A welcome email is like a first date. The first impression in everything! You have a unique chance to charm your new customers.

Thus, the format and content of your first communication with them is crucial in order to create a wonderful relatioship from the very beginning. Here we will tell you how to write an engaging welcome message, when to send it, which examples to follow and more.

What is a welcome email?

It’s your first interaction with a new client or a follower who enlisted on your website. Did you know welcome emails have an open rate of 50%? It’s quite high if compared with newsletters and other communications.

So, this is the first time you directly speak to a new customer. In a few lines, you can:

• tell them about your brand;
• thank them for subscribing;
• offer a welcome gift in form of special sales;
• share helpful content;
• invite them to follow your brand on social media;
• include an engaging call to action.

Clearly, the welcome email for a new client is a powerful tool of email marketing and can be optimized to raise your conversion rates and establish a great customer experience.

What can you say?

When a new prospect client subscribe to your online services, your goal is to make them love you at first sight. Again, it’s a lot like first dates: you want to make a good impression, to be charming but not fake and to encourage the start of a great relationship.

Firstly, thank your users for subscriing. You can do that through a simple phrase or, even better, using a gift in form of coupon code or free shipment or something else.

Secondly, introduce your brand and its value to the client. Use an eye-catching layout, an astonishing headline and great pics of your product or service.

Pros and cons

Sending a welcome email to a new customer sets the tone for all your future interactions. Rember, they will be happier if your email is timely, relevant and kind without being salesy.

Increase the brand awareness telling something about you and your products, incite a purchase, ask your clients for personal data and informations you can use to curate the email contact list.

Also, welcome emails are the best place in which to showcase your trustworthiness. Share valuable content and set yourself as an influencer in your job field.

Of corse, there are little hidden dangers in this first written communication as well. If you set your tone to be too salesy or your email is aggressive or in some ways harrassing, you can be accused of spam and lost that customer forever. So, be careful.

Different kinds of welcome email

Here are some examples of welcome email successfully used by brands and companies around the world.

• Get started. These are the welcome emails that set the tone for the entire customer experience. Brands like Virgin Atlantic or Food 52 use them to express their vibe. Warm and cozy or energetic and fun-loving: your client gets to know you and your communication style immediately.
• Videos. If you like different kind of media, your first email can be made of a mixture of text, images and videos. The email click-through rate goes off-the-charts if there’s a video embedded in it.
• Thank you. As we said, one of the main goals of a welcome email is to create a loyal fanbase of followers and acquire new customers. Welcome them to your virtual family with an affectionate thank you email, such as Kate Spade’s.
• Offer. Established brands like IKEA, Uber, Airbnb and more offer a little discount, promo codes or other offers to incite the first purchase by their customers. This is a great way to immediately turn your prospect into a client.

Practical examples of welcome emails

Do you have an e-commerce website, a blog, a service to offer online? First of all, set a newsletter up and invite internet surfers to subsrcibe. Then send your welcome email following this example (you can personalize it as you like).

"Hello [name of the customer],
welcome to [name of the brand]'s family!
Get started with a [free ride, discounted purchase, free shipment etc.] and enjoy our 
professional services. 
Try our [key product or service of the brand] and let us know what you think.
Don't forget to follow [brand's name] on social media and let us hear your voice!"

This is a quite simple yet effective message that will probebly encourage your clients to start using the website. You can enrich the email with stunning visual elements, a distinctive tone, a clear and simple call to action.

Is this a transactional email?

Yes, it is. As you know, transactional emails are triggered by a particular action your user performs on your website. In this scenario, they subscribing to a newsletter incites a welcome email in response.

This is a great way to start your connection with your user and create a great experience.

Some mistakes you should avoid

Like every other communication, a welcome email should be carefully created before being sent. Some mistakes will probably end up with your user never returning to your website, and this is the last thing you want, isn’t it?

So try to avoid sending impersonal emails. Every communication in your email marketing strategy should be as targeted as possibile. At the very least, ask your users to enter their name in the newsletter form and always call them by it.

Also, segment your audience as much as possible, always being sure to send the right message to the right people. If a customer is interested in women’s fashion, you should’t send a discount on male shirts as a welcome gift.

Will you need help?

As any other email marketing campaign, the welcome email is quite diffult to nail at first. You will need a great subscibing form, a trustworthy marketing automation system and some great email marketers, copywriter and graphic designers.

That’s why choosing the right software for your email marketing campaigns is crucial, as well as conducting some split tests to learn what works. After some time, your welcome emails and every other interaction with the customer will be perfect.

Use Mailsenpai for your welcome email

Among other email marketing services, Mailsenpai, Mailchimp and Sendinblue are some of the best.

They will let you customize the welcome email layout and content; analyze every data about open and click-through rates; segment your audience and send automated messages to new and established clients.

In conclusion

Being welcomed in a new group of people, whether it is a family, a friends group or an online community, is a basic need for human beings.

Make your new clients feel at home following our best practices and examples, and contact us for other informations about our email marketing services.