When I sign up for a new email list, I always pay attention to the welcome letter that arrives after opting in. In two previous posts I pointed out how Olive Garden’s welcome email had several nice things going on, while Sephora’s needed much improvement.
I was recently reading an article by Future Now Inc. (leaders in conversion optimization) that mentioned the top 10 converting online retailers for Jan 2009. Pro Flowers was on that list — and given that flowers are a great product for the email channel I wanted to sign up and see what they were doing. Time will tell if there email practices are in line with their high converting web site, but their welcome letter is off to a decent start.
Some good elements:
1. Not heavy on the images: for a welcome email, you will have some of your highest open rates so you want to make sure you quickly get your message across, and not risk confusion with blocked images.
2. Thanking the customer: On one level this is a simply a nice gesture, but it also provides subtle confirmation of the original opt-in. Some email marketers prefer a dedicated ‘confirmed opt-in’ prior to the welcome letter.
3. Sign-up promotion: the 20% off your first purchase was not advertised as an incentive for signing up, but is a nice surprise. Starting the email relationship off on a positive note is very important, and this is helpful.
Elements to improve on:
1. Notice in the screen grab below that is says: “Dear ,” without my name. During the sign-up process, they did not ask for my name, so it makes sense it is not there. Why then have that piece of copy in your welcome email? It doesn’t start things off too well. Solutions: 1: Ask for their first name so you can personalize it more 2: Put a general field in there such as “Dear New Subscriber” “Dear Value Customer” etc. 3: Remove it and start off with Thank you… Just don’t have it blank there.
2. Preferences: In a previous post I discussed the benefits of having an email preference center. In the welcome letter, you have a great opportunity to ask subscribers to update their preferences. On one end you get more valuable information, and on another you can communicate how you respect their preferences — win, win.
3. While I very much lean towards minimalism with email design, the header was quite dull in this email. I’ll leave it at that, as this is a welcome letter and I’m sure their future promotional emails will have better elements.
- Forest Bronzan
