Greetings are a standard part of human connection. These interactions matter just as much for businesses as they do in a social context.
The first impression is everything as you introduce new or potential customers to your brand. It can either warm them up or turn them off, and if they get nothing from you, they’ll forget you. The best way to start this relationship is with a welcome email series.
Making this connection in the inbox with a welcome email sequence requires a strategic approach. As with anything in email marketing, there are best practices, things to avoid, and statistics to inform decisions.
It’s worth the time investment to create these: they are read at a rate of 42% higher than the average.
In this post, get all the facts about an email welcome series, why it matters, and how to create flows that make customers feel warm and welcome.
What Are Welcome Emails?
Welcome emails trigger when someone engages with your brand. It could be a customer, subscriber, or prospect. It represents the first time they provide you with their email address. Events that activate a welcome email series include:
- Signing up for a newsletter
- Requesting a meeting or product demo
- Starting a free trial
- Making a purchase
- Creating an account
- Downloading gated content
The initial start of the welcome email flow would correlate to the specific action the person took and provide resources, information, and content. Users expect them and will open them. A welcome email with a link to download something can have an open rate of 94% and a click-through rate of 31.43%.
From there, the welcome email sequence can branch off in different directions depending on the objective for that person. This nurture series can:
- Keep the lead warm by sharing content that moves down the funnel, ending with the conversion offer.
- Resources and training materials can promote user adoption among those on a free trial or beginning to use your product.
- Showcase more solutions that complement what a customer already has with upselling and cross-selling promotions.
- Deliver promotional offers to drive sales.
With all the possibilities of a welcome email campaign, it’s easy to see why they are so important.
The Importance of a Welcome Email Series
In quantifying the value of an email welcome series, you can look at several components. First, there is an expectation from people that they’ll receive these after taking action. If they don’t hear from you, they may question if they were added to your subscribers or new customers.
Second, they hit the mark for engagement, which is the foundation of long-term customer value and loyalty. Interest is high at this point, and you’re about to set up what comes next in this new relationship. You have a chance to build trust and confidence.
Another reason why a welcome email sequence is crucial is that it enables nurturing across the funnel. No matter the stage of the prospect, welcome emails can deliver the right information at the right time to nudge them down the funnel. You stay top of mind during the buying journey.
You can also learn more about prospects through their interactions with a welcome email series. View what they are clicking by topic or format to discern where their interests and challenges lie. With this intelligence, you can personalize future communications to be more relevant.
Now, let’s look at the six reasons why email series are important.
1. Welcome Emails Outperform Other Email Types
A welcome email series helps brands build relationships, and they have high engagement rates. The benchmarks for welcome emails are often much higher than others:
- 63.91% open rate
- 14.34% click-through rate
- 22.44% click-to-open rate
This engagement then leads to more revenue. In fact, a series of welcome emails returns an average of 51% more revenue than a single one.
The high performance is a result of expectation and personalization. Marketing email design can contribute to this, as well as dynamic content. Receiving this in their inbox is a sincere welcome. The more you can personalize these, the greater engagement. Open rates increase by 50% with personalized subject lines.
2. Welcome Email Series Delivers Specific Content to Customers
Content customization starts with the first email as a response to the person’s action. Content in the emails directly relates to what someone expects and wants. It can range from top-of-the-funnel downloads to onboarding tutorials. With a sophisticated email marketing system, you can create an automated email sequence that parallels the buying journey.
For example, if engagement was a content download, the first email has a link to that PDF, which has impressive open and click-through rates. The email can also offer related content. From there, the welcome email series becomes a nurture of content that aligns with what you know about that persona—their industry, title, motivations, challenges, etc.
Another example would be welcome emails for a free trial. The first one welcomes them to the product with tutorials and resources. The sequence continues with bite-size content on how to use specific features. It’s an education series that drives adoption and converts a trial customer into a permanent one.
3. Automated Welcome Emails Save You Time and Money
Companies can’t keep up with email campaigns manually. Automated email sequences offer an efficient way to scale. There are varying degrees of functionality with email platforms, but most of these have automation features. You can set up a sequence of welcome emails that trigger once someone takes an action.
Then, those emails pace out based on the timeframes you set. Also, if people don’t open an email, you can have a rule to resend it.
Automation is a huge time saver, with 70% of business leaders stating that they can save up to 30 hours a month with workflow automation.
The longer your email list gets and the more complicated the branches, automation is a necessity.
4. Welcome Email Campaigns Take Recipients on a Journey
One of the leading reasons why welcome emails matter is the multiple touchpoints. You are taking people on a journey. It began with a warm hello, resources, setting expectations, and confirmations.
