Your list of email addresses is growing exponentially. All of your hard work is finally paying off. The boss is happy. Champagne is flowing freely. It looks like the Red Sox locker room on October 27, 2004.
Flashback: July 2nd, 2007. You have just collected over 500 email addresses. Your best day ever. July 3rd - even better (700 emails). The trend continues throughout the month. By July 31st, you have collected over 20,000 new email addresses.
Fast forward to August 2nd, 2007 - your first campaign to the new subscribers. You send out the perfect email, brilliantly coded. But wait…your open rates decline, click-throughs stagnate, and complaints skyrocket. How can this be happening?
Now let’s take a look at why open rates are down and unsubscribes/complaints are on the rise. What critical step did you forget? The Welcome Message. Remember, subscribers make the decision to open, delete, or mark a message as spam based on “from name” and “subject line.” The first subscriber added themselves to your list on July 2nd. Almost 30 days have passed and they have not received any email communication from you. Will they remember you? Odds are, the longer you wait to send that first message, the greater the chance you will not be recognized.
How can you mitigate some of this “Who are you” risk? Send a welcome message. Think of the welcome message as the thank-you note after an interview or a receipt after a purchase - the excuse for another “touch.” Inform the subscriber of what they can expect to receive: content, frequency, and the value proposition.
This should result in fewer unsubscribes and complaints. Good news for you - Bronto enables this positive behavior in a few simple steps.
- Design your welcome message in Bronto (Compose new message. Name it something memorable - “Welcome Message”)
- Create a webform: Site–Landing Pages–Create Website Form
- Edit the new webform: Select the “Notification” tab (see screenshot below)
- Sit back and wait for higher open rates, more conversions, more champagne.
For those who collect addresses offline, you can also send a welcome message during the import process.
For further assistance, please contact Bronto’s Client Service Team today…
DJ Waldow
Account Manager at Bronto
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