Email marketing: How welcome emails affect your business

The biggest fear of email marketing is being flagged as spam. These past several years, email marketing has evolved to a new level of engagement experiences that are designed to capture customers' attention. Catchy headlines, appealing graphical design, and convincing messages are more likely to engage interest and prompt the receiver to open the email, click on the message, and directly get to the brand's website. That's, in fact, one of the main benefits of effective email campaigns: they provide direct access to the brand's on-topic web page. Email marketing includes various types of engagement and re-engagement, from welcome greetings or offers, abandoned shopping cart reminders, offers of rewards (such as coupons, limited time offers, exclusive deals, etc.), free resources (webinars, white papers, reports, etc.), and more.

While most companies' email databases end up being inactive, i.e. the business doesn't usually follow up with dormant subscribers or entries, inattention affects the overall email marketing program and may miss a huge potential for additional revenues. This article doesn't cover all categories of email marketing and customer re-engagement efforts; it focuses on welcome-type emails.

Research have shown that welcome emails are viewed more than any other types of promotional emails. Welcome campaigns are an important part of a business's email marketing strategy. According to a White Paper published by Experian, a welcome email will acquire a new subscriber at best; at worst, the email will not be opened, either deleted or marked as spam. Experian wanted to get insights into the performance and ROI of welcome emails versus general promotional emails. The study found out that delivering well designed emails with clever text had a competitive advantage with new subscribers. Further more, deploying a series of frequent communication emails to subscribers (such as daily, weekly or monthly - depending on the business, its products and/or services) and transmitting them in a timely manner added value. In fact, users opened welcome emails 4 times more and five times more clicked-through than mass promotional campaigns.

When it comes to the bottom line, Experian found out that welcome emails generated 8 times more transaction rates and dollars than other promotional mailings.

So how to capitalize on potential new customers?

Optimizing all email campaigns on mobile platforms is crucial. Web access on mobile devices has accelerated in the last decade, making email available on-the-go and outside the home or office. Users' preference in accessing the web (and email) on mobile devices has implications for email campaigns, increasing the mobile unique click-to-open rates.

Offering special promotions in a welcome email may be effective. Valassis research published in 2015 the 'Coupon Intelligence Report', indicating that millennials are increasingly using coupons more than ever before and also more than any other age group. Since the welcome emails are the type of email marketing that is most opened, offering coupons is a good way to engage new customers, especially the 20's and 30's age groups.

Source: Email marketing: How welcome emails affect your business