Do You Send a Welcome Email?

I will bet your first reaction to the title of this post was, “Of course I do.” But you would be amazed at how many people don’t send a ‘proper’ Welcome email. A well thought out Welcome email will get you more opens, more clicks, better ‘deliverability’ and less spam complaints. This is the first email subscribers receive and it may be the most important.

According to Aweber, welcome emails get open rates 4 times higher and click through rates 5 times higher than emails. They report often seeing welcome emails with greater than 90% open rate and greater than 50% click-through rate.

Welcome emails are so successful because the subscriber receives them while their interest is high. Often these emails contain an incentive, so the subscribers want their freebies. Or, they are interested in the content of the subscription and want to see what the email says.

Whatever their reason for opening your Welcome email, you will probably never get a better response from any email you send.

There are 5 things every Welcome email should do

1. Deliver the freebie – if you offered a freebie on your squeeze page, your Welcome email should deliver it and make sure it is easy for the subscriber to find. If you didn’t offer a freebie, try offering a blog post that will be of value to them.
2. Ask to be whitelisted – By whitelisting you, a subscriber is sure to get your future emails. (Providing instructions on how to ‘whitelist’ can be helpful.) A clever way to get whitelisted is to ask the subscriber to reply to the email so you know they received it. This adds you to their contact list.
3. Set Expectations – Tell the subscriber how often you will receive emails and what type of content will be in the emails. Providing this type of information will reduce unsubscribes and spam complaints.
4. Introduce yourself – this is the perfect opportunity to begin a relationship with your subscriber. Remember people buy from those they know, like and trust. Introducing yourself or your company and what you are about will help them get to know you. Include your picture ore log if possible. It is never too soon to start your branding.
5. Build anticipation – you want your subscribers to look forward to the next email; e.g., explain the benefits of being a subscriber, use teasers about future content, unannounced freebies. Anything you can think of the will increase the subscribers desire to open your next email.

Also, remember the 75%/25% rule from CTP training. 75% pull (provide value) emails, 25% push (sell). I would recommend that at least your first 3 emails, work on building your relationship with the subscriber and give them something of value – tips, links to blog posts, links to pictures. You don’t want to sell anything. Selling something in the 4^th email is probably OK or continue to build your relationship. Strong relationships have big rewards later.

Until next time,
Bob Caine

PS - No Angry Crab surf badges today so still stuck on 3 of the required 10.

PSS - My post from yesterday where I thought a CTP CupofTraffic Mastery challenge that would take almost 3 years to complete was too long. Got a reponse from @russellstockley, the owner of CupofTraffic. It said, " I must admit I thought I had adjusted that one, so your post has prompted me to revisit and you will be pleased to know that you now recieve 8 points for logging in and yes this still means that the task is not instant, but then they are not supposed to be :) " Thank you @russellstockley.