Don’t miss the mark with weak welcome emails.
When we sign up to emails from a company we’re more often than not looking for some sort of benefit, be it information, offers or news. This is much more common within a consumer marketplace (B2C) and what these businesses sometimes don’t seem to realise is that by being granted access to an inbox is a real privilege.
Once signed up, you can expect to find a relatively weak “Thank you for signing up” email in your inbox. In the B2C world, this is simply a waste – with the increased popularity of social media, we believe that communication styles have evolved, consumers would engage much better with an email that has been carefully crafted or is unexpected, bizarre or entertaining and one that talks to the consumer a more personal level. The idea here is to make some sort of mild impact, rather than a straight “Thanks”. This relationship style marketing if presented with the right tone can be essential to establishing a connection based on goodwill.
We’ve also noticed the companies that are doing it right are offering their prospects opportunities of an immediate deal, but need to change their approach to make the most of these prime sales opportunities. To demonstrate how not to do it, have a look at an Asda’s “Thankyou” Email we’ve taken from our “be inspired” email gallery, which is just a small extract from the InboxVision Email Intelligence database of over 2,000,000 emails.!
The full-sized Asda email can be viewed here.
Offers and subject lines: The subject line “It’s really easy to get started and enjoy ASDA.com value” is very weak. It could have said “Thanks for joining – now get a £50 cashback”. Don’t forget that at that precise moment in time, the prospect still has a very strong recollection of your products. Remember, they voluntarily signed-up just moments ago and there will never be another sales opportunity as ripe as this. There’s nothing cynical about this approach – the prospect has taken the first step and it would be impolite not to offer a deal.
Visual elements: The images and the general design of the email are uninspiring. There’s only one “deal” on offer, and it’s placed half-way down the page. The offer is incomprehensible – what does “2 for” mean? Does it mean “2 for 1″? If it does, it’s gone over my head.
Social Media? There are no links at all to social media content. The focused use of social media is absolutely essential in the B2C world. Turning to the general links in the email, Asda have done well – there are many links to various products, plus a separate link pointing to their main online shopping website.
Footer Improvements: Now for the Admin/Legal stuff at the foot of the email - it’s all there except a “Click here to update profile” link which would minimise the number of people unsubscribing, at the same time providing additional demographic information.
See more examples of “Welcome emails” - Some are good and some are not-so-good. Judge for yourselves!
