Marketers have a huge opportunity with welcome emails. According to Skyline Technologies, welcome emails have an average open rate of 50-60%. It makes sense; as the double opt-in process has become more commonplace, people expect to return to their inbox and receive one or two emails that confirm their request and welcome them as a new subscriber.

So with an open rate that high, doesn’t it make sense to strike while the iron’s hot? Your subscriber loves you right now — they just signed up to hear from you more! Give the people what they want, and use your welcome email to share your best content and offers that will remind subscribers that their opt-in was not just a good decision, but a great one! And so you never run out of ideas, here are 15 items you could include in your welcome emails to drive reconversions and get even more bang for your buck out of new email subscribers.

Typical Welcome Email Content

Before we get into the welcome email ideas, let’s review what a welcome email typically includes. 

• A link to confirm the subscriber did indeed subscribe to the email list
• A message of thanks for subscribing to the email list
• A request to mark you as a safe sender, or save you to their address book
• Some information about what content future emails will contain
• Your privacy policy to ensure their information will be used properly

It’s important to remember that businesses approach welcome emails in two ways. Some send one email with a double opt-in confirmation link and the welcome email content, while others send two emails — one with the double opt-in confirmation link, and a separate email with welcome email content.

While you should still include any of these calls-to-actions in your welcome email if you send only one, you may experience a lower click-through rate as your confirmation link takes subscribers away from their inbox and into a browser. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, though — and don’t rule out including a call-to-action on your confirmation page, too!

15 Ways to Reconvert Subscribers in Your Welcome Email

1) Promote your lead generation content. Include a call-to-action in your welcome email that prompts subscribers to read your latest ebook, whitepaper, or educational guide. This content will help you reconvert your subscribers on a landing page that gives you more robust lead intelligence than just their name and email address.

2) Encourage a transaction. If you have a high-cost product or a long sales cycle, you may not get a transaction from your welcome email. But if you have a shorter sales cycle, consider including a ‘Shop Now’ button. You can incentivize it further with a time-sensitive coupon as a way to say “thank you” for subscribing!

3) Offer an assessment or consultation. If you do have a lengthier sales cycle for which transactional calls-to-action are inappropriate, invite your new subscriber to receive a free consultation with an expert within your company. There’s no need to make a purchase, just an opportunity for a customized consultation that provides new insight and lets the subscriber ask questions in a low pressure, safe space. HubSpot, for example, does this with our free Inbound Marketing Assessments.

4) Ask them to take a short survey. Most people love to talk about themselves, and as a marketer, you probably want to hear your subscribers talk about themselves as much as possible. Set up a “getting to know you” survey that asks them questions about themselves — nothing too personal, of course. It will help you gather lead intelligence on a group you know little about, so you’ll be able to segment your email list in a more savvy way, target your content better, and even improve your customer personas over time.

5) Ask what kind of content they want to receive. You want your new subscriber to stay active on your email list, so use a questionnaire to ask them point blank what they want to read from you. Use the opportunity to extend the question from email content to your blog and website content, too.

6) Show off your other email lists. If someone signed up for product update emails, perhaps they’d also be interested in signing up for blog updates! Use your welcome email to promote your other email content that might be of interest to your newest fan!

7) Encourage them to become a social fan or follower. Speaking of your newest fan, are your subscribers officially your fans or followers on social media? Ask them to follow you on Twitter, like you on Facebook, follow your LinkedIn Company Page, etc. so your social media marketing benefits from your booming email marketing program, too.

Offer a free trial. If your product can go for a test drive, ask your newest subscribers if they would like to, well, take it for a spin. HubSpot offers free trials of our software all the time — it’s a great way to get people interacting with your product!

9) Take them on a tour. Of your product or website! If you’re selling a product or are asking subscribers to interact with your website in some way, show them how with a video. People don’t like thinking — tell what the actionable next step is to interacting with you.

10) Send them to your blog. Give your most popular or most recent blog posts some visibility by including a call-to-action to visit your blog. And of course your blog will have plenty of calls-to-action asking them to subscribe or convert on other offers, right?

11) Ask ‘em out on a date. If you’re a brick and mortar establishment, invite your subscribers to attend an in-store event, like a sale. Or if you’re like HubSpot and host events or conferences like Inbound 2012, ask them to register for the event and include a discount with a time stamp. And if you’re all virtual, that’s okay, too. Ask them to attend a free webinar you’re hosting!

12) Leverage your content archives. If your subscriber opted in to receive some sort of content from you, show them what they’ve already missed. For example, if they signed up to receive your monthly whitepaper, direct them to an archive of your past whitepapers for them to peruse.

13) Have them download your mobile app. There’s a good chance your subscriber is reading his or her email on a mobile device. If you have a mobile app, what better time to have them download that, too? Be sure to delineate your mobile app’s value proposition in your call-to-action copy so they become an active user.

14) Show off product reviews. If you’re trying to prompt your subscriber to transact, product reviews are a natural way to encourage those who are relatively new to your brand that you are worth doing business with. We’ve already discussed the importance of user-generated content on this blog — use reviews in welcome emails as the opportunity to convince subscribers that already like you that they should love you.

15) Ask subscribers to contact a salesperson. If you have an inside sales team and you’re a fan of a harder sell, there’s nothing wrong with including a call-to-action that explains how your subscriber can speak to a salesperson. Again, these subscribers are feeling pretty good about you right now; why not capitalize on those good feelings with an invitation to speak to Sales?

Don’t think you need to narrow down your welcome email scope to just one of these types of email. Many brands send a series of welcome emails to help build their relationship with their subscribers. But your first welcome email provides a tremendous opportunity to reconvert your newest subscriber; don’t let it slip by just focusing on the basics and forgetting to include a creative call-to-action that will you keep your subscribers active!

What content do you include in your welcome email to help drive conversions? Share your tips in the comments!

Image credit: alborzshawn

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