Welcome emails are the first email that your subscribers will receive from you so it is crucial to get it right! They have an unusually high open rate of 50% so this is your chance to get people engaged (Dello Buona, 2017). Welcome emails not only introduce people to your brand but also allow you start building a relationship with them with the aim of them becoming loyal customers. Not to mention that they help you create a brilliant first impression with new subscribers! A study found that when a person receives a welcome email, it will increase their long-term engagement with a brand by 33% (Myers, 2017). So, the question is how do you create an excellent one?  We’ve come up with six steps to ensure you create an excellent welcome email so you can start building relationships with your subscribers.

1. Send them in real time

To maximise the effectiveness of your welcome email and to keep subscribers engaged, it’s important to send it in a timely manner. AKA as soon as they sign up as this is when they will be most engaged and it will make a big difference (Campaign Monitor, 2017).

2. Introduce yourself

Not everyone who signs up for your email list is a current customer, so it’s a good idea to introduce them to who you are, what you’re about and how you can help them (Zhang and Cosguner, 2017). Not only will this help them to remember you, it will also start to build your relationship with them (Dello Buona, 2017).

Here are some excellent examples of welcome emails to get you going (Devaney, 2016).

3. Have a compelling subject line

Having a compelling and engaging subject line is incredibly important to help persuade your email list to open it. It was found that 47% of email recipients decide whether to open an email based on its subject line alone. The best subject lines create a sense of urgency, are personalised, include an offer and spark curiosity. For your welcome email, it’s best to include the word welcome (Allen, 2017).

However, it’s important to make sure that your subject lines aren’t just clickbait otherwise people will soon click off and potentially unsubscribe altogether (Rampton, 2015).

Here are some examples of engaging subject lines (Moth, 2013).

4. Let them know the type of content they will receive

This is another important thing to include in your welcome email to ensure your new subscribers know exactly what they are signing up for and how often they’ll be receiving them! For example, let them know if will you be sending them weekly or monthly newsletters and what they can expect to see in the emails such as new product releases and upcoming sales. Being transparent right from the beginning will help to build trust with your subscribers (Dello Buona, 2017).

Zhang and Cosguner (2017) argue that it’s significantly important to let your subscribers know how frequently they will receive emails as if you send too many, customers will start complaining and potentially unsubscribe. Reimers, Chao and Gorman (2016) also argue that you must send relevant content that is of value to them in order to keep them subscribed and to maintain the relationship.

(Example of a welcome email from Seafolly and an introduction to the content subscribers will receive)

5. Include a discount code

As the open rates are much higher for welcome emails, it’s a good idea to send them a discount code as it may encourage them to purchase from you and could help to drive additional revenue to your business. It will also be a nice way to start the relationship between you and your subscriber (Neely, 2015)! For example, it could be a 10% off discount or a free gift when they spend over £30 offer.

Here’s a great example of a welcome email with a discount from Kate Spade.

6. Include links to your social media platforms

To continue keeping them engaged with your brand following your welcome email, it’s important that they start following you on your social media platforms. So, in your welcome email, include your social media links so that they know where to find you. This will also help to keep your brand in their mind (Neely, 2015).

Risks to be aware of

However, before sending welcome emails it is incredibly important that you first make sure that all emails are solicited as if not it could lead to serious consequences for your business. Secondly, make sure that you include an unsubscribe link. Finally, make sure your emails don’t contain any spam as this will get you kicked out of inboxes. It’s important to remember that consumers’ email box is their personal domain and it is vital that this privilege is not abused (Reimers, Chao and Gorman, 2016).

Don’t forget either that people will often sign up to your emails, purely to receive a discount. This means that it’s even more important that your welcome emails are engaging to stop them from unsubscribing once they have their discount code (Forneris, 2017). It’s also important to regularly check your analytics to see how your welcome emails are performing and see where you can improve to keep your open rates soaring (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). For instance, you may want to check the open rates to ensure there are no deliverability issues, as this could be compromising on your email marketing (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2015, p526).

So that rounds up our five tips for creating engaging welcome emails. To get you started, here are some examples of welcome emails with what’s good and what’s not so good about them to ensure you don’t make any fatal errors (Gilliland, 2017).

