An email welcome series designed to retain new email subscribers
Have you ever compiled a series of blog posts, and turned them into an email welcome series? Buffer just performed a month-long experiment where they spent the month recycling content instead of producing new content. During that time, they used old posts to create new email drip campaigns, like a seven day email course, for example, that resulted in a 60% open rate and 17,817 email signups.
A drip campaign is not unlike an email welcome series, in fact it can be exactly the same. Before enlisting new subscribers in a daily email newsletter, a drip campaign email course might be the right ticket.
But there are other uses for an email welcome series, like feedback.
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Groove, an online help desk startup started asking a question in their welcome emails that went something like:“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love it if you answered one quick question: why did you sign up for Groove?”
According to Groove, “This email gets a 41% response rate and has given us more business insight than any email we’ve ever sent.” The result: lots of answers, which they used to tinker with their copy. And after all the tinkering, it doubled the conversion rate on their homepage.
That’s not exactly a series, although it could be a winning combo to start your email welcome series drip campaign with a personal email, and follow up with the entertainment.
How we created our email welcome series
At Mequoda, our “welcome series” is more of a hybrid of the two. Our email welcome series is seven emails long, and it’s simply a double-opt-in reminder. When people subscribe to Mequoda, they typically sign up to download a handbook, so this series is meant to encourage them to download the handbook, which in the same click, double-opts them into our email list. The subject lines go like this:
- Can a handbook change your life? Yes. — This email starts with the words, “Yesterday you took the first step toward mastery of multiplatform publishing by requesting a free Mequoda handbook,” and is followed by a short personal message from Don, our Founder and CEO. And a link to download the handbook.
- How to make millions in multiplatform publishing — This subject line is our no-fail subject line for high open rates, so we use it on the second email, which starts with, “Yesterday I dropped you a line reminding you to confirm your request for a FREE Mequoda handbook, but I haven’t heard back.”
- What’s better than 1 free handbook? Five of them! — After three days, there’s a third promotion and reminder that by confirming they not only get access to the handbook, but all of our handbooks.
- Become a smarter (and wealthier) publisher — After seven days, they’re reminded, almost for the last time.
- It’s quick, easy and profitable to get our free, proven advice – After 14 days, we let them know they requested the handbook two weeks ago, but this email is even shorter and to the point, though still very personal.
- Last chance to accept our popular free handbook – Finally, after 21 days, we send this final email.
Through this series we’ve discovered that often, when someone doesn’t open the original handbook email, they also don’t open the welcome series, most likely because it never landed in their inbox.
However, we do see click-through rates of 17% and higher on our first emails, 14% on our second emails, as high as 50% on our 14-day emails, and 16% on our 21 day emails. Interestingly enough, our three day emails are the lowest of the bunch, when it comes to clicks.
Did you opt into our list through our welcome series? Let us know your thoughts!
