Below are some common and effective new subscriber email onboarding strategies.
- Welcome Email — This is perhaps the most important part of onboarding a new subscriber. Ever walked into a restaurant and nobody greets you for a good five minutes? It’s uncomfortable and awkward. Although it’s digital, the same goes for your email list. When someone gives you their email address and asks you to add them to your list, it’s time to send them a welcome email. Tell them what kind of content they can expect from you, how often you email, and maybe even what your brand’s mission is. This is something you can usually automate with your ESP. Here’s an example:
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- Welcome Email Sequence — In addition to sending a welcome email to each new subscriber, you might also consider sending an entire email sequence, between three and seven emails (you could do more than that) that warm up the subscriber to your brand and help them understand your intentions. This is a great way to start building a relationship with new subscribers, enhancing mutual trust and brand clarity all at once.
- Free Gift — Everyone loves to receive a free gift. And nothing says “Thanks for joining!” quite like a downloadable ebook, a coupon code, or a free product. If you’re like most email marketers, then the majority of your subscribers signed up for your list via your lead magnet (i.e. a free downloadable resource). That can certainly act as your free gift, but giving something a little extra, too, when someone signs up for your email list works wonders for building a meaningful relationship with new subscribers.
- Survey — There’s something really powerful about asking new subscribers about who they are, what they love doing, what challenges they’re facing, and even why they signed up for your list. Everyone loves talking about themselves. And by giving new subscribers a survey (i.e. a chance to talk about themselves), you won’t only start your relationship with them off on the right foot, you’ll also learn about the people who sign up for your list, improving your ability to create useful content and convincing sales copy.
- Check out SurveyMonkey for creating surveys to send to your email list.
- Email Segmentation — Here’s the reality about email list onboarding: not every new subscriber should be onboarded the same way. Some subscribers signed up because they are interested in your products and they want to start purchasing right away. Others signed up just because they wanted your free ebook. And still, others signed up because your brand intrigued them, but they’re not totally sold on who you are and what you do; they don’t quite trust you yet. In a perfect email marketing world, you would send each of those cohorts a different email sequence. And while creating those email sequences can be time-consuming, it’s well worth it when your open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates climb sky-high.