The first email your subscribers receive from you is what decides the success of your whole email marketing.
Your welcome email is the asset to communications with new subscribers and maintaining a positive customer relationship.
The impression your welcome message leaves has a lot to do with the buying decision your customers make. It’s when the customer relationship starts, and what keeps prospects from unsubscribing.
Feeling overwhelmed by the infinite options for designing your welcome emails? I got your back.
Take inspiration from this guide where you’ll learn:
- What is a welcome email
- Why welcome emails are important for your business
- How to write and what to include in your welcome email design
- 11 Best welcome email template examples—To get inspired for your email design and messaging
- 16 Best email subject lines for welcome emails
- How to create a welcome email series in 3 simple steps
Let’s get to it.
What is a Welcome Email?
A welcome email is the first email your subscribers receive right after their first interaction with your business. It helps you introduce yourself to your prospects and encourage them to engage with your brand.
Why Welcome Emails Are Important For Your Business?
With 86% higher open rates than other marketing emails, welcome emails are proven to be way more engaging.
Also, new subscribers expect to receive a welcome email and learn about their next step.
Thank your email subscribers
Expressing thanks shows your subscribers how much you care and appreciate their time and generosity.
Even though it’s just an email subscription, still it’s a form of commitment that you should thank your subscribers for.
Remarkably, thank you emails help businesses gain customer engagement which results in great customer loyalty, in a way it does humanize the relationship between your business and your clients.
Because unlike buying directly from a store, customers don’t have the physical experience with your business.
For that, automated thank-you emails help you provide your customers with a feeling of reassurance from the time they have clicked the order button until they receive your product.
In particular, thank you messages help you welcome your subscribers and start assembling a relationship online that is like the in-person connections your clients have with physical brands.
Deliver your lead magnet and set expectations
Your lead magnet email sequence is an introduction to putting your freshly acquired leads through an email marketing sales funnel.
How’s that done?
Have a look at the following lead magnet email sequence:
Now you can tell that it is a drip campaign used to deliver your lead magnet and welcome your giveaway downloaders.
A perfect way to deliver value and set the right expectations.
You can’t deliver the lead magnet and directly ask them to buy your product. You’ll need to introduce yourself and create a positive relationship with your subscribers first.
Right after you deliver your lead magnet value and welcome subscribers, you can present your product and contacts will be more likely to buy from you.
How to Write And What to Include in Your Welcome Email Design (Format)
Include an introduction of yourself and your team in your Welcome email design.
At first, an online business is a logo and a website for your subscribers.
Yet, brand trust has a lot to do with more than just a website.
Welcome emails allow you to introduce yourself and present the people behind the screens.
Send welcome emails to show off your personality and build a connection with your email subscribers.
I recommend you present who you are to your contacts before presenting your products and services. It helps your customers to link faces and personalities to the email address they’re in touch with.
Including a team photo in your first email design. It’s the best way to show the cool team behind the business.
Other than sharing team photos, use a conversational copy in your email design format to make your contacts feel as if a friend is reaching out to them.
It’ll allow you to connect with the subscriber on a deeper level and set you apart from other similar businesses.
Welcoming your leads is a primary step in putting your contacts in a converting email sales funnel.
Converting leads starts with the first impression you make. A short pitch about you and your business could make your contacts feel welcomed and learn enough about you.
Today, contacts can’t wait to click the “Unsubscribe” link. And they’ll eventually click it if they don’t know much about you.
11 Best Welcome Email Template Examples—To Get inspired for your email design and messaging
We’ve collected 11 examples of best welcome emails used by companies from different industries.
Take note of what you like and think would work for your customers to get inspired for your welcome email campaigns.
1. Greet your new customers
A warm welcome email is the raw material of customer trust.
Greet your new customers with a welcome message like the following example: “Fancy seeing you here”. A classy welcome email for new customers
2. Sign in Welcome email
The following welcome email design from Asana comes with a warm welcome message to their new users.
They make their users feel special by considering them part of the Asana team.
3. Establish authority with your welcome emails
When welcoming your new subscribers, you’ll want to establish the authority to gain your prospects’ trust.
The welcome email examples establish authority by sharing the success of their business while inviting subscribers to learn more.
