The "aloha" stages of email marketing (both hello and goodbye) all too often receive little attention and priority on the email marketer's task list. That's a big "hewa" (mistake), because the welcome email, whether a single message or a series of strategic messages, might be the most important email your company will ever send.
Why? The welcome email is typically your subscriber's first email experience with your brand and sets the tone for the relationship. When done well, you will achieve higher levels of engagement out of the gate and minimize early disengagement and churn.
However, whether it happens early or far into the email relationship, some subscribers will still want to opt out. It is critical that you not only make it easy for them to unsubscribe but also provide logical alternatives to saying goodbye. This could help you capture 25 percent or more of those looking to leave.
This Webinar, designed for beginner to intermediate consumer (B2C) marketers, explains why the email "aloha" process is so important, outlines key best practices and shows numerous good and not-so-good examples of welcome emails and unsubscribe pages.
2. Speaker and Agenda Loren McDonald VP, Industry Relations Silverpop Kumu (“teacher) Welcome Emails Unsubscribe Process Q & A
3. Why Aloha? aloha (ah-low-ha): A greeting, hello or goodbye The “hello” (welcome process) is an important driver of early engagement and minimizing the “goodbye (opt-out)
5. When Harry Met Sally… “We're talking dream date compared to my horror. It started out fine, she's a very nice person, and we're sitting and we're talking at this Ethiopian restaurant that she wanted to go to. And I was making jokes, you know like, "Hey I didn't know that they had food in Ethiopia? This will be a quick meal. I'll order two empty plates and we can leave." Yeah, nothing from her not even a smile.” Harry
24. Timing The Good News The Bad News 61% of retailers deliver their welcome emails within 10 minutes of sign up, with most of those delivering within 3 minutes.* 19% take more than 24 hours to deliver their welcome emails, with nearly a third of those taking more than a week to deliver.* *Email Experience Council’s second annual Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study (2007)
28. Move to a series3-part series Immediate Immediate Email # 1 3-7 days Email # 2 Stand alone Email # 3 7-14 days
29. Sample From Names From Names: Use the same from name as regular emails Simple, logical and trusted brand From Name/Address Again, use same as regular emails Avoid ugly, number-oriented if possible Good Examples: Olive Garden [newsletter@olivegarden.com] MBNA America [MBNA@cardsatisfaction.com] Magazines.com [offers@magazines.com] Questionable Example: Penny at MarketingProfs [support@marketingprofs.com] Service@wedding.orders.com
30. Subject Lines Good/OK Not So Good Welcome to Fetchdog! Take 10% Off Your Next Order Branded Immediate value proposition Welcome to Art.com - Take 20% Off Today Branded Immediate value proposition Welcome to Sears.com Email Savings! Email program is branded Implied value proposition Welcome No branding No mention of email program No value proposition Thank you for signing up! Signing up for what? No branding
49. Email address added Add to address book Privacy assurance and link Link/instructions on how to change preferences How to get started When the first email will arrive Resources, key links “Your gift” incentive Unsubscribe link Reinforce value proposition Upsell Call to action/”offer” Etc…. Sample Welcome Content Checklist
106. Resources Resource Center White papers Webinars Blogs Case studies Newsletters http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/index.html Many presentations on SlideShare www.slideshare.net/Silverpop
Aloha: Welcome Email and Unsubscribe Best Practices
The worst welcome email is to not have one at all.
Tafford’s first welcome email generates 6 times the revenue of one of its regular broadcast emails to its entire list. Second welcome email 4.3 times more revenue, with the third less than half one of their broadcast emails. Combined, however the 3 emails generate roughly 10 times the revenue from a single Tafford’s broadcast email to their entire list.