Winning welcome email examples to jump-start engagement
Everybody appreciates a warm welcome, including your customers. A welcome email is typically one of the very first messages a customer receives from you, and it’s your chance to start building a long-lasting relationship from the start. Developing a strong welcome email template sets the foundation for making a winning first impression from the moment each person engages with you.
Welcome emails are a different breed than other messaging. They’re not transactional or promotional—they’re relational. Let’s explore everything you need to kick off customer relationships on the right foot, including welcome email examples and best practices you can use to get started.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- The importance of a welcome email
- Welcome email series best practices
- The anatomy of a welcome email
- 4 varieties of welcome emails
- Welcome email examples
Why a welcome email is essential
Once you get someone in the proverbial door, you have to activate that customer. Your goal is to take them from stepping over the threshold—signing up for your mailing list or trying out your product—to feeling fully at home with your brand, becoming a fan, and eventually promoting you.
Your new customer has gotten to know you from afar (through your website, social media presence, and advertising), and it’s now time to take that relationship to the next level. They’ve raised their hand by downloading your app, making a purchase, or subscribing to your newsletter. Your welcome email is a direct response to their actions.
A hospitable hello is more than a best practice; it’s what people expect. On average, welcome emails see 4x higher open rates and 5x higher click-through rates than your standard email marketing campaign. And 74% of consumers expect a welcome email as soon as they subscribe (source).
A well-designed, strategic welcome email template is the first step, but your job is not done after the first message. You’re opening a dialogue; a holistic welcome email series continues the conversation and engagement.
4 welcome email series best practices
A welcome email series is a key component of your customer journey. It walks people down the path of their first important milestones. And a strategically crafted welcome email series lets you speak to your customers at scale in a way that feels personal for each individual. Here are a few welcome series best practices to help you put your best foot forward from the very first message.
Welcome series best practice #1: Consider the context
The best welcome series emails reflect the context of the relationship. What customer action triggered the message? Was it a newsletter signup, event registration, purchase, or contest entry? You want to speak directly about the customer’s experience with your brand so far and provide logical and relevant next steps.
For example, if you’re responding to someone who just signed up for a newsletter, it may make sense to show them around, introduce yourself, and invite them to follow you on social media. Or, if a customer just created an account on your website, the welcome email could highlight key features and include an enticing discount.
Welcome series best practice #2: Look at the entire customer experience
Speaking of context, consider the welcome email in terms of all your other customer touchpoints.
For instance, don’t overwhelm your new signups with a flood of communications on day one of your new relationship. You don’t want to send a verification email, a review request, a receipt, and a welcome email all at once. Either space out those messages across a few days or consolidate content into fewer emails.
Take a step back and look at your welcome email sequence in conjunction with your other campaigns to ensure you’re not bombarding customers with communications or sending mixed messages. Pay particular attention to triggered transactional messages: For instance, if your welcome email sequence lasts for several weeks and you send a payment request or dunning email in the midst of it, the customer experience could feel disjointed.
Welcome series best practice #3: Spread your welcome sequence across channels
In the best welcome series, emails are just one of the channels through which brands reach out to new customers. Multi-channel campaigns connect with people across various communication options—email, SMS, push notifications, and in-app messages. Each channel has unique characteristics, and by tapping into them, you can deliver messages with the right content in the right place at just the right moment.
For example, say a customer downloads your app and creates an account. You could immediately greet them with an in-app message, then follow up with a more detailed welcome email on the same day. The in-app message could guide them through an app walkthrough, while the email could provide additional resources, next steps, or a promo code. You can nudge them back into the app a day or two later using a push notification.
Welcome series best practice #4: Connect on a personal level
Your welcome email series is all about building trust and relationships. Customer data can help. By personalizing your welcome email series, you can customize people’s experience to be more relevant and engaging, making them feel more at home.
Personalization is increasingly important to both customers and brands. 76% of people say they expect personalized attention from brands’ marketing (source). Strategic brands are meeting those expectations: 81% see personalization as an important part of their messaging strategies, and 73% plan to increase personalization efforts in the coming year (source).
The welcome email series is the first step to a new relationship, and you’ve likely only just started gathering customer data. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make communications feel customized to each individual. You can provide content relevant to their conversion point and whatever data you have thus far—and, at the very least, include the customer’s name in the welcome email subject line!
The anatomy of a winning welcome email
Your welcome email design will have a big impact on the success of your campaign. Brands must think about what they say, how they brand their email, and what value the content provides. When done strategically, you create a seamless experience, transitioning people from lead to customer to engaged fan through the course of your welcome email sequence.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all best practice for welcome email design. You’ll have to discover what works best by understanding your audience and testing your campaign. But there are some key welcome email components you need to pay attention to:
- Subject line: The welcome email subject line is your chance to catch your customer’s attention. You’ll want to be succinct and compelling. At a glance, they should be able to tell who you are, what you’re sending, and why they should care.
- Preheader: This is the little bit of text that appears in the inbox preview. It’s an opportunity to add more context and entice an open. You could tease a promo, hint at good resources, or even include personalization.
- Body copy: This is the heart of your email, where you establish a warm rapport with relevant content, recommendations, next steps, or custom offers. The body of your welcome email should feel personalized and compelling.
- Design: Your welcome email design should extend your customers’ experience so far. Be sure the colors and graphics reflect the branding of your website and product. The colors you choose and how you use images can greatly impact overall performance.
- Call to action: Your welcome isn’t just a hello; you want to give people something to do! Strategically choose the next steps you provide to activate your customers and improve their stickiness.
