Welcome Emails: Tips, Examples & Best Practices

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Updated: September 12th, 2024

What Is A Welcome Email?

A welcome email is the first impression a company makes with a new subscriber.

If customers enjoy a positive experience, they will be likely to engage with your future email marketing efforts.

According to campaign monitor, welcome emails have an average read rate of 34%.

Therefore, it's important that you convey the right message off the bat! Here are some things to consider when creating a welcome email:

Welcome Email Key Takeaways

Try not to introduce a new product or service right away
Avoid sending welcome emails too late in the game - as soon as your customer provides you with their information, they should receive a welcome email in their inbox
Consider creating a nurturing sequence so you can gradually build a relationship with your customer before convincing them to purchase your product/service
Make sure your welcome email offers an authentic and personal touch when introducing your organization.

Understanding How Welcome Emails Work

As the name suggests, a welcome is sent to new customers to establish a positive initial impression of your company. Moreover, the welcome email creates an opportunity to introduce the new customers and establish a positive connection ahead of the first order.

A customer-focused, value-packed welcome email stands out in the customer's inbox. Therefore, create a personalized email to increase customer engagement and deliver six times higher transactional rates compared to future marketing emails.

Real-World Examples of Enterprises That Send Welcome Emails

1.Real Life Trading

Real Life Trading is an American financial Freedom company started by Jeremy Alexander.

Jeremy understands the importance of creating first-time impression through a personalized welcome email.

In the welcome email, he starts with the user's name, to create a personalized appeal. The email refers to the action taken by the user and adds a Call To Action button to direct the user to the dashboard.

By creating such personalized welcome emails, Jeremy has managed to hook users to the system, which is the key to getting the customers to register for courses on offer.

Today, Real Life Trading has monthly revenue of $160,000 per month, thanks to the smart marketing approaches.

Food52

Food52 is a recipe website founded by Amanda and Merrill. Apart from sharing test kitchen-approved recipes, Amanda and Merrill also market kitchenware needed to make the approved recipes.

Whenever a new user registers on the platform, a welcome email is delivered to the customer’s inbox. The welcome email features an attractive pre-header that ensures the customer opens the email.

Therefore, when the customer sees the food52 welcome email, he gets a taste of their brand's personality even before opening the email.

Getting Started with Welcome Emails

Ensure you create a catchy subject line
The tone of welcome emails should mirror your company’s culture and brand personality
Create a stylish email template that suits your brand's guidelines
Be engaging and creative
Double-check emails before sending them

Taking the time to send a welcome email to your new customers is a thoughtful gesture that will not go unappreciated by the recipient.

Some easy-to-use email campaign tools can ease the experience of sending welcome emails. Here are great tools for your email marketing campaigns.

MailChimp

A marketing automation platform and an email marketing service.

The free plan, up to 2000 subscribers - what you get

Send up to 12,000 emails per month
Up to 2,000 subscribers
Email support included for 30 days

"Essentials" plan Plans start at $10 per month

Up to 5,000 subscribers $50 per month
Up to 10,000 subscribers $75 per month
Up to 25,000 subscribers $150 per month

Standard plan Plans start at $15 per month

Up to 5,000 subscribers $75 per month
Up to 10,000 subscribers $99 per month
Up to 20,000 subscribers $189 per month
Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @MailChimp
Website: mailchimp.com

Businesses using MailChimp:

878 successful businesses are using MailChimp ➜

Get MailChimp ➜

Mailerlite

Affordable Email Marketing Software for Small Business.

1,000 contacts $0/mo
2,500 $15/mo
5,000 $30/mo
10,000 $50/mo
15,000 $75/mo
Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @MailerLite
Website: https://www.mailerlite.com/

Businesses using Mailerlite:

104 successful businesses are using Mailerlite ➜

Get Mailerlite ➜

SendGrid

Customer communication platform for transactional and marketing email.

100 emails/day - Free!
Up to 50k emails/day - $15/month
Up to 100k emails/day - $30/month
Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @SendGrid
Website: sendgrid.com

Businesses using SendGrid:

118 successful businesses are using SendGrid ➜

Get SendGrid ➜

Case Study

Ollie Aplin, founder of MindJournal provides us with their exact strategy for their welcome emails:

"Every subscriber and customer gets a welcome email that onboards them to the MindJournal community.

We keep it short and simple, highlighting our mission and what kind of content they should expect from us and how often.

People like knowing what they’re going to get — and then they’re not annoyed when you email them. Everyone has a different relationship to email, but your job at a minimum is to help them enjoy emails from you.

Lessons learned about email

We’re a visual brand so plain-text emails don’t do that well for us. At the same time, image heavy emails load slow and get collected more easily by spam filters so there’s a balancing act.

Service level brands could benefit from text only emails but if you’re an ecommerce brand like us, you’re going to want to include some images. Just make sure you don’t overdo it.

Sending constant emails asking people to buy, via offers, competitions, reviews etc just gets annoying. Your job as a brand is to help your customers, in some way or another. Be helpful in their everyday.

Make them stick with you because you provide more than just a good product or service. Email will outlast every social media unicorn business that comes and goes. So put the time in and build an email community for the long-term.

Ollie Aplin, on starting MindJournal ($150,000/month) full story ➜

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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