Once you’ve convinced a website visitor to give you their email address the real work begins.
You need to affirm your brand image, strengthen the person’s positive opinion of your business, and convince them to look at your products/services.
To top it all off you have to do all three of those things in less than 200 words. That’s where your welcome email series comes in. It’s the building block that either draws in your potential customer or pushes them away.
Why Welcome Emails Matter
There have been many studies that show welcome email series have a much higher success rate than any other type of email campaign.
Between 75% and 85% Of Welcome emails are opened as opposed to the regular 18% - 27%. This shouldn't come as a very big shock.
The people receiving these emails are still fairly new to your company and haven’t had the time to lose interest yet. What you have to do is take the interest they have and help it grow before it dies out. It’s kind of like a seed sprouting in a garden. You need to water their interest with customer-focused email content.
Customer-Focused Welcome Email Series
When creating your welcome email series it will be very tempting to only talk about yourself and your business. Resist the temptation.
Your potential customer didn't sign up for your emailing list to hear about how great you are, they want to see or hear something that piques their interest. The easiest way to ensure that your welcome email content is customer-focused is to highlight benefits instead of features. For example, let's say you run a custom, handmade jewelry business.
Your welcome email might look something like this… "Hi Charlotte, Welcome to the Snowflake Jewelry community.
I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to help you make your unique jewelry dreams come to life! Each special moment in your life is like a snowflake.
Unique Snowflake jewelry helps you treasure those unique moments forever. View some of our most popular collections and make them your own. Wedding day Bliss New family member Beautiful lives Forever Friends" This email does several things…
- Makes the potential buyer feel welcome
- Shows the company understands why they became interested in their products.
- Builds a connection with the potential buyer by affirming their emotions.
Welcome Email Branding
You need to make sure your Brand's voice comes through clearly in how the email content is written and how you incorporate it with your graphics.
For example, let's say you operate a Family diner. You send out digital coupons and cooking tips to people who sign up for your email list. Your welcome email would include…
- Several pictures of menu items
- Your logo
- People sitting at your diner laughing and eating.
Each image should be high quality and have a family-friendly, comforting feel to them. We have another blog post that shows you how to create your own graphic designs.
The content in your email would look something like this… " Hello, Rob We're proud to officially welcome you to Campfire Diner.
We're afraid that we are a bit at fault here. We've worked on perfecting our recipes for several generations, to the point where they're somewhat irresistible.
Many folks like yourself come in on a daily basis and pay their hard-earned money to fill their bellies with Apple BBQ chicken, Evening Berry Pie, and other menu items.
Since our delicious recipes are making your wallet slightly lighter, we thought we'd try to make up for it. Starting right now, we're going to be emailing you a weekly coupon so you don't have to spend quite so much just to enjoy the food you love. PS We'll also be sending you some of our family cooking tips so you can start creating delicious recipes of your own."
Since you'd be giving away a digital coupon, you would naturally include it as one of your graphics.
Your Call to Action
Your potential client is still interested and maybe even excited about your business when they receive a welcome email from you. It's important to keep the momentum going by having a strong call to action at the end of each email in your welcome email series.
For example, let's say you are a hairstylist. Your business offers a free hairstyling guide on your website for people who sign up using their email.
These potential customers are excited about beautiful hair. That means that they are in the perfect spot for you to send them a welcome email that looks something like this…
"Hi Candy, I am absolutely thrilled that you've signed up for our free hairstyling guide!
This guide gets updated every month with tips and techniques for new hairstyles. We'll send you an email notification as soon as the new edition is available, so keep an eye out for it.
This style guide includes instructions for several different types of hair including straight, curly, and more.
Everyone deserves to feel gorgeous and confident when they look in the mirror. This hairstyle guide will help you make sure that happens.
Click here to view your hairstyle guide online, or download it. PS: once you've gotten familiar with your style guide, browse our specialized hair care products to find more ways to wear your hair with style and confidence." The call to action in this email does three important things…
- Encourages your potential customer to view your products.
- Provides useful information.
- Gives them an incentive to stay subscribed to your email list
How Long Should Your Welcome Series Be?
