A customer strolls into a clothing store and says, “Wow. I really like this store!”
The store clerk looks up and responds, “Thanks!” and goes back to folding shirts.
A huge opportunity to impress an interested customer is lost, and along with it, any hopes of a future sale.
This is exactly what happens online when a customer provides their email on your website and nothing shows up in their inbox. By subscribing to your email list, people are literally saying that they want to hear from you.
In marketing, we call your email list low-hanging fruit, because a customer who’s given you their email address is about as easy as they come. When automation is set up, this fruit hangs even lower, and frankly, businesses that don’t have a welcome series are leaving their customers hanging and money on the table.
An automated welcome series is a win-win for you and your customers.
Customers get the deals, offers, and brand story they’re looking for. You get to put your feet up while the sales roll in.
Welcome series emails are perfectly timed and crafted to tell your story over the course of 4-10 emails, nurturing your clients towards the sale without them ever knowing that a real person isn’t hitting the send button on each one.
Many businesses focus solely on sending promotional newsletters, or “one-time” sends. A ton of time and money goes into crafting each one. After it’s sent, revenue follows. But ultimately, it stops.
Welcome emails keep sending and generate 320% more revenue compared to other promotional emails.
The fact that welcome emails continue to send over and over isn’t the only reason they perform so well.
When a customer provides their email, the lead is super hot. The sooner you reach out with your product or service, your brand story, and your offer, the better.
If you’re not sending welcome emails to new leads, you’re basically telling your customers you’re too busy to take them on the tour of your business they’ve asked for. Too busy folding shirts, perhaps?
A welcome series automation is so important, it should be the first or next, automated campaign you set up.
If your business already has a welcome email series in place, and it’s not performing like a rockstar, then adjust your strategy.
How many are you sending? A good series is 5-10 emails long.
Are you pushing the product too soon? Nurture the customer first. Tell your brand story and offer value before asking for a sale.
Let’s break down 5 reasons why welcome emails are so important and look at more tips for making the most out of them.
1.Welcome emails don’t just work. They usually outperform regular campaigns and other automated flows
Why? Because subscribers engage with them more than any other type of marketing email.
- Welcome series emails are read 42% more than regular emails.
- People open welcome emails 5x more often than standard email campaigns.
- 74% of subscribers expect you to send a welcome email immediately upon signing up.
On top of this, welcome emails open a whole new world of opportunity called personalization.
Put yourself in the subscriber’s shoes – you come across a brand you really like, so you decide to sign up for their email list to stay in the know. A few minutes later, you receive a beautifully designed email from the brand welcoming you to their business. It’s addressed directly to you.
Now you feel valued and appreciated before you’ve even made a purchase. That sounds like a lovely way to start a relationship, right?
- Personalized welcome emails are 26% more likely to be opened
- Personalized email marketing generates a medium return on investment of 122%
2. Welcome series emails offer content so specific to your customer, that they’ll think it was written just for them
Popular Email Service Providers (ESPs) such as Klaviyo and Mailchimp have become incredibly advanced and use customer data to create customized messages. This is great for you and your customer because automations will never appear automated.
For example, let’s say you sell one product that you hope to build some loyalty around so the customer will keep coming back for more.
If your customer buys said product after receiving email #1, should you send them a pitch for that product in email #2? No way, that would be poor form. So, we create a split in our series so purchasers will get a slightly different email than non-purchasers.
Another example: let’s say your customer gets all the way to the end of your series without making a purchase. You can pop in a final email with a special offer that only goes out to them.
3. Automated welcome emails save you time and money
Gone are the days of manually recording every single person who signs up for your email list and sending them the right emails at the right time. Creating an automated welcome series saves you from having to do that.
Saving time also means that you’re able to focus on other areas of your business like developing new products, growing your team, and setting up more email automations.
Companies can save over 30 hours every month by automating their emails, which equates to nearly 4 entire full days of work.
If your email list is pretty small, this may not seem like a big deal. But the bigger your list gets, the more grateful you’ll be to have this already sorted out. If you’re stumped on how to grow your subscriber base, we’ve broken it down into 4 ways to attract more customers and get better results from your campaigns.
