Welcome Email

July 17, 2023

Module 1 — Lesson 6

A welcome email is the first email your subscribers receive after signing up for your newsletter.

Not only is your welcome email your first impression with new subscribers, but it’s also a valuable opportunity to establish the signals of sender quality to email providers.

5 Things to Consider In Your Welcome Email

1) Who is your audience?

Readers seek to feel seen and understood, and those feelings drive connection and engagement. This starts with a clear understanding of who you’re writing to. Once you know that, it should be easy to define who that audience is.

From the first sentence of your welcome email, you want to clarify to the reader who your newsletter is meant for.

2) What should they expect?

As part of starting your newsletter, we recommend compiling a list of topics and content types you plan to use in your newsletter.

These could be current events, tips and advice, expert recommendations, reviews, and more.

Providing your new subscribers with a summary of what you'll be sending them is a way to help them prioritize your publication and get excited to read.

3) Make it easy to read

A common mistake is trying to explain everything all at once to your new subscribers. That’s the same thing as walking up to a stranger at a party and giving them your entire life story.

Instead, give a warm welcome, a polite summary of who you are, what they can expect, and a quick ask.

4) Reduce friction to reply

While it’s usually not ideal to make an ask to someone you just met, replies send a positive signal to email providers that, “Hey, I’m a legit email sender! You can trust me!”

But instead of asking them a long, open-ended prompt like, “Tell me a little about yourself.”

Ask them to reply with one word like, “Reply with ‘Potato’.”

5) Do things that don’t scale

While eventually, it will become difficult to respond to every email reply, it’s best to reply back to your initial responses with a personalized message:

💡 “Hey [Name],

I’m so excited you joined [Newsletter Name].

I typically send my newsletters every [Day You Send], so look for me then! :)

Best,

[Your Name]

P.S. What’s one problem or challenge you’re struggling with that you want me to write about?”

Here’s a great welcome email example from Zain Kahn at Superhuman:

How do you set up your welcome email?

In order to create and customize a welcome email:

  1. Visit Settings and Publication

  2. Scroll down to Welcome New Readers

  3. Add a subject line and email text to activate

  4. Click Save in the bottom right

Welcome Email Template

Feel free to copy this, but make sure to adjust the placeholders:

💡 Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! You’re joining an amazing community of [newsletter subscribers].

From now on you’ll enjoy:

• [Thing they should expect #1]
• [Thing they should expect #2]
• [Thing they should expect #3]

To ensure that you received our newsletter to your main inbox, it’s important that you add us to your contacts list and move this email to your primary inbox. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.

While you wait for the next issue, check out some of our most popular blog posts:

• [LINK 1]
• [LINK 2]
• [LINK 3]

Here’s how you can make sure that each newsletter hits your inbox:

• Gmail app mobile readers: Navigate to the menu at the top right corner of this email, and select “Move to” then “Primary.”
• Desktop Gmail readers: Navigate away back from this email and the message from your "Promotions" tab to the "Primary" tab near the top left of your screen.
• iOS / Apple Mail app: Tap our email address at the top of this email (next to "From:" on mobile) and click “Add to VIPs.”

Want more? Follow us on social media and get your daily dose of [social media content]:

Like us on [social media networks]

Best,

[YOUR SIGNATURE]

Additional Resources

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or to participate.