How to welcome new e-mail registrants effectively

Welcome messages are an important part of your e-mail marketing strategy for many reasons: 1) They validate e-mail addresses, 2) confirm opt-in and registrant details, 3) create opportunities to collect additional information about registrants, and 4) engage registrants at the time when their interest in your organization is piqued.

But if you’re sending a single message, you’re missing opportunities to engage your audience when it is most receptive to accepting new messages. By deploying a series of welcoming messages, on the other hand, lets you increase engagement and prolong subscriber life cycles. With a series you can set expectations, build relationships and provide valuable information to enhance the new user’s experience.

 A welcome series is most effective when it’s targeted. Consider creating a different series for past donors and new donors. For a donor who opts in during the online checkout process, for example, your welcome series could include member benefits, spiritual preferences, inquiries and surveys. For those donors who haven't yet given, the welcome series could include special appeals, maybe even a video testimonials to encourage a first gift.

Whatever type of welcome series you create, several elements should be considered.

1. Set specific goals. Think about what you want to accomplish with your series and each message. Be specific. Knowing your goals in advance helps you build a successful series and ensure the messages work together to achieve your goals.

2. Determine the right number of messages. This is entirely determined by your audience, giving process and campaign goals. A series should consist of at least three messages, but depending on the purpose of the series it could be more. For example, I recently received a series of five messages when subscribing to a digital marketing forum. The key is to test various options to identify what works.

3. Set the right cadence. The initial message should be sent immediately upon registration. However, you need to test the timing of consecutive messages to find what works for your audience, products and sales process.

4. Differentiate welcome messages. Filter out new donors during the welcome series process so those messages stand out. The welcome series is designed to engage donors and build ‘mission advocates’, so don’t dilute the messages by sending other e-mail campaigns at the same time. 

5. Automate. To be timely and effective, your series must be automated. By using a behaviorally triggered e-mail solution, you can set up the messages in advance. The system automatically deploys the first message upon subscription and subsequent messages based on a defined time frame. Automated campaigns save you time and enable you to easily segment donors and personalize messages.

A targeted, and professionally planned welcome series increases the engagement level of your new registrants, site visitors and donors as well as achieves more interaction with your organization.

Let us create and deploy a winning welcome message series for you. Call us at 224-223-6357 or send us an e-mail.