How to Optimize Your Welcome Emails for a Big Boost in Revenue

When done right, welcome emails outperform other promotional emails in driving more opens and clicks and generating more revenue. So what does it take to create a great welcome email campaign? That’s the topic tackled in this month’s blog.

Why Welcome Email Optimization Is So Important

A welcome series is an essential component of successful email programs. After users opt in to receive your emails, a welcome email campaign should set expectations for the content and frequency of emails they’ll be getting in their inboxes from your company.

For e-commerce sites, a welcome series also can be used to educate and nurture prospective new customers during their pre-purchase consideration cycle. Today more than ever, consumers are taking the time to research new products online and compare features, benefits, and costs among competitors.

The following are some impressive statistics presented in an Easy-SMPT infographic that emphasize why it’s so important to invest time and effort in creating and optimizing your welcome email campaigns.

Compared to promotional emails, welcome emails generate:

• 320% more revenue per email
• 86% lift in open rates
• 196% lift in unique click rates
• 336% lift in transaction rates.

Creating a Successful Welcome Email Campaign

At FulcrumTech, we recently launched a new welcome series for one of our clients who was looking to grow domestic and international sales online for a consumer electronics product. After completing an in-depth value proposition assessment, we rolled out a three-email series that featured the unique product features that are not available from any of their competitors. The series was triggered when users signed up either to receive more product information or to speak with a representative via live chat on the website.

The three-email series spanned one week and provided consumers with necessary product information in a format tailored to match their interests and lifestyles — ultimately proving that our client’s product was the right choice for them.

We also used the series to show consumers how easy the product was to customize and scale as their lifestyles changed. At the end of the series, we offered users a discount toward their first online purchase.

Upon implementing the new welcome series:

• Unique open rates for each of the three emails were 61.9%, 40.5%, and 35.7%, respectively.
• Click-to-open rates for the three emails were 33.2%, 15.9%, and 22.9%, respectively.

In addition, clicks from the welcome email campaign generated significant traffic to our client’s website and online store. Only three weeks after deploying the welcome series, the campaign had generated well more than a 25% incremental increase in revenue. The great thing about this series is that it’s the gift that keeps on giving — now that this series has been set up and automated, we anticipate an ongoing, higher level of revenue.

A Few Top Tips for Creating and Optimizing Your Welcome Email Campaigns

Your welcome email series is the best chance you have to make an outstanding first impression and establish a strong foundation for growing a lasting relationship with new subscribers. Here are a few of our favorite tips for optimizing welcome emails:

• Take the time to craft and test the subject lines for your welcome email campaigns. Research shows that words such as sale, news, and video can have a positive impact on open and click-through rates, whereas using the terms report and webinar can hurt your performance. However, keep in mind that responses to specific words in subject lines can vary among audiences, so testing your subject lines  is a key to welcome email success.
• Send your first welcome email in real time — immediately after a subscriber opts in. This practice can increase the transaction rate up to tenfold compared to waiting and sending your welcome emails in batches. Sending welcome emails in real time is a great example of how investing in email-marketing automation pays off.
• Consider including an offer in your welcome email campaign. For example, give new customers a special introductory discount off their first purchase. Revenue per email as much as doubles by adding an offer to a welcome campaign.
• Don’t use a no-reply address in the email From line. Instead, use a real person’s name as the sender. In doing so, you’ll help build credibility and trust right from the start. Plus, it’s a good practice that encourages engagement with your subscribers and can help improve email deliverability.
• Send a series of welcome emails. Compared to sending a single welcome message, a series of welcome emails can help increase the transaction rate by up to 40%. At FulcrumTech, we’ve found that a series of three emails is typically the optimum number for maximizing response; however, testing is the best way to find the number that is the most effective for your company’s target audience.

Need help designing and optimizing a welcome email campaign that drives engagement and delivers a big boost to your revenue? FulcrumTech can help. Email us or give us a call at 215-489-9336, and we’ll get you started right away.

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Welcome Email Series — How to Leverage New Subscribers’ Interest in Your Brand

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