The journey continues as you educate and engage customers with your brand’s personality. The welcome series cements their beliefs and thoughts about your business. In most cases, this isn’t the time for selling. Rather, it’s the time for consulting and helping. The more you can inform customers with practical content, the more your credibility grows.
When they are ready to make new or more purchases from you, they’ll do so because of the amazing and personalized journey you provided to them.
5. Welcome Emails Foster Trust and Loyalty
Any strong relationship has a foundation of trust. You aren’t going to earn this immediately from a new prospect. They have to be sure you deliver on your promises. Foster trust and loyalty comes from more engagement, and that’s what an email welcome series produces. You’re providing useful tips, information, and advice to solve their problems.
You’re also showing up continuously—a constant in their inbox with more to share. You can “measure” trust and loyalty as an engagement metric. Analyze what they are clicking on and if that’s a sign of their furthering confidence in your brand. For example, a case study is a piece of content that indicates high interest. It also showcases how you followed through and provided solutions for a company just like them. When these signals occur, a welcome email campaign can move to the conversion email. It keeps the pace of the relationship relative, so you’re not jumping to the sale too soon.
6. Welcome Emails Offer Insights on Subscribers
As noted in this welcome email series guide, you have the ability to track lots of metrics around email engagement. In turn, it enables you to understand their preferences and interests. You can then use this to personalize messaging and send emails at the most optimal times for that user.
Everything you learn about a prospect or customer enables you to tailor marketing to them. They’ll appreciate how relevant the information is, which increases their loyalty and love for your brand.
For example, every open or click registers a data point about what they like and when they engage. This information syncs to your CRM with everything you know about the customer. For future email campaigns, this allows you to segment more precisely by product, challenge, motivation, industry, location, or any other key differentiator. Segmentation fuels high-performing email marketing, with marketers stating it’s the most effective strategy.
Get more tips on everything email-related by reading our email marketing guide.
FAQs: Welcome Series Emails
1. What strategies can optimize mobile responsiveness in a welcome email series?
Best practices for mobile responsiveness in email include ensuring your email template is scalable and flexible, testing it on multiple devices, using larger fonts that are easier to read on small screens, choosing single-column layouts, and making buttons stand out.
2. Can integrating social proof in welcome emails increase engagement?
Yes, people want to hear from real customers to determine if a product or service works. They are more likely to believe them than a brand. Testimonials, star ratings, and case studies can all drive engagement, which you can measure by clicks.
3. How often should businesses update their welcome email content?
It’s a good idea to revisit welcome email content at least every six months. If there are significant changes to products, onboarding, or resources, this should prompt a refresh. Also, you’ll need to update the content when you add new solutions.
4. What are the common mistakes to avoid in your welcome email series?
The biggest mistake is not sending one! Following welcome email series best practices to avoid sending them too late, poor design, irrelevant content, and lack of personalization. This can impact the performance of a welcome email series.
5. How do welcome emails support SEO strategies through increased site visits?
Site traffic is a critical component of SEO, as search engines consider high traffic a sign of high-quality and relevant content. The traffic from an email is referral, not organic, but it still increases the overall visits to your website. If people spend more time on your site and visit many pages, this engagement supports SEO.
6. Can a welcome email series be used for cross-selling or up-selling products?
Yes, welcome emails are a good channel for upselling and cross-selling. They can introduce new products that complement the purchase and encourage people to check out what else you have that they’ll want. Be sure it’s not a hard sell. What you reveal to them should align with their needs, and you can customize this based on the data you collect about them.
7. What’s the role of visual content in making welcome emails more appealing?
Visuals matter whether you have a physical product or not. They should be crisp, modern, and relevant. Product images should showcase its effectiveness and features. For those in the solution space, images should represent the buyer and their environment.
8. How can A/B testing enhance the effectiveness of your welcome email series?
A/B testing provides great insights. Typically, there will only be one difference—the subject line, CTA, or image. You can compare the metrics by running two options concurrently to determine which copy, CTA, or visuals were most appealing.
9. Do welcome emails have a direct impact on referral marketing success?
Yes, they can when some part of the series incentivizes them to refer a friend. The value must be something they want, like a discount or free item. It also needs to be easy for them to refer friends, colleagues, or family.
10. What metrics should be analyzed to measure the success of a welcome email series?
The metrics that matter are open rates, click-through rates, click-to-open ratios, and unsubscribes. Fluctuations of these indicate there may be some friction. Dig into the data to see where engagement begins to fall off.
Need Help with Your Email Marketing?
Now that you know the importance of an email welcome series, you’ll want to launch or improve it. It’s one part of email marketing, which is one area of your entire inbound marketing efforts.
Managing all these initiatives requires skilled resources across content, design, strategy, and operations. If you want to get more out of your marketing without delays and overhead, we can help.
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.
Contact us today to start the conversation.
