email

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. How many times have you heard that before? Ironically enough, it comes into play when it comes to email marketing. So how do you make a killer first impression in your subscriber’s inbox? Keep on reading to find out today.

By James Canzanella

 

Writing The Perfect Welcome Email

It’s actually simpler than you think, just make sure that you avoid a couple of common pitfalls. Don’t worry though as I will talk about those in the conclusion. However, let’s start off with the essential tactics (starting with number one).

The Rare Reminder

This is going to be the first section that they read (on the top part of the email). It’s usually only a few sentences, but what I like doing is:

  1. Congratulate them for opting in.
  2. Let them know why they are receiving this email (and give them what they want).

Start example.

Thanks again for expressing interest in affiliate marketing. You can click the link below to access the affiliate cheat-sheet that you requested. Click Here To Access Your Affiliate Cheat-sheet.

End example.

Sometimes people will opt-in to your list and open your welcome email much later. By doing that, they might have forgotten why they are receiving your emails. This helps to prevent people from hitting the spam button (hey, it happens sometimes). You are also giving them exactly what they requested, assuming you gave away a free gift. Let’s move onto the next part of your welcome email.

What To Expect

This is where you set expectations and give them an idea of what you’ll be sending out. Below is an example from my welcome email.

Start example.

Now, I will be sending you valuable emails about every 2 days or so…

Which will be covering important topics likes:

  • Affiliate marketing (duh).
  • Some of the best traffic sources.
  • Where to get traffic for making commissions.
  • And a ton more (which includes full affiliate training videos).

So make sure keep a lookout for the emails I’ll be sending…

As there’s a lot of valuable training for you.

End example.

So as explained above, this does a few important things:

  • It lets them know how often you will be emailing them…
  • So there are no surprises if you send an email every 1, 2, 3 (or more) days.
  • It also lets them know of some of the benefits of opening up your emails…
  • So make sure that you make them as juicy as possible!

Simple stuff right?

So let’s move to the last part of the welcome email.

The Cliffhanger Ending

You can consider this an addition to the previous section, but it’s also a good idea to end with another nice benefit.

In this case though?

It’s more of a cliffhanger.

You can see what I mean down below.

Start example.

Make sure you keep an eye out for my next email…

As I have a bonus for you (on the house) that others had to pay $297 for.

You certainly don’t want to miss it.

Sign Off.

End example.

As you can see from above, it’s a great way to get someone to open up your next email.

A bonus that others had to pay $297 for?

Sign me up!

Then last but not least, a very simple sign up.

Pretty simple stuff right?

So let’s wrap things up and dive a little deeper into what we talked about.

Conclusion

So in the end, a well written welcome email should contain:

  1. A reminder of why they are getting this email.
  2. A link where they can download what they requested.
  3. How many times you will be emailing them in the future.
  4. What they can expect on the inside of your future emails.
  5. And lastly, a nice little cliffhanger that will entice them to open up your next email.

By keeping your welcome email short and simple, you avoid it being long (and sometimes unread). Plus, you can flat out get it done quickly. Sometimes we take way too long on tasks that should be done quickly. Your followup email is one of those tasks.

Lastly, you might have noticed that there is nothing for sale in this email (and that’s the way I like to keep it).

There will be plenty of opportunities for that with our future emails.

But all in all?

Be sure to utilize these short few steps and you’ll be set up for future email success.

Thank you for reading!

James Canzanella is the owner of Internet-Marketing Nights, a site dedicated to building online businesses utilizing both affiliate marketing and helpful software.

Email stock photo by one photo/Shutterstock