References

1. Allen, O. (2017). How to write catchy email subject lines. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/improve-your-email-subject-line [Last accessed on 18 March 2018].
2. Campaign Monitor. (2017). Make an amazing first impression. [Online]. Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/best-email-marketing-campaigns/welcome-email/ [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
3. Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2015). Digital marketing. 6^th Pearson: Upper Saddle River.
4. Dello-Buona, O. (2017). 7 welcome emails examples: how to write emails that make a splash. [Online]. Available at: https://instapage.com/blog/best-welcome-email-examples [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
5. Devaney, E. (2016). 7 great examples of ‘welcome’ emails to inspire your own strategy. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/welcome-email-examples [Last accessed on 16 March 2018].
6. Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.
7. Forneris, J. (2017). The disadvantages of email marketing. [Online]. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-email-marketing-3472.html [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
8. Gilliland, N. (2017). 10 examples of welcome emails of varying quality from online retailers. [Online]. Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/68824-10-examples-of-welcome-emails-of-varying-quality-from-online-retailers [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
9. Moth, D. (2013). Six case studies and an infographic on how to write effective subject lines. [Online]. Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63206-six-case-studies-and-an-infographic-on-how-to-write-effective-email-subject-lines [Last accessed on 18 March 2018].
10. Myers, J. (2017). Welcome emails: A brilliant way to increase sales and brand loyalty. [Online]. Available at: http://www.springboardmarketing.com/welcome-emails-brilliant-way-increase-sales-brand-loyalty/ [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
11. Neely, P. (2015). 10 effective tips for stand out welcome emails. [Online]. Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2015/09/10-essential-elements-of-an-effective-welcome-email/ [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
12. Rampton, J. (2015).Tips for a successful email campaign. [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/05/07/tips-for-a-successful-email-campaign/#69d0db03326d [Last accessed on 17 March 2018].
13. Reimers, V., Chao, C. & Gorman, S. (2016), “Permission email marketing and its influence on online shopping”, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 28(2), pp. 308-322.
14. Zhang, X, Kumar, V and Cosguner, K. (2017). “Dynamically managing a profitable email marketing program”. Journal of marketing research. 54(6), pp851-866.

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Email marketing is essentially using email to promote your products or services and to develop relationships with existing and new customers (Ward, 2017). Email marketing offers promising tools to enhance brand loyalty as it helps you to regularly keep in contact with customers at a low cost. Brand loyalty is how you can generate repeat business on a consistent basis (Merisavo and Raulas, 2004). We’ve come up with our five top tips for how you can create a killer email marketing campaign to build your brand loyalty.

1. Send a welcome email

Welcome emails are incredibly important to send to new subscribers. They are a great way for you to make a great first impression with new subscribers and they allow you to start building the foundation of a long-term relationship. A study found that when a person receives a welcome email, it will increase their long-term engagement with a brand by 33% (Myers, 2017). So, they are definitely worth sending!

Here are 7 great examples of welcome emails to inspire you (Devaney, 2016).

2. Regularly update subscribers with any important information

 It’s important to regularly update subscribers with any important information such as an upcoming sale. This will help to keep your brand in their mind, which will help to build brand loyalty (Carter, 2017). Merisavo and Raulas (2004) argue that regular email communication with customers has positive effects on brand loyalty. However, Reimers, Chao and Gorman (2016) argue that it is exceptionally important that you are sending subscribers emails that are relevant and of value to them in order for you to maintain your relationship with them and to keep them subscribed. If you send them irrelevant content, this could have a negative impact on their brand loyalty and potentially lead to them unsubscribing.

Examples of what you might update them with:

• Upcoming sales
• New product releases
• Upcoming events
• Reminders about the upcoming sale or event
• The opening of a new store.

Of course, tailor this to your business but these are just a few ideas to get you started.

3. Exclusive content that’s of value

 This is one of the most important steps to help you build brand loyalty with your email list. Your subscribers want to feel as though they are benefitting from signing up to your marketing emails, so it’s a good idea to create exclusive content just for them. For example, you may decide to send subscribers free downloadable content that will be of relevance to them. If your emails are always pushing people to buy your products or services, chances are many will unsubscribe. Therefore, you might want to include a mixture of sales emails and emails giving them something of value for free (Carter, 2017).

4. Make them feel appreciated

People on your email list are probably also subscribed to many other mailing lists. Therefore, it is important that you make them feel appreciated so that they keep subscribed. For example, you might thank them for shopping with you or wish them a happy birthday. If they feel valued by you, this will help to build their brand loyalty (YEC Women, 2011).

