Imagine being invited to a famous person’s home.
You expect VIP treatment with gifts and goodies.
But you enter and don’t see it anywhere. Won’t it be a letdown?
Bet you’re not making your email subscribers feel welcome.
Welcome emails to subscribers are the first point in your sales funnel. It gives them a peek into what they can expect in return for their email address.
The first 48 hours are essential to make a connection with your subscribers. Subscribers decide if they wish to continue with your newsletter. There are easy ways to build your email list. However, the first step is to create an enticing email offer they can’t resist.
There are different ways, and your welcome email is one of it.
That makes welcome emails valuable, doesn’t it?
Here are five reasons for your subscribers to keep opening your welcome email and subsequent emails every time.
1.Welcome email subscribers in the subject line
OptinMonster explains that as much as 47% of email recipients open the email based on the subject lines. It makes it important to focus on what you communicate to your subscribers.
The key to having your email subscribers open your emails every time is to tap into their emotions of fear, urgency, and curiosity.
- FOMO – often the most sought after are things that are few in number or those that leave a feeling of being left out. Some examples are:
“Doors are closing. Are you in”?
“100 people have joined already. Did you miss being on the list?”
- Urgency – causes people to panic and feel compelled to take action.
Some of these are
“Act fast,”
“24 hours left”,
“Hurry before it ends.”
“Time is running out.”
- Curiosity
Curiosity makes email subscribers open your email. It entices them to open the email and read the entire email.
Even though it might be the first email to your subscribers, you can use it effectively to ensure your subscribers know you as a person. Share your aspirations, goals, success, and failures to connect with them.
Creating a good first impression is the first step in creating an enticing email offering to your subscribers. Most important it will create a high recall and make your subscribers reach out to you in every email.
2. Formatting your email for your email subscribers
The often ignored aspect of an email is formatting.
Readers often scan content in F shaped which is designed for scanning. The initial content is often the most read. Hence the must-read message must go on top followed by the main body.
However, we often make the one common mistake here – of writing large paragraphs with big blocks of text. It makes it difficult to scan, and hence readers lose interest in reading further.
The first impression of your email might just turn out to be the last time your subscribers open your email.
You can avoid this by having
- Smaller paragraphs
- Make your text bold
- Use italics where needed
- Have a conversational tone.
Email subscribers use different emails ids to open emails. It could be Yahoo, Gmail or Outlook. Personalizing your formatting can make it easy for them to read your email. It also reduces the instance where they unsubscribe or delete your emails.
A Gmail account blocks typically HTML images and phone numbers get hyperlinked in it. It’s important to note such changes while drafting your email.
For users accessing your email in Outlook, the images get replaced with bullets and image captions get overwritten. Outlook also clips images that are larger than 1728px.
Having links to your social media at the bottom of your email is another way to engage with your email subscribers thereby helping relate to your story.
Call-To-Action nudges your readers to go one step further and engage with you either on a social media account or to express their opinion through comments.
3. Use storytelling to attract your email subscribers
Most often subscribers are new to your list, and they can be unsure of what to expect from your email.
Personal stories make it real and help share your struggles and wins. It can be a point where they feel close to someone who understands their problems and guides them in their efforts for their own business. Personal stories evoke emotions.
Marriott reward was one program which took personalization to a new level without actually selling anything to their customers. It personalized the stay of its customers showing their stay time, cities stayed in and points collected. It helped increase revenue for the year.
Another example is of small businesses sharing their own story of starting from scratch and lessons learned to make their message relatable and real for the audience.
4. Offer freebies and discounts to your email subscribers
With social media taking over everyone’s life, it becomes even more critical to retain subscribers for a more extended period.
Offering a freebie in your email is one of the best ways to make your readers keep coming back for more. Freebies could be of many types
- Free course
- eBook
- Checklist
- Resource Library
- Webinar Recordings
These are some ways to integrate all your media into one resource that attracts your readers to remember your message every time.
5. Provide an immediate solution to one burning problem for your email subscribers
Consumers have a short attention span of consuming 7 or fewer bits of information at a time. Therefore, focusing on one pain point can work wonders. It can address one problem at a time thereby helping you build authority and credibility with your audience.
e.g., Your subscribers might be struggling to make sales. If your website helps business owners increase their conversion rate, you are in the right place. Your email can provide one tip of checking Google Analytics for gaps. Also, suggest ways in which you can help solve this problem.
Taking baby steps to draw your audience to your message does take time. However, with these points, you can not only attract the right audience, but you can also ensure they stick around for a long time. Besides, will help to create loyal fan followers and bring in new leads in your sales funnel.
Do you have any points that can make your readers open your welcome email and subsequent emails every time? Share it with us in the comments!
Photo: Pexels
