, you’ll make sure that their form wasn’t submitted accidentally. No matter what CTAs you use, you should make sure that they will take your subscribers to properly optimized landing pages that offer simple navigation.
7. Include high-quality copy
The content of your welcome emails depends on what the recipients have opted for. The main thing is to get right to the point and not to waste your subscribers’ time. It doesn’t mean that your copy must necessarily be short. The main thing is to make sure that it won’t be boring. Focus on your audience, their pain points, their story, hopes, plans, etc. Your copy should be engaging, and it should also reflect your brand image and the nature of your business. For instance, B2B businesses might benefit from a short guide to B2B copywriting.
8. Include an unsubscribe link
Sometimes, email marketers forget about the importance of unsubscription links, and their emails end up flagged as spam. You won’t be able to build good relationships with your customers if you don’t give them a choice. If they don’t want to receive emails from you, they should be able to quickly unsubscribe.
No matter whether you’re creating an onboarding drip campaign or welcome emails, they should always have a visible unsubscribe link. Including such a link is required by CAN-SPAM, and it will also help you ensure compliance with GDPR.
9. Ask your subscribers to refer a friend
Referred subscribers can be very valuable because they are often more engaged than subscribers that come to you from other sources. When people receive a recommendation from someone they know, such a recommendation is more credible. The chances are that you won’t get many subscribers from recommendations, but those who come as referrals will be interested in your brand and have a higher level of trust.
Wrapping Up
Welcome emails are a powerful tool that can help you build relationships with your subscribers, increase your sales, and strengthen your brand image. The main thing is to create welcome emails that people will actually read, instead of just scrolling down or clicking and bouncing off. We hope that our tips will help you craft effective emails that will be appreciated by your subscribers.
Author Bio:
Frank Hamilton has been working as an editor at essay review service Online Writers Rating and an author at Best Writers Online. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.
Ryan Mattock
Co-Founder of CommissionCrowd... Let's get disruptive!