Celebration Life Magazine | Page 12

- WHAT’S ONLINE? - The Importance Of Welcome Emails By Janine Brandt - It takes a considerable amount of time to plan out your website, have it developed and streamline it to capture the leads you desire. Your website could have a great conversion rate when it comes to people that contact you, but what happens to those leads after they opt in? It’s important that during this time, while your lead is still ‘hot’ they be followed up with in a timely manner. Don’t forget to use this opportunity to send out your social links as well. Include other ways that they can get in touch with you if email isn’t their preferred way to converse. A Welcome Email Can Show That You Are Accessible Transparency is a big factor when it comes to choosing a business to buy from these days. Being available and ready to converse is a huge asset when you’re dealing with leads online. A welcome email can help to reassure your subscribers that they know what to expect from your team and that you’re there if they need you. Why Are Welcome Emails Important? During the information phase of your buyer's journey, your audience will be researching brands just like yours and choosing their favorite one based on what happens after they opt in. The first message that they receive from you is essential. It can result in more open rates, more clicks and best of all, ROI. Did you know that 74% of clients expect to receive an email after they opt in to your list? They Can Save You Time Another benefit of welcome emails is that they can save you time. Instead of qualifying your leads via phone calls or several emails back and forth, you can choose to use your first welcome email as a questionnaire. Manually getting on the phone with a lead might lead you to spend 30 minutes on an unqualified lead. If you set up your autoresponder system to send out an email as soon as someone opts in, think about how much time you could save if you organize your campaigns this way. Another benefit of sending out an initial welcome email is that this will help keep your CRM clutter free. You don't want your email system to get overwhelmed with people trying to subscribe again because they didn’t hear from you after they initially opted in in the first place. It Helps with Branding First impressions are critical! Sending out a prompt welcome email is also a great opportunity to set the stage to display your expertise to your prospects and remind them that they made the right choice by signing up for more information. You can reinforce your brand message by using template emails that are unique to other brands. Without a welcome email, this could cause your brand to get overlooked and not be memorable. A short welcome email is a great way of thanking your subscribers for opting in, and even if you use this email as a temporary placeholder, it can still make a large impact on how your prospects view your team. Sending out a quick welcome email also shows that your team cares and that you are readily available to answer their questions and concerns by simply replying back to you. There are different types of welcome emails you can choose to send out. They range from a standard email that describes your products and services to promotional emails that offers them a discount right off the get go. It’s best to keep your first welcome email simple and send out your second and third emails in intervals. You don’t want to overwhelm your prospects in these early stages but you still want to make sure you send out something that will make you memorable. Janine Brandt is a digital marketing professional focused on customer-first interactions and developing strategic, wellthought-out plans related to engaging the consumer in brands. She currently serves as the CRM Manager for North America at Merlin Entertainments, and manages Astrocyte Digital, a boutique digital consultancy agency in Celebration, specializing in small business digital marketing consultancy. Janine can be contacted at 941-468-7584 or [email protected] 12