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11 Incredible Welcome Email Examples (and Why They Work)
Welcome emails are a simple, easy, and effective way to give each new subscriber to your email list a warm, personal welcome. Here are some amazing welcome email examples to inspire your own.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
That’s true of just about anything, but it’s particularly true in the world of email marketing. In a time when people are being bombarded with more marketing messages than ever, it’s important that your brand stands out. Otherwise, you risk becoming completely forgettable.
Welcome emails are a great opportunity for a first impression. However, just the act of sending one isn’t going to guarantee anything. Most marketers are using marketing automation like welcome email campaigns nowadays, so if you want to stand out, the key is to be memorable.
We’ve hashed out the what and how of welcome emails before, but in this post, we’ll go over why welcome emails can be so effective, tips for how to make a memorable one, and then look at 11 incredible welcome email examples.
Why welcome emails are such an effective email marketing tool
As a marketer, the moment when someone gives you their email address is pivotal. Whether they signed up for a free trial, a special offer, or created an account for your service, they’re clearly interested in your product or brand at that moment. And it’s up to you to make the most of it.
By sending an automated welcome email, it gives you the chance to interact with this person in a friendly, personal way. It also gives you the chance to guide their experience with your brand. Rather than hoping they find the right page on your website, or your best-selling product, you have the chance to deliver it directly to their inbox.
It’s the timing of it all that makes the welcome email so pivotal, and it’s important for marketers to capitalize on it.
Welcome email best practices
We’ve gone pretty in-depth on this topic before, so we won’t rehash everything we know (for more you can check out this post). But here are some quick, easy tips to keep in mind before looking at the welcome email examples below.
#1: Be timely
Like we mentioned, time is of the essence here. With that in mind, you want to make sure that your welcome email arrives shortly after they sign up for your list. A welcome automation will be useful here, and we’d recommend you send the email within a few minutes of the person signing up.
Note: we just launched a new pre-built welcome journey recipe inside of Campaign Monitor, making it incredibly easy to get your automation up and running. Log in or sign up to get started.
#2: Have a goal in mind
The worst thing you could do with your welcome email is send a confusing message. Think about what action you want this person to take after opening your email, and start building around that.
If you’re working for a software company, your goal might be to get the person using your product. If you’re an eCommerce brand, you might want to guide a customer toward their first purchase. Whatever the goal is, make it easy for your subscriber to take that next step.
#3: Use a friendly greeting
If you asked for your subscriber’s name or other information when they signed up, now is the time to use it. Greeting your subscriber by name sets a more personal tone.
And whether you use their name or not, it’s always nice to simply welcome new subscribers. Spend some time thinking of some friendly, clever copy to start the email and make sure that you send a welcome message right from the start.
#4: Make sure to craft a great subject line
Email subject lines are an important part of the success of your campaign. A well-crafted subject line will leave a good impression on the reader, and likely increase your email’s open rate. For welcome emails, average open rates are usually around 50%.
You’ll want to make your subject lines clever, topical, and relatively short (about 7 words or 41 characters is ideal!). And don’t be afraid to add emojis, as they can help boost open rates.
For more on subject lines, be sure to check out this post for best practices, and this one for welcome email subject line examples.
#5: Make it a welcome email series
When a new email subscriber fills out your sign-up form, odds are, you have a lot you want to communicate to them. But at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm them with info in the first email. That’s why, in a lot of circumstances, we recommend creating a welcome email series.
A welcome email series is one of the most effective email marketing campaigns you can run. Instead of sending one email, you can multiple over a given period of time, giving you the chance to follow up and give your subscriber all of the information they need.
Pro-tip: Anywhere between 3-7 emails, with a day or two in between, is a great place to start when setting up your welcome email workflow.
11 of the Best Welcome Email Examples
Now that you have the why and the how, let’s take a look at these amazing welcome email examples.
#1: British Tennis
Image source: Really Good Emails
This email from British Tennis stands out for its cleverness. If you’ve ever watched a tennis match on tv before, you’ll recognize that the image at the top of this welcome email is meant to replicate the replay process when a shot is being reviewed in tennis.
This is effective in that it’s instantly recognizable by tennis fans, and it further boosts their perception as an insider — someone who gets tennis.
They also have a clear CTA button at the bottom, so you know exactly what to click next.
#2: Loom
Image source: Really Good Emails
If you’re not familiar with Loom, it’s a software tool that lets you easily record quick videos of your computer screen and/or yourself. It’s particularly useful in a remote/hybrid work setting, when you need to communicate with coworkers via video, but might not have time to jump in a meeting together.
Their first email does a handful of things really well, but the thing that stands out is their use of the product in the email. By including a video recorded with Loom in the email, they’re showing you the product in action, making it easy to imagine how you’d use it for yourself.
They also give quick, actionable steps for getting started, which we’d highly advise for any welcome email geared toward product adoption.
#3: Mollusk Surf Shop
Image source: Really Good Emails
Mollusk is a surf-inspired clothing brand based out of San Francisco, CA. Sustainability and comfort-minded, their brand is centered around creating high-quality, laid-back clothing that’s in it for the long haul. They also have a big focus on working with local vendors, which brings us to what they do well here.
Mollusk does a great job of telling their brand story in this email. They quickly get to the point of letting you know they’re not a fast-fashion company. They work with their “friends and neighbors” and create with “comfort and durability in mind.”
While it’s easy for brands to get carried away with their brand stories and have a tendency to talk too much about themselves, Mollusk strikes the balance well here. Tell your story, but in a way that’s engaging and communicates value to your audience.
Their coupon for 15% off is also likely to help boost conversion rates.