- Email client support: The best welcome email design in the world will fall flat if it gets mangled by the email client. Follow best practices for responsive design to ensure your message performs well in every email client and device. And if you use CSS, be sure it doesn’t break your emails.
Remember, your welcome email isn’t written in stone. Start with a solid welcome email template, then run A/B tests on design elements, subject lines, content, and CTAs to continuously improve performance.
4 varieties of welcome emails
People make their initial connection with a brand in many different ways—which calls for more than one type of greeting. When you send a welcome email to a new customer, it should reflect the way in which they engaged. Look at these welcome email examples for four of the most common flavors of welcome emails.
Variety #1: Generic welcome email
When someone signs up for your mailing list, creates an account, or subscribes to your service, a general welcome email brings them into the fold. This can mean offering further information, helpful resources, next steps, or even an introductory video, like in Hearth’s example.
Hearth uses words like “family” and “your” to build rapport with their new subscriber. The content conveys a feeling of inclusion and immediately provides engagement opportunities.
Variety #2: Confirmation email
Using double opt-in when someone signs up for your mailing list is vital to keeping your deliverability high (and your unsubscribes low). It’s also an ideal time to roll out the welcome mat. You can transform your basic confirmation email template into a compelling welcome email. Check out this example from Emails Done Right.
Instead of a bland email verification template, this brand confirms the customer’s email address and reaffirms why they gave it to you in the first place. The new subscriber gets a taste of the brand’s voice and learns what value they’ll get from joining the list.
Variety #3: Registration email
A registration email template confirms a customer’s signup and lets them know they’re good to go. This is a key moment for activation, and it’s an ideal for setting the stage for ongoing engagement.
In this example, Stark lets subscribers know they’re registered for a future event—in this case, a software beta release. And since people can’t get into the beta immediately, the brand gives them a way to stay engaged while they wait. This can be a useful welcome email template for businesses shipping a product, when there’s a delay to access, when someone registers for an upcoming live event, and any case where customers can’t get their hands on the service right away.
Variety #4: Welcome offer
What’s a warmer welcome than a discount? Many businesses use promo codes or discounts in their welcome emails to entice new subscribers to purchase or upgrade quickly. This can be an effective tool for activating customers as soon as they make an account.
This welcome email example from GoDaddy combines an attractive discount with helpful information about two pathways customers can use to get started with their services. It doesn’t feel totally promotional—instead, the content helps people start an ongoing relationship.
Welcome email examples from 5 industries
How you craft your welcome email template depends on many factors—your industry, how customers start their engagement, and the action you need them to take next in their journey. You might find that you’ll need a few different welcome email templates if you have multiple pathways to initial engagement.
These welcome email examples from five industries will give you ideas and insights to apply to your own welcome email templates.
Industry #1: FinTech welcome email example
In the fintech industry, one of the most important customer milestones is connecting a bank account—in many cases, it’s necessary for someone to effectively use the service. Trubill uses their welcome email to move new subscribers toward that vital next step.
Truebill’s welcome email reaffirms the value of their product, then leads customers to the CTA with more benefits. They even anticipate a potential blocker—concerns about security—and provide resources to make their audience more comfortable.
Industry #2: EdTech welcome email example
Like many industries, making an account is only the first step for edtech customers. If new subscribers don’t start taking lessons, they won’t get any value from the product—a path to rapid churn.
Section’s welcome email example focuses on getting subscribers to sign up for their first course, and they make it compelling through personalization. By tapping into data about the content someone has viewed on the Section website, the brand places relevant course suggestions into their email—welcoming new customers with a customized experience that inspires deeper engagement.
Industry #3: Marketplace welcome email example
Whether B2B, B2C, or peer-to-peer, marketplaces must build trust quickly. New customers need confidence that the platform will create a reliable and secure way to connect each side of a transaction, and a welcome email is a great place to establish that assurance. Most marketplaces make their money through facilitating transactions. That means that the welcome email’s goal is to get new customers into the platform and making moves.
This welcome email example from Upwork showcases the value of prioritizing customer education. The message functions as a quick-start guide, walking people through the steps they must take now and conveying the benefits simultaneously. The educational video at the end is the cherry on top, ensuring people have all the knowledge they need to get started comfortably.
Industry #4: SaaS welcome email example
B2B welcome emails look different than emails for consumers. SaaS products targeting businesses often require more upfront effort for customers to get set up and start using the product. That makes the welcome email series and onboarding period even more important to retention and customer success.
Monday.com tackles the challenges of B2B SaaS onboarding with a welcome nurture campaign. The first message in this welcome series email example sets clear expectations so people know that more content is coming and provides broad access to resources, community, and support right away. The goal is to get customers to log into their new accounts, and the supporting resources encourage them to take that action.
Industry #5: Healthcare welcome email example
Healthcare can be expensive, stressful, and complicated. To build rapport, a welcome email for a healthcare brand has to convey their core value proposition, establish trust, and get customers engaged right off the bat.
In this welcome email example, Hims walks people toward their next activation point—downloading the app—by reminding them of the key reasons they signed up for the service to begin with.
Create your winning welcome email template
Sending a welcome email to a new customer transforms what could be a purely transactional exchange into a relationship-building experience. As the first touch point in a welcome email series, it starts a conversation that you can keep going throughout the customer lifecycle for ever-deepening engagement. As you build your welcome email template, the best practices and welcome email examples above should help you craft a winning first impression.
Want more ideas for high-performing emails? Learn how top brands are connecting with customers in our email inspiration guide.