4. Welcome series emails take people on a journey and turn them into loyal customers over time
Think of your welcome series like a dinner party. You aren’t going to hand your guests the main course the moment they walk in the door. Greet them, welcome them in, show them around and offer an appetizer. Wait until everyone is comfortable, settled in (and hungry) before bringing out your prized pot roast.
In this example from our client Ignite International, valuable information from the welcome series helps the customer understand and make a better choice for themselves. The products are featured, but in a very subtle and non-salesy approach.
But if you’re not supposed to lead with your product, what do you lead with? Your brand.
Branding is how consumers connect with your business. Some people call the brand the face, but it’s bigger than that. It’s the personality. You could even call it the soul.
Your brand should be injected into every touchpoint, from the moment a prospect first lands on your site to your first few messages with them.
Your welcome series is your customers’ first look into what your brand is all about and will have a huge effect on whether they’ll think it’s worth investing in.
As wonderful as your product or service is, a strong to connection to your brand isn’t always immediate. Some customers will need time to warm up to you and your offer as the connection to your brand builds.
Aside from your website, you might not have other channels built out to establish your brand. Emails are a direct way to keep your business top of mind and allow you to maximize your branding efforts.
Your email channel gives you immediate opportunities to create awareness around your business, which helps keep your name/product/services at your customers’ fingertips. If someone recalls your specific business when they need a certain product or service, you’ve struck the gold mine in reputation, brand presence, and revenue.
5. Welcome emails create trust and loyalty
Every strong relationship starts with trust. If a person doesn’t believe in your business or your ability to execute, they won’t want to build a connection with you.
Since new leads are most engaged in the first days of subscribing, it’s important to leverage this by creating lots of opportunities for them to engage with your business. Welcome emails do just that. They can include easy links to your website or social media, or even offer discounts on their next or first purchase with you.
By infusing your welcome emails with helpful, user-friendly links, icons, and graphics, you’re inviting consumers to a place where they feel comfortable and welcomed to participate.
This welcome series email we designed for Fame and Partners is rich with brand story, helpful links and an introduction to their best-selling products.
6. Welcome emails tell you a lot about your subscribers
As your welcome series runs, it gathers vital data about your subscribers’ preferences, when they open emails and which links they click. This enables you to create tailored strategies so you can send your emails at the most optimized times for the highest chances of open and click-through rates. In turn, you’re able to increase engagement and create a better customer experience, which directly correlates to increasing your revenue.
Customers love personalization because they receive interactions with your brand that appeals to their schedule, what they like, and what they’re interested in seeing from you. This increases customer loyalty, your profitability, and it gets your name out there since people are more likely to recommend your business to their friends and family.
Put all of this together, and you’re on your way to building trust and loyalty with your subscribers, which always leads to increased revenue.
Need Help with Your Email Marketing?
Now that you’ve got a good idea of why automated welcome emails can be so valuable to you, your customers, and the long-term success of your business, it’s time to build out your welcome series. Ready? We are too!
Because of the importance and incredible return on investment of this type of automation, we now offer a 4 email welcome series offering as an ala carte service.
Are you happy with what currently happens when a lead comes in today? Here are 4 signs you could benefit from our new Welcome Series offering:
- You’re using paid channels to drive leads, but are having trouble converting.
- You’re stretched thin and don’t have adequate resources to create an effective email program.
- Your sales team is spending too much time following up with leads when they should be focused on sales.
- You have a welcome series in place, but it’s not performing. Our clients are seeing between 8-22% of total revenue coming solely from their welcome series.
Once your high performing welcome series is in place, then you can start to strategize your campaign schedule. An important first step is to come up with ideas for promotions and celebrations that your emails can be focused on.
Creating a well thought out schedule for your campaigns will help you save time, worry, and make your subscribers’ experience as smooth as can be. Check out our 2022 email marketing calendar template so you can start your campaigns on the right note.
Looking for more advanced techniques to stay ahead of your competition? We’ve run through the reasons you might want to integrate SMS into your marketing strategy.