#4: Bombas
Image source: Really Good Emails
Sticking with the retail space, let’s take a look at this beautiful welcome email from Bombas, a clothing company designed around building simple, comfortable essential clothing products.
This email starts with some striking imagery of the products organized neatly, then offers new customers 20% off their first order, which is a great way to get people in the door and try your product.
Mollusk did that in their email above, but what Bombas does to make theirs even more effective is add a number of clickable elements that make shopping easy. Right under the discount code, there are links to their products. Making it easy to redeem the code is likely to increase click-through rates and conversion rates.
Want to build your own stunning welcome email, but don’t have a designer’s help? Try one of our pre-made welcome email templates!
#5: Asana
Image source: Really Good Emails
Shifting gears to the B2B world, let’s look at this wonderful welcome email from Asana, a project management tool.
Typically, if you’re composing a B2B welcome email, you have two main goals:
- Greet your new user in a warm, friendly way
- Make sure they have first steps to take in using your product
The first time this new user is interacting with your product is hugely important. At this point, they’re still deciding to commit to using your product or choosing another solution. So, guiding them toward how to get started is key.
Asana does both of these wonderfully with some warm, welcoming copy, and three easy action items to get the user started using their product.
And bonus points for the lovely gif of an item being checked off the list. Who doesn’t love that feeling?
#6: The New Yorker
Image source: Really Good Emails
This welcome email from the New Yorker to subscribers who sign up for their daily email newsletter, The Daily, is a great one for publishers and media companies to look to for inspiration.
The two things this one does really well are:
- Sets expectations. You’ll notice up at the top of the email, they tell you how often you’ll receive their newsletter, what kinds of content to expect, and other perks of being a New Yorker subscriber. This helps get users excited for what they just opted into, and anticipating your next newsletter.
- Cross-promotes other New Yorker content. Odds are, if they signed up for the Daily, they’ll be interested in other New Yorker content as well. This is a great place to cross-promote content and include a CTA for a subscription in a way that sounds helpful, not disingenuous.
Pair all of that with the New Yorker’s signature visual style, and you have all of the ingredients for a great welcome email.
#7: Help Scout
Image source: Really Good Emails
Help Scout is a customer support software tool for small to mid-sized businesses, and they are obsessed with providing excellent customer experiences.
Their welcome is an excellent case study on showing, not telling. How many times have you read We value customer service or The customer is always right on a company’s values page? And how many times have you actually believed it?
Rather than telling about their award-winning support, Help Scout implies it in a handful of ways. With the “We’re here to help!” line, the email directly at the bottom, and the smiling faces, you get the sense that Help Scout would love to answer any of your questions.
While this email could benefit from some action steps (like Asana’s), it does enforce Help Scout’s core brand message very well. And who knows, maybe future emails in their email sequence include onboarding steps!
#8: Zapier
Image source: Really Good Emails
Zapier has a very interesting challenge on their hands in the sense that, unless you’ve used Zapier before, you might have no clue what they do.
Zapier is an automation tool that moves information across different apps automatically, taking the busy work out of a lot of day-to-day tasks. They’re one of the first products like that in their space, and when you have a category-defining product like that, one of your biggest marketing challenges is going to be educating potential customers on what, exactly, your product even is.
This email tackles that challenge head-on, and it does so rather effectively. With the lead header of What’s a Zap? they start to answer exactly what a potential customer needs to know. Then, they go on to give them visual examples of what, exactly, you can do with Zapier. They also include a video introducing the product.
This is a masterclass in product education, and there’s no doubt his email campaign has served the Zapier team well.
#9: Redfin
Image source: Really Good Emails
A rule of thumb I have for any marketing email I’ve ever sent is to make sure I have a reason to be in their inbox. Emails that are sent for the sake of sending emails are just annoying. But emails that are helpful and provide value are the ones that stand out, and this one from Redfin does exactly that.
One of the first questions anyone thinks about when buying a home is “What can I afford?”, and Redfin helps email subscribers answer that question immediately.
The home buying process can be confusing. Redfin knows that, and by positioning themselves as a helpful recourse, they build trust with their subscribers right from the get-go.
Plus, by sending five different helpful resources, they’re likely to increase the engagement rates of this email.
#10: Harry’s
Image source: Really Good Emails
Harry’s is the DTC men’s razor company out to make shaving cool. Clever, cool, and minimal are essential to Harry’s brand, and they check every single one of those boxes in this short, simple email.
They’re not pushing for a purchase right away (which would be uncool), they give you an interesting (clever), clever fact, and it’s all packaged in a clean, minimalistic welcome email design.
It comes off as cool but not approachable-y cool, and piques your curiosity about the brand just enough to want to know more. That’s a hard line to walk, but Harry’s does it really well here.
#11: The Sill
Source: The Sill
The Sill is an online plant shop that makes buying plants (and learning how to keep them alive) really easy and approachable. By educating you on how easy or hard a plant is to keep alive — and even letting you sort that way while shopping — the Sill is a great solution for someone who just wants to not kill their plants (it’s me, I’m that person ✋).
I don’t always advocate for having more than one CTA in an email because things can start to feel crowded and unclear. But the Sill includes three equally important CTA’s in this one without losing clarity.
Their goals are clear — to get someone to shop online, to get someone to a store, or to get someone to read their plant-related content. Though they have multiple CTA’s, the email content is clear and they make it easy to do any/all of those things.
And hey, if they can teach me how not to kill plants, it makes sense that they can craft a stylish, informative welcome email, too.
Wrap up
Welcome emails are an important part of email marketing. Rarely will your subscribers ever be more engaged or interested than they are when they give you their email address, and it’s up to you to make the most of it.
And hopefully, after looking at these stunning, informative, and effective welcome email examples, you feel equipped to do just that.
