When I started MailGet, I used to send welcome emails to everyone who signed up for it.

But to my disappointment, my welcome emails were failing to get the right response from my recipients.

And, I was getting very low CTR (Percentage of people opening to an email) nearly around 1.45%, which was quite below the industry standards.

Then, I decided to find out the reason behind all this.

So,

I examined 545 welcome emails of over 300 companies and determined what exactly a welcome email should hold.

Later on, when I applied my analysis on my welcome emails, I was shocked to see the results – My CTR raised to 2.55% i.e. by 175%.

Amazing. Isn’t it..!!

So, I have decided to share all my analysis with you.

For that, I have able to wrap up all my analysis work into 10 simple actionable steps.

Go through each of the steps and match how many of them you can follow too…

1. Send Welcome Emails Instantly:

Your subscriber should get your welcome email the moment he subscribes to your service.

And obviously, it is impossible to do that manually if a number of users subscribe you daily. A problem..???

Here is the solution – Email Autoresponders

Email Autoresponders are scheduled emails that are sent to a subscriber as soon as he joins your email list. Almost all email marketing services  provide you the autoresponder feature nowadays. You can use them to make your work easier.

# Additional Input: You can inform your subscriber in the thanks page of your website to check his inbox for the welcome email and be sure that it reaches his inbox before he himself does.

2. Eye-Pleasing Subject Line Still Required:

A good subject line is always necessary to appeal a user. Just because he has subscribed you just now and is interested in you, you can’t ignore practices of writing a good subject line.

A simple “Welcome to ABC ” doesn’t work anymore, you need to be creative for sure.

In my case, instead of using a boring “Welcome to MailGet” I used this subject line: “Getting Started: Stay in touch..!!

Try creating subject lines that pull subscribers and make them open your emails.

3. Give Users a Warm Welcome:

Subscribers should be delighted at your welcome and should feel that they are special for you. Check out these examples for how you could be different from others.

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In the above email, the phrase “AND THIS IS CRAZY BUT” is rather a cooler way of saying that they are giving you a 20% off on their products.

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See how StarBucks welcomes you. There’s a welcome written on the coffee cup, creatively mingling their product with your welcome.

4. Offer Them Some Starters:

Welcome emails have open rates as high as 54.7%, so why shouldn’t you utilize this. It could be a great idea to offer not all but a few of your best offers in the welcome email itself.

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Offers in the very first email will overwhelm your subscribers and they will develop an inclination towards you.

After all who doesn’t want to be served well.

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But while doing so, you should not forget the main purpose of a welcome email i.e. to make a bond with your subscriber.

5. Bring Them in Action:

Give a clear call to action to the subscriber in your welcome email..!!

This call to action could be a button simply saying “Shop Now” or something like “Click to Get Started“. Convey your message in short and then direct a subscriber to the click button saving both of yours time.

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Put simple actionable steps in your welcome email to drive the subscriber in the right direction.

6. Tell Them the Time of Next Meeting:

Start setting expectations in your subscribers mind right from your welcome email. Set a day for meeting and arrive in his inbox regularly on the very same day (particularly for blog owners).

James Clear mentions in his welcome email that he will meet you on Mondays and Thursdays. The practice of meeting your subscribers at pre-scheduled times keeps their minds both prepared and waiting for your email.

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7. Adding Images Will Make it More Catchy:

Pictures are sometimes more explanatory than words. They save time and please your eyes too. Clear and detailed images work better for an email and may allow you more click-throughs.

You can use images as the background of your email on which you could write your message. But make sure your pictures are relevant and explain your intentions well.

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And one technical thing, don’t upload heavy images that take much time to load as this may distract the audience.

8. Be Personal:

Personalization i.e. addressing a user by his name in the email is quite necessary for email marketing. Your Welcome email should address the person whom it is being sent. Also, it’s a good idea that the sender too is a person, not a team.

Now again this is something that needs use of an email marketing service. These services provide Email Personalization feature in which the system fetches the name of the subscriber  from the contact details and put it in the email.

9. It’s a Mobile World:

The world is turning mobile these days, reports suggest more than 70% of people open emails in mobiles. So, your welcome emails should be responsive i.e. look equally good on all devices.

Mobile friendly emails have nowadays become more than a necessity and so you should be pretty sure about the responsiveness of your welcome email.

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10. Get Social:

Don’t forget to put social buttons in your welcome email, to ensure that your subscribers are connected to you through multiple mediums.

Those who have subscribed you definitely want to know more about your product or service. Social mediums can help subscribers do that easily and at the same time increase their trust in you.

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Wrapping Up…

The 10 practices I’ve mentioned above are tried and tested well. Use them to create a stunning welcome email and increase your subscriber engagement as I did.

And to design them the best what could be better than MailGet – Email Service Provider. It has amazing email builders to design a perfect welcome email. Also, setting autoresponders and email personalization too can be done very easily in MailGet.

Although these practices promise to improve your relationship with your customer, still the basic requirement for a customer to be with you is your usefulness to him. Always try to be useful to him and he won’t leave you ever.

Do you think we should do something more in our welcome emails?

Do express in the comment box below. See ya with more of email marketing soon…