4. Include your social media pages
Including links to your social media sites is another key to creating an effective welcome email.
New contacts are curious about your business and want to check your social media channels for social-proofing.
Leverage subscribers’ curiosity by sharing the social media sites your business is on.
Have a look at this email below and notice in the footer there are links to the company Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.
5. Offer assistance to your customers
In HelpScout’s welcome email, they welcome new clients and offer customer support to assist them.
A minimalist welcome email design with an inviting customer care team photo.
6. Share important guides
Including guides in a welcome email is something SaaS companies known for.
If you’re running a SaaS business, explaining your software might be a bit complicated to explain in one paragraph.
Include a detailed starting guide for your new users so they find their way around your solution.
7. Thank your subscribers for signing up
In British Tennis’s welcome email, they thank their subscribers and share information about the community new users have just become a part of.
A brief copy with an interesting welcome email design.
8. Keep your emails responsive
The best welcome email has to look and work well on mobile devices.
Nowadays’ customers use mobile devices for emailing more than making calls. Weird, isn’t?
Creating a mobile-friendly welcome email is important. Check the following one-column email that looks appealing on all devices and screen sizes.
If you’re using Automizy, all our emails are responsive, so they look great no matter what device your customers use.
9. Offer a discount for new subscribers
Herschel uses its welcome email to introduce itself, why to shop from them, and to provide a promo code.
They list their competitive advantages to gain the trust of their buyers:
- Exclusive products
- Free shipping & returns
- Discount code
Have a look at this performing welcome newsletter example.
10. Share a checklist for new customers
Below a welcome email example from Airbnb. It includes a checklist of the primary three steps to get started on Airbnb.
11. Onboard your new users
Some of your new users might find using your application or solution complicated.
For that, it’s recommended to use your welcome email as a mini onboarding guide to share main features and how to get started.
Upwork’s welcome email template briefly onboard new users including a tutorial video.
16 Best Email Subject Lines For Welcome Email – That You Can Copy Today
Your welcome email subject lines can make or break leads engagement rates.
It’s the element that makes recipients open and read your emails in the first place.
Here are the 16 best email subject line for welcome emails:
- “Thanks for subscribing📯”
- “Your (brand) journey starts now”
- “Join our (brand) group community”
- “Welcome! Follow us on social”
- “Welcome to (brand), shop now 💖”
- “Loyalty program, what it includes”
- “Your promised discount voucher is here”
- “How to get started with our tool”
- “Invite your colleagues and start collaborating”
- “Download the super mobile app of us”
- “Let’s hang out on social”
- “Pssst. We have a surprise for you 🎁”
- “10% OFF just for you”
- “We’ve got your (lead magnet name) here”
- “Welcome to (brand)🎉”
- “Glad to see you on board (name)”
Writing subject lines should never be based on gut feeling.
The Subject Line Tester in Automizy grades your subject lines based on data from over 100K campaigns.
Not only scoring, but the free subject line tester suggests you other email subject lines that would increase your email open rates.
Even the most seasoned email marketer doesn’t have that kind of experience.
How to Create a Welcome Email Series in 3 Simple Steps
A welcome email sequence is all about the flow of your content.
Suppose you’re running B2B email marketing. And as a lead magnet, you’re promoting a free sales PDF guide on your website.
Prospects convert to leads and opt-in for your email list to receive the PDF file.
When they opt-in they receive the following email sequence:
- Email 1: Lead magnet file.
- Email 2: Here are our products.
- Email 3: Let’s schedule a meeting.
The switch from “get this free PDF” to introducing products and scheduling a meeting is huge. Buying and getting on a call is a bigger commitment.
There is a lot of commitment to becoming a business partner with someone.
Here is a better alternative for the same case:
- Email 1: Lead magnet email
- Email 2: About us
- Email 3: How to overcome sales obstacles
- Email 4: Tips about sales
- Email 5: How we helped our X customer
- Email 6: Book a sales consultation with our experts
You can’t just say “Hi, buy from me”. As the second email sequence shows, you must:
- Provide value for your leads
- Help leads learn enough about you
- Welcome leads and show appreciation
- Build trust and relationship
- Establish authority
- Offer more value
- Engage leads
It’s no secret that you’re sharing lead magnets to build a larger email list and sell more. But make sure you welcome subscribers and make the relationship personal.
