Everyone, including your new subscribers, loves warm welcomes. They are your first impressions of people willing to explore your brand, so it makes perfect sense to excel at making engaging welcome emails. It sets the right expectations for all your future communications, and engaging welcome emails will have lasting effects on your email metrics. Of course, having beautiful email templates and adding the recipient’s name is a must-have but a lot more goes into building a high engagement welcome email. 

welcome email open rate, ctr- stats.1

Source: Hive Blog

Today, we will discover the top 6 actionable tips that will help you electrify your email conversion game for 2021’s fresh subscribers. Read ahead to wish a warm welcome backed by time-tested tactics.

6 Actionable Tips For Creating High Engaging Welcome Emails

#1 Greet With Gratitude

Showing gratitude is undeniably one of the best ways to greet people who are willing to learn more about what you do and what your brand is all about. A lot of newbie email marketers push for welcome offers as the main highlight of their first piece of communication. 

Save yourself from marketing your products in the very first interaction. You may send promotional offers but keep the overall tone focused on telling your new subscribers about how happy you are to have them. In the below example from Brightly, they have used amazing copywriting skills to display their zeal towards new email list subscribers:

welcome email example.2

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

Also Read: 5 Tips for Sending Cold Emails that Receive a Response

#2 Introduce Your Brand Philosophy

Introducing who you are and what you stand for as a brand is indeed essential to building lasting relationships. Highlight your brand’s core values, how your user base interacts with each other, details regarding your products/services. You should focus on setting the expectations for future communications, as your first email will determine your open rates for the upcoming emails. 

You can send them a simplified and more interesting version of your vision and mission statement in simple words. Supergoop sent this beautiful welcome email where they extensively covered the idea behind changing how the world sees sunscreen: 

welcome email-branding.3

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

#3 Choose The Email Template And Copy According To Purpose

Good-looking professional email templates are important for conveying your welcome messages as visual communication feels more natural than text. I recommend using minimalist HTML email templates that help you place all your brand elements as well as your copy in an accessible manner. 

Welcome emails may include a simple thank you, promotional offers, freebies, surprise gifts, or onboarding guides. Customize your message according to your purpose and use suitable CTAs. Here’s an example of using all of the elements mentioned above to build an engaging onboarding-welcome email:

welcome email- template.4

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

#4 Shower Welcome Gifts And Keep Your Opt-In Promises

Promising freebies is the most common method to rope in email list subscribers. If you have made a promise, honor it and send the freebie in the very first email itself. Failing to do so or sending the gated content in the second email will lower your brand’s reputation as people expect to receive those resources ASAP. Try to send these welcome emails earlier than the typical 24-hour sending schedule. 

You can also send surprise welcome gifts as it makes your readers feel special. These gifts generate a lot of value in the form of generous reciprocity. Thrive Market aced the act of being generous with their new subscribers as they went on to offer them to choose a free gift of their choice:

welcome email- gifts-5

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

Also Read: Creative E-mail Marketing Campaign One Should Definitely Consider

#5 Display The Experience Of Relating To Your Brand

The secret to high engagement is embedding storytelling inside your very first email. Humans are obsessed with storytelling art even before we formally begin recording our history. Remember, before seeing your welcome email, the person might have only consumed the content from the awareness phase of your marketing funnel. 

The welcome message should go beyond that experience and make them feel that they are a part of an amazing community that is loved by its stakeholders. You can do it in a straightforward manner or drop hints for your recipient’s subconscious minds. You can use subtle hints to describe how your brand feels to your customer base by using images of your (supposed) customers as they used in the below example:

welcome email-brand experience-6

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

#6 Don’t Forget To Ask For Whitelisting

Coming towards the end, I recommend our readers to always include a request for whitelisting the email address. Ending up in the ‘promotions’ tab or in the spam folder isn’t rare for first interactions. In fact, mailbox providers also put your messages in the spam folder purposefully to test your sender reputation for new recipients. Asking your subscribers to put you on the whitelist goes miles in improving your engagement rates. You can add this request inside the email body, where it is fairly accessible.

welcome email-whitelisting-7

Source: Campaignmonitor

Wrap Up

There’s a long journey between a new prospect joining your mailing list and a warm lead ready for conversion. Email marketing is undoubtedly the best digital marketing channel since 4.147 billion people use it, and it delivers 4400% ROI. Every day, 319.6 billion emails are sent, proving it the most extensively used medium. 

welcome email stats-8

Source: Wordstream

I have penned down these tips keeping engagement at the focus that will give you a good start in building long-term, reciprocal business relationships, and are imperative to overall success. 

Also Read: The A – Z Guide Of Email Etiquette