Email Marketing is one of the most valuable assets in your marketing portfolio. Emails drive traffic, and without a doubt has been proven to be an effective channel to reach out to your clients, customers, and increase sales. In addition to increasing sales, sending out emails is also a way to reach out to people and build good relationships. It is important to see your list not only as money you can make but people who can help you grow and become better. It is important that the emails you send to your subscribers offer some benefit to them and leaves a lasting impression, and you should do that from the first email.

Your Welcome Email is the most important email you would send out to your subscribers. It is the first time a visitor would get in contact with your brand and business. The main goal of a welcome email is to get the attention of your visitors and keep them engaged, as such the content you include in it should be optimised to achieve continuous engagement.

A recent statistic shows that out of all the marketing emails you would send, the Welcome Email has an open rate of about 60%, making it the most read email. Welcome Emails can also be a determinant of the level of engagement to expect with your content. If you are able to connect with the subscriber with your welcome email, it’s a hit. But, if your welcome email makes the subscriber want to shove it aside or delete, you should consider changing it up.

When setting up an Email Marketing Campaign, it is best to get it right from the start, by using an autoresponder. Autoresponders have been proven to be the best resource for managing email marketing campaigns. Irrespective of the autoresponder service you decide to use, the welcome email should be sent out on Day 0, as soon as the subscriber signs up for your campaign.

Generally, you would send out 1 welcome email. Most sites offer an incentive to the visitor when they subscribe to their site, which could be a report, eBook, checklist, video series or set of challenges. You should include your free offer in the first email, even when you are sending out a set of video series or daily challenges, the first email should stand out from the rest.

As in most businesses, Content is King, the same applies to Email Marketing. In your Email Marketing campaign, it is important that you include the following elements. First, you must thank your subscribers for signing up. Show some appreciation for taking time out to sign up for your service. Also let them know what to expect, give them an idea of the type of emails they should expect from you. Include a brief background of your company and if you promised an incentive, include it in the email. If the incentive is a coupon, make sure it is still valid at the time the subscriber receives it and give them enough time to enable them to use it. If you are not able to set the email to update regularly, instead of using dates use a specific time frame, for example instead of using expires 11/20/2015, say expires 3 weeks from today.

Another really important element in your email is Design. You can use either Plain Text or HTML in your emails but keep it consistent. Use either HTML only or Plain Text only not a mixture of both. Design elements should be consistent with your brand, logo, colour scheme and image. If you are in retail, you should include good pictures of your products.

Make sure the content is short and sweet and relevant to the subscriber. Inject some personality into the emails, you can be witty but be sensitive, and try to avoid controversial stuff. Also, include a Call to Action on your Welcome Email. Welcome emails are not the place to sell, instead invite subscribers to your website or outlet, then you can start to sell to them.