(Example of a happy birthday email from Zizzi)

5. Incentivise your customers

Building brand loyalty through your email marketing is an ongoing process. People need encouragement to open your emails and take actions. Providing incentives will keep them interacted, engaged and subscribed (Marsh, 2016). For example, if they haven’t purchased from you for while you could send them a money off voucher. Equally, if they purchase regularly from you, you could send them a discount voucher to thank them for purchasing regularly.

(Example of an incentive)

Risks of email marketing

However, when creating an email marketing campaign, there are some things that you need to be aware of to ensure your emails don’t end up in spam folders.  Firstly, make sure all your emails are solicited and don’t send emails with spam content as this could have serious consequences for your business. It’s important to remember that consumers’ email box is their personal domain and it is vital that this privilege is not abused (Reimers, Chao and Gorman, 2016).

It’s very important that your email campaign is regularly monitored and revised to ensure that you are obtaining the results that you’d hoped for (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). For example, there may be deliverability issues which could compromise the effectiveness of the email campaign. Marketing emails are also usually only skim read which may mean that important material may not be read. Thus, it is important that email marketing is not too heavily relied upon (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2015, p526).

Peterson (2015) shares their tips on how to stay out of spam folders.

That rounds up our five top tips for creating an email campaign to build brand loyalty and some of the risks to keep you out of spam folders. Make sure you are regularly checking how well your emails are performing to see what is and isn’t working!

Finally, here are some examples of excellent email marketing campaigns to get you started (Stec, 2017).

Reference list

Carter, T. (2017). 7 ideas to improve brand loyalty through email marketing. [Online]. Available at: https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/03/using-email-marketing-to-create-brand-loyalty.html [Last accessed on 8th February 2018].

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2015). Digital marketing. 6^th Pearson: Upper Saddle River.

Devaney, E. (2016). 7 great examples of ‘welcome’ emails to inspire your own strategy. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/welcome-email-examples [Last accessed on 8th February 2018].

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.

Marsh, R. (2016). 10 ways to build customer loyalty with email marketing. [Online]. Available at: https://www.enchantagency.com/blog/10-ways-to-build-customer-loyalty-with-email-marketing [Last accessed on 8th February 2018].

Merisavo, M. & Raulas, M. (2004), “The impact of e-mail marketing on brand loyalty”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, 13(7), pp. 498-505.

Myers, J. (2017). Welcome emails: A brilliant way to increase sales and brand loyalty. [Online]. Available at: http://www.springboardmarketing.com/welcome-emails-brilliant-way-increase-sales-brand-loyalty/ [Last accessed on 8^th February 2018].

Peterson, A. (2015). The 5 mistakes that will land your email in the spam folder. [Online]. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243399 [Last accessed on 8^th February 2018].

Reimers, V., Chao, C. & Gorman, S. (2016), “Permission email marketing and its influence on online shopping”, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 28(2), pp. 308-322

Stec, C. (2017). 16 examples of awesome email marketing campaigns. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32854/10-simply-awesome-examples-of-email-marketing.aspx [Last accessed on 8th February 2018].

Ward, S. (2017). What is email marketing? [Online]. Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/email-marketing-2948346 [Last accessed on 7th February 2018].

YEC Women. (2011). 7 tips for building brand loyalty in a discount obsessed market. [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2011/10/25/7-tips-for-building-brand-loyalty-in-a-discount-obsessed-market/#3699fba01504 [Last accessed on 8^th February 2018].

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First, if you’re completely new to all of this, you might be wondering what a social media strategy actually is. A social media strategy is how a business uses social media to meet its communication aims “and the supporting platform and tools it will use to achieve this” (Gurd, 2017). To help you see if your social media strategy is effective, we’ve come up with a check list of five points.

1. Determine your social media objectives

The first step in determining whether your social media strategy is effective is to define your objectives for your social media. Doing this gives you something to measure your effectiveness against. For example, one of your objectives might be to increase your followers to reach a certain number, to generate referrals or to increase your sales revenue by a certain percentage (DeMers, 2017).

Lua (2017) suggests objective ideas that you might want to use to help you meet your business goals.

