Building a solid relationship with your audience starts with a welcome email, so it’s important to make sure that you get it right the first time. If you’re a new business it’s even more important to build an email list so that you can maintain contact with your interested subscribers. Sending automated welcome emails is a great way to inform customers about new products, events, and more importantly, promote your business. On this post, learn how to set up an automated welcome email once a subscriber joins your mailing list. While there are many email marketing tools out there, I particularly love MailerLite for managing email marketing. MailerLite is the tool I often recommend for small business, and here are just some of the reasons why:
- It integrates easily with WordPress, making it easy to collect email addresses through embedded and pop-up forms.
- The Forever FREE plan allows you to send free emails for the first 1,000 subscribers.
- The simple drag and drop editing tool allows you to create beautiful emails to match your brand.
- Create landing pages, A/B Testing and RSS campaigns.
- Track your results with email newsletter reports and Google Analytics integration.
Why You Should Create An Automated Welcome Email
When a new subscriber joins your email list it’s good practice to send them an automated welcome email. The purpose of this email is to:
- to confirm that they have joined your subscription list
- to welcome them to your community
- show them what kind of content they might expect from joining your list.
- let them know what products or services you offer and how to access them.
- establish your brand personality.
1. How To Create Your MailerLite Email List
MailerLite provides documentation on how to create an automated welcome email series, which is easy to follow with detailed step-by-step instructions. My overview in this post will focus more on strategy recommendations behind each step of the process:
Create Your Free MailerLite Account
Before you begin, make sure that you are aware of the international spam laws that require you to list certain information about your business in the footer of each email. MailerLite automatically populates your email footers with this information. This information must be filled in correctly. You can find this in Account Settings > Company Profile. To edit senders information, logo, social links and unsubscribe disclaimer go to Account> Default Settings.
Fill in your business information to display on the footer of your emails
Authenticate Your Domain
Verifying your domain means that you claim ownership of your domain in your MailerLite account. This verification is required to ensure that you are using a valid email address. Only after you confirm your domain you will be able to use your email address for sending. You can authenticate your domain by going to Account Settings > Domains. Click on the Add Domain button and a pop-up will appear which requires you to enter your email address.
Authenticate your domain by going to Domain and enter your email address
Connect MailerLite To Your WordPress Website
Once you have authenticated your domain within MailerLite. You can then integrate MailerLite with your WordPress website. Before you install the plugin, you will need to obtain a MailerLite API key which you can find by going to your account drop-down menu and choose ‘Integrations’.
Go to ‘Integrations’ and use ‘WordPress’
Once you choose WordPress it will generate an API Key, copy this key and head over to your WordPress website to install the official MailerLite plugin. Activate the plugin and go to the plugin settings. Paste your copied API Key into the text field and click save. With this setting enabled, you can then control your mailing lists and sign-up forms directly from your WordPress website.
2. To Opt-In Or Not To Opt-In?
MailerLite offers a double-opt-in feature that asks subscribers to confirm their subscription before being officially added to your list. In MailerLite you have the option to turn this feature ON or OFF.
What’s The Difference?
This additional step helps to confirm that people on your subscribers’ list want to be there. This can deter spam bots from signing up from your email list. This filters out the robots from real human beings. This can also reduce the number of people who unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam because they’re not interested in receiving your content. With that being said, the double opt-in process creates an additional step in the subscription process, and some subscribers will not complete the steps required which mean they will not be added to your list.
3. Create A Welcome Email Automation Series In MailerLite
Workflow Automation
In your MailerLite dashboard, click on the Automation tab. Create Workflow, give it a name and select the subscribers’ group you’d like it to go to.
Create your workflow and select the group you want it to go to.
MailerLite allows you to choose several options on how to send your welcome email. For instance, if you want to delay sending your welcome email, you can choose ‘Delay’ and enter your prefered time or date.
MailerLite Workflow
Create Your Email
The next step allows you to enter a subject to your email and create an email template by using MailerLites easy to use drag and drop feature. You can create a suitable layout that works for you. I recommend including the following items in your welcome email:
- Your logo
- Include your brand colours
- Add images that align with your brand
- Create a catchy intro and welcome message
- Include social media buttons that point to your social media channels
- Add featured blog posts, products and other highlights that you think might be relevant to the new subscriber.
Make your email stand out
4. Tips On How To Fill In Your Email Information
From Sender
This will be your name which is displayed on the first line of your subscribers’ email. It’s a good idea to choose something that they will recognise, like your company name. I personally like to personalise my messages, for example “Maria from Ohla Creative Designs” or “Maria | Ohla Creative”.
From Email Address
This is the email address your message will be sent from. Choose something that looks professional and makes sense for the email’s purpose. Typically, your welcome email should be sent from your business’ primary email address. For example [email protected].
Email Subject
The email subject line is one of the first things your subscribers will see. Ensure that your subject line is indicative of what your email is about and compelling enough that they will want to open it.
5. Preview And Test
When you are happy with your email content and template, it’s important to send a live test message to yourself to ensure that everything is appearing as it should be. You will find the Preview and Send Test Email at the top right hand of your dashboard. Be sure to check how your email looks on desktop and mobile. Once you are satisfied with the layout and content of your email, click on ‘Done Editing’ This should take you back to the Automation page, where you can turn it on. Now your email is ready to send. Hooray!
Final Thoughts
Not only you can use MailerLite to create beautiful automated welcome emails, but you can also promote your blog posts, collect customer feedback, send transactional emails or even send personalised messages on their birthdays or anniversaries. Gathering new leads, converting them into customers, and maintaining them are just some of the challenges that many online businesses face. This is why creating an effective welcome email is important. Keep in mind that if you impress your audience at the very beginning, they will remember you and will more than likely want to read your future emails.