1. Trigger your welcome emails
Triggers allow you to start email automation without needing you to perform the task.
Welcome email triggers are a great tool for follow-ups to previous engagements from your target audience.
It helps you reach out and welcome your leads immediately when they opt-in.
You can personalize and automate welcome emails that can get triggered when a contact:
- Gets added to a list
- Submits a form on your website, or
- Etc.
Set up your triggered welcome email by selecting one of these options in Automizy.
Triggered email campaigns help you automate welcome email Autoresponders.
Triggered email would help you increase your email open rates since it is triggered to be sent at the right time, following up a specific user action and could be highly personalized.
Where to trigger your welcome emails?
You could use welcome autoresponders for all email subscriptions, and to welcome your new customers through order confirmation emails.
2. Create a drip welcome email campaign
Your welcome email campaign should include more than one email to communicate effectively with your prospects.
A drip email funnel is a triggered sequence of automated emails sent on a predefined schedule. Targeting email subscribers to achieve a specific result.
Here is a welcome email autoresponder sequence to study.
Daniel visits our website and fills a popup form to download a free ebook. The email funnel is triggered to start the campaign once a new subscriber joins the contact list.
The first email in the drip campaign represents the value, which is the promised free ebook.
A couple of days after, we introduce ourselves to Daniel so he understands who we are and illustrate the human aspect behind the screens. That is the Authority stage.
With the contact tag “ebook_name” we can define what kind of content attracted the subscriber in the first place and set up targeted email campaigns.
Using this information we could send another article related to the ebook topic to nurture the lead.
No sale still in this email sequence template, it’s all warm welcome messages to Daniel.
At this point in the marketing funnel, Daniel is a sales qualified lead and he is more likely to convert into a customer.
Smooth right? It all starts with a warm welcome email.
This email sales funnel could be more sophisticated with behavioral email workflows.
3. Behavioral email workflows
Daniel is our imaginary subscriber, let’s put him into a more sophisticated welcome email series.
Daniel subscribes to receive a free ebook as always (in our case here).
He might skip the first email and forget to download the ebook, while another contact did download it.
Should you treat both contacts the same and proceed to introduce yourself? That would not be a good idea.
Your leads are different, why treat them all the same?
That is when Automizy’s marketing funnel automation comes into the scene.
Automated conversation workflows are more of an in-depth campaign. It is made of a personalized system of automated emails based on customer behavior and data.
With the intuitive visual automation builder of Automizy, you can create behavior-based email sales funnel.
Here are email sequence examples and how to create them.
Right after selecting the automation trigger and the promised ebook email.
Add a condition “If/else”.
Important: Apply a “wait period” before you set your email open condition.
Give your contacts some time to interact with your email. It will also help you to be more accurate with your personalization.
And select “Has clicked a link in email”
By understanding who did download your ebook and who did not, you can personalize your welcome email.
If Daniel clicks on the download button of your ebook email, he proceeds to the next stage. He receives the introduction and welcome email.
If not, Daniel receives a reminder email to download his ebook.
You could apply further conditions that would increase your email open rates.
Right after sending your welcome email to your ebook downloaders, add another “if/else” condition and select “Has opened an email”
Contacts who opens your introduction email are considered sales qualified leads and you can send them your sales email with a call-to-action.
For contacts who did not open your introduction email are not sales qualified, for that, resending the email to non-openers could increase your open rates and conversions.
Email get lost in crowded inboxes, resending unopened email could increase your email open rates.
Your complete email marketing flowchart from Automizy could look like this at last:
Feels like magic, isn’t?
Creating a welcome email series becomes an easy task and building customer relationships would feel effortless.
This is one welcome email sequence example. You can adapt this same campaign example to other lead acquisition channels.
Conclusion
Your welcome email often carries the first impression you make on your new customers.
You’ll need to earn a spot in their inboxes and get them to feel special so they stay away from the “Unsubscribe” button.
Welcome emails are not a regular email you sent, it’s what makes a relationship fruitful.
Keep it warm, inviting, and set the right expectations for your contacts. And most of all, give them a reason to come back.