How? Send welcome emails!
So here’s the thing: Open rates for welcome emails are, on average, 50%. This means that, compared to standard email, they are 86% more effective.
Why take advantage of this situation?
- Based on historic open rates, you know that your new customer is most receptive to reading and digesting your messaging at the very beginning of your relationship.
- While you have their maximum attention, upselling/cross-selling across your line would be most advantageous.
- Make sure your new customer feels welcomed and comfortable in your setting. The more comfortable you make their stay, the longer they’ll stay around.
In short, you’re never going to get this type of opportunity or success rate ever again, so you need to make the most of it.
Here are some suggestions for content in your welcome email series:
- Reassure your new customer that they’ve made the right choice. Here’s where you should feature your very best customer testimonials.
- Present your new customer with added value reasons to get to know/try the rest of your line up.
- Provide ways for your new customer to engage with you in multiple ways: follow you on your social platforms, email or call members of your team, download your app.
- If you can segment your users into product buckets, utilize personalization beyond just focusing on their first name…talk about the specific product, how they are using it, suggesting other products like it.
- Use each email in the series to shine a spotlight on a different aspect of your service, or another product. In this way the reader doesn’t get distracted and is more likely to understand each one of your features by the end of the series.
Finally, timing is critical with this type of messaging. Send the very first welcome email out almost immediately. I don’t mean a minute after they sign up – that’s creepy – but within 24-hours.
By the way, don’t think too hard about who the sender of this email should be…it simply has to come from your company leader (Founder, CEO, President, etc.) This email must come from your top dog, not “marketing@!”
As for cadence, we typically leave a week between welcome emails and include between 3-6 in each series, although you might add more. In fact, we had one travel wholesale client who used a 12 email series, each one promoting a different destination they visited on their tour. However many work for you, your new customer should receive their first email within 24-hours after they started their customer journey, and then every X days (you choose) thereafter for X weeks. You could also consider staging your welcome emails in such a way as to send a real-time welcome message pertinent to their very latest product purchase.
No matter the content or the cadence, it’s high time you incorporate welcome emails into your email marketing program. It’s a profitable way to activate customers immediately after they join your fold, and maintain their engagement thereafter.
