Hello Frens 👋,

I hope you are having a great week.

Today, I wanted to take a look at welcome emails. Done right; welcome emails can accelerate the journey to the first 1000 customers.

In this research piece, I looked at ~60 welcome emails and segmented them into four flavors, each serving a slightly different purpose depending on the target market and customer:

Let’s jump right in.

1. Incentivizing Users

Getting users to take action by offering a discount. This works for low-intent customers in a competitive market.

Good Example: Priceline

1. ✅ Highlighting Incentive

2. ✅ Clear above-the-fold CTA

3. ❌ Generic Irrelevant Header

4. ❌ Distracting Secondary Prompt: VIP Benefits

5. ❌ Distracting Tertiary Prompt: Download App

6. ❌Distracting Quaternary Prompt: Other Deals (Hotel, Car, Flight)

Great Example: Crocs

1. ✅ Visually communicating value proposition: Crocs make you unique

2. ✅ Header Information Hierarchy (CTA > Instructions > Code)

3. ✅ Membership Information Hierarchy (Title > Description)

4. ✅ No CTA button for the secondary prompt (Membership Benefit)

5. ❌ Distracting Tertiary Prompt: Women, Men, Kids..etc

6. ✅ Reinforcing Value Prop: UNIQUE STARTS WITH YOU

Amazing Example: Postcron

1. ✅ Re-enforcing value prop: Postcron helps you save money

2. ✅ Time-bounding action: 48 hours to claim trial

3. ✅ Clear CTA

4. ✅ Addressing potential concerns

5. ❌ Distracting Links: Blog, Features

6. ✅ Fallback CTA: Relevant lower commitment next step (Help Center)

7. ✅ Personalized Point of Contact

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2. “Stand out” in a crowded space

Re-affirming your value prop & position your company against more established brands. This works for high-intent customers in a competitive market.

Good Example: Cuts Clothing

1. ✅ User-focused Header image

2. ✅ Re-iterating Value Proposition

3. ✅ Easy To Digest Copy

Great Example: Headway

1. ✅ Combing the Welcome Email with the Email Confirmation email

^ I thought this was a neat trick to capitalize on high open rates in confirmation emails

Amazing Example: n/a

I am yet to find a welcome email in this category that blows my mind.

3. Educate Customers

Educating users on a new market, you are pioneering. This works for lower-intent customers in a low-competition market.

Great Example: Citizen

1. ✅ Great copy for Key Features (simple & easy to scan)

2. ✅ Re-iterating value prop: Help people during emergency

3. ❌ Information Hierachy

4. ✅ Personalized Point of Contact

Amazing Example: Hypefury

1. ❌ ”Hi” without my first name

2. ✅ Re-iterating value prop: Grow on Twitter

3. ✅ Priming users for onboarding series

4. ✅ Personalized Tutorial

5. ✅ Personalized Point of Contact

6. ✅ Re-priming users for onboarding series

4. Next Step

Guide users to the next step in the funnel to reach their “aha” moment. This works for high-intent customers in a low-competitive market.

Good Example: Bird

1. ❌ Generic Irrelevant Header Picture

2. ✅ Short & to the point

Great Example

1. ❌ Distracting Resource Hub links

2. ❌ ”Hi” without my first name

3. ✅ Relevant lower commitment next step “Meet & Greet”

4. ✅ Search Tips: training customers to extract value

5. ✅ Good fallback CTA: Contact Support

6. ✅ Well-placed Footer CTA

Amazing Example: Change.org

1. ✅ Personalize Welcome Header

2. ✅ Personalized Content based on my prior interactions

3. ✅ Re-iterating Value Proposition

4. ✅ Clear Next Step: share petition

5. ✅ Clear Benefit of taking the next step

6. ✅ Personalized Image based on my prior interactions

7. ✅ Clear CTA: Facebook Share

8. ✅ Clear Fallback CTAs: Whatsapp Share, Twitter Share

Putting it all together:

An effective welcome email:

• Has a primary CTA that is aligned with the market competitiveness & customer intentions

• Is focused on 1 action & avoids distractors (multiple CTAs, generic images..etc)

• Has a secondary CTA that links to a lower commitment step along the activation journey.

• Overcommunicates the one thing you are trying to say (it is in the header, footer, body, and images)

• Is personalized to different end-users

This is it for today, see you soon 😉

Ali Abouelatta (@abouelatta_ali)