The length of your welcome email series is going to largely depend on your industry.
If you're selling something that's not quite as expensive and more of an impulse decision for most buyers, your welcome email series should be three emails long. A good way to determine how many emails should be in your welcome series is to look at the main benefits your business offers. For example, let's say that you run an independent real estate agency.
Your business offers four main benefits to your customers…
- Finding the perfect house for your customers
- A free downloadable copy of "Do's and Don'ts List for Buying a House".
- A free downloadable copy of "Do's and Don'ts List for Selling a House".
- Fix up suggestions to help your customers get the best price for their house.
There are other services you offer, but these are the four that grab your potential customer's attention.
You would start by offering one of the downloadable books in exchange for someone's email address.
The first email in your welcome email series would look something like this…
"Hi, Greg Hands Off Real Estate is proud to present to you…
'Do's and Don'ts List for Buying a House' We would encourage you to take advantage of the tips while searching for your new home.
If you need more assistance in finding your dream home, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
PS: If you're looking to sell your old home, we would also suggest downloading our free book 'Do's and Don'ts List for Selling a House'.
"This email helps establish a relationship with your potential customer by offering them even more free resources and inviting them to contact you.
Your second email encourages them to contact you for help finding their dream home.
A good way to tie this in with the first email would be to reference a particular page or chapter in one of the books.
You could also ask them to let you know if they missed anything. This would get them to take the first step in contacting you, and it would give you valuable feedback.
The third and final email in your welcome email series would be similar to the second one. This time you would focus on people looking to sell their house.
Is it worth hiring a professional?
We have an entire blog post outlining the benefits of outsourcing to freelancers.
However, for the sake of this post, we'll give you an abbreviated version that specifically addresses email content. Because your welcome email series will only be between 3 and 7 emails in length, it may seem like it would be easier to just write it yourself. However, a lot goes into creating the "perfect" welcome email series.
A freelancer has the knowledge and skill to create that perfect welcome email series in a very short amount of time.
You can also hire a freelancer to create the graphics, help build your email list, and so much more.
By choosing to outsource to a freelancer you save yourself a lot of time and are much more likely to have a successful email campaign. To top it off, freelancers are a lot cheaper than hiring an in-house writer. If you hire a freelancer through Legiit, you don’t even have to sign a contract, or fill out any paperwork.
H3: types of email professionals
Legiit is proud to host some of the best freelance email professionals available.
Here are a few of the services our freelancers offer…
Short-Form Emails : Short-form emails are usually less than 200 words long. They’re designed to grab people’s attention and get them to click through to your landing page in less than a minute.
Responsive Pro Email Templates : Some of Legiit's email professionals offered templates that you can tweak and use over and over again. These templates are specifically designed to be responsive and help convince customers to click through to your landing page.
Niche-Targeted Email Lists : Legiit freelancers can help you grow your email list by finding potential buyers that are interested in your industry. You’ll be able to reach hundreds of new customers with the click of a button.
Email Copywriters: Legiit’s email copywriters create unique, customer-focused email content that keeps your potential customer reading
Choosing the Right Email Professional
The first step you should take before choosing a professional freelancer is carefully reviewing the service description.
Just because two freelancers both offer "email writing services" doesn't mean that the service will be the same. Legiit has an entire blog post that outlines freelance warning signs like freelancers who are unwilling to share previous work samples, demanding full payment before completing a project, etc. Here are a few positive signs you should look for in an email copywriter.
- Previous samples
- Quick responses
- Offering revisions
- Good reviews from past buyers
Testing Your Welcome Email
Now that you have your welcome email ready, you need to do a test run. Remember, this is your potential customer's first interaction with your emails.
If something goes wrong they're almost guaranteed to unsubscribe from your mailing list. Send the email series out to a dummy account and make sure all of the links, buttons, and graphics are working correctly. Once everything is working properly, you can send out your welcome emails.
Legiit freelancers can help you with this entire process, from creating the welcome emails to scheduling when and where they’re sent. Take a look at their services and find the perfect freelance email professional for your company.