2. Find which metrics to use

The second way to tell if it’s effective is by using metrics. It’s important to not just focus on a single metric but instead look at a variety. For example, your follower count might be growing, but if your sales aren’t increasing then essentially it means nothing. One metric that could be used alongside another is conversion rate. This looks at the number of people that visited your website, from your social media, to those that convert into actual sales. However, Henwood (2015) argues that whilst vanity metrics such as follower count, won’t tell you your progress and won’t necessarily help you meet your objectives, it will tell you if people are interested in your content, which is a key driver in a social media strategy. Or, you could look at a combination of metrics such as follower count, website traffic and sales revenue (DeMers, 2017). The interpretation of all the metrics suggested will indicate whether your social media strategy is effective.

3. Are your followers engaging with your posts?

Engagement is a good way to tell if your social media strategy is working. If your followers are regularly commenting and liking your posts, it indicates that they like what you’re posting. If your followers aren’t engaging with your posts, it may be time to change the content that you’re posting. Have a look at your posts that have performed well and find out what kind of posts your followers want to see (Lake, 2009).

Davis (2016) has researched 30 brands that have an excellent social media strategy so if you’re struggling to make yours work, it may be worth looking at these brands to see what they’re doing.

(Photo credit: @ASOS)

ASOS is an example of a brand that has good engagement with their posts.

4. Pay attention to your analytics

Take some time each month to look at your analytics. You can set up Google Analytics to look at your incoming social media traffic to your website. The social media platfoms you use will also have their own analytics section so you can see which posts are performing the best. Analytics is a good indicator as to whether your strategy is working. From that, you can alter your strategy to fit what your followers want to see you posting (Eclincher, 2016).

If you’re worried your social media strategy isn’t working, Pressault (2016) suggests the warning signs that you may want to look out for.

5. Are you meeting your objectives?

Ultimately, the main way to tell if your social media strategy is effective for your business is by conversion rates and whether you’re reaching your objectives (Rogers, 2017). Also, make sure that when you’re choosing your metrics, that you’re choosing ones that are relevant for your objectives. For instance, your objective may be to increase sales revenue through driving traffic to your site via your social media. Therefore, you will want to be checking on your sales revenue and website traffic statistics to measure how well you are meeting your objectives (Deering-Davis, 2012).

Newlands (2017) gives his top tips for what makes a great social media strategy and how you can achieve it.

Effing and Spil (2016) agree with the above points and stress the importance that social media should have a clear purpose to be effective and that the objectives need to be SMART so that you have something to measure your effectiveness against. They also add that the overall success of a social media strategy depends on “your resources and the quality and authenticity of your message”.

So that’s a roundup of five key points you can use to indicate whether your social media strategy is effective. Make sure you’re regularly checking your strategy as social media is constantly changing and thus your strategy will need to as well.

Reference List

• Davis, B. (2016). 30 brands with excellent social media strategies. [Online]. Available at:https://econsultancy.com/blog/68167-30-brands-with-excellent-social-media-strategies [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• Deering-Davis, J. (2012). The 5 easy steps to measure your social media campaigns. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-measurement/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• DeMers, J. (2017). How can you tell if your social media strategy is working? [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/10/30/how-can-you-tell-if-your-social-media-strategy-is-working/#14335a1c20d3 [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• (2016). Is your social media marketing campaign working? [Online]. Available at: https://eclincher.com/blog/is-your-social-media-marketing-campaign-working/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• Effing, R. & Spil, A.A.M. 2016, “The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for evaluating social media strategies”, International journal of information management, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 1-8
• Gurd, J. (2017). 6 reasons why you need a social media strategy. [Online]. Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/social-media-strategy-planning-essentials-6-reasons-need-social-media-strategy/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]

• Henwood, A. (2015). 5 ways to tell if your social media strategy is working. [Online]. Available at: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/5-ways-to-tell-if-your-social-media-strategy-is-working/453300/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
• Lake, C. (2009). 10 ways to measure social media success. [Online]. Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/3407-10-ways-to-measure-social-media-success [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
• Lua, A. (2017). 9 social media goals you can set yourself for your business (and how to track them). [Online]. Available at: https://blog.bufferapp.com/10-social-media-goals [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• Newlands, M. (2017). 10 social media marketing strategies for companies. [Online]. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293321 [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
• Pressault, A. (2017). Is your social media strategy tanking? Here are 8 potential reasons why. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/is-your-social-media-strategy-tanking-here-are-8-potential-reasons-why/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
• Rogers, C. (2017). Mondelēz, Peugeot and Dixons Carphone’s tips to maximise digital effectiveness. [Online]. Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/04/10/tricks-and-tips-to-maximise-digital-effectiveness/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].

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