Do You Have an Email Welcome Series for New Subscribers? Probably Not

Do we sound like a broken record yakking on and on about email marketing? Yes! Do we care? No!

We are fired up right now about making sure nonprofits are following email marketing best practices. We’ve pretty much dedicated the entire month of February to email marketing training.

So until we see these stats change, we will continue to metaphorically scream at the top of our lungs about the Nonprofit Email Apocalypse.

Today’s focus is on Email Welcome Series.

Graph showing only 26% of nonprofit communicators use an email welcome series for new subscribers. — Get used to this chart from The 2021 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report

So yeah, only 26% of nonprofits have set up an email welcome series to new subscribers. Not great. (We’ll get to that 16% re-engagement stat next week.)

We know you’re busy and we never tell you to do something just because. So let’s talk about WHY you need to be doing this.

First of all, people expect at the very least a single welcome email. Secondly and most important to you – people that read at least one welcome email read more than 40% of subsequent emails for the next 180 days.

BlueHornet — A Digital Guide to Sending Wow-Factor Welcome Emails

Need more proof this is a good idea?

Email marketing platform, Klaviyo found, “Welcome series emails receive 63% higher open rates, 86% higher click-through rates, and 83% higher revenue per recipient (RPR) than your average email campaign.”

If you need more stats on the power of the welcome email, go here, here, here, and here.

Hopefully I have convinced you enough to at least look into some best practices for an email welcome series. Here are a few:

Send from an email address they can respond to
Make it feel personal
Match your branding
Limit your calls to action
Include information that will be the most helpful for them

And a few years ago Kerri Karvetski shared these options of what to offer in these emails:

Top resources from your website
Your best blog posts
Downloadable white paper or ebook
Mobile app
Discount
Video
Quiz
Survey
Invitation to volunteer
Invitation to sign a petition
Invitation to connect on social networks
Invitation to donate

Now, I want to ask you:

Can you devote an hour to get your welcome series going?

If so, we invite you to join us for next week’s Jump Start Your Email Welcome Series.

It’s a 60-minute workshop where we will share the process behind creating a welcome series, then give you samples and templates that you will customize DURING the workshop when you have Kivi and other participants to help. You’ll leave with a first draft you can share with your team and complete on your own.

The workshop is only $49 and you will get:

Training on what an email welcome series is and how to set it up for your nonprofit.
Guidance on making important decisions before writing your welcome series, including
- The most important thing you want new contacts to know. You don’t want to overwhelm new friends, so you need to prioritize what you tell them.
- The most engaging or exciting thing they can do next. They are with you now, but how will you keep them with you?
- How many emails and how often? We recommend you start with three over the course of a week or so, but you can consider alternate approaches too.
Sample email series templates and questions to help you create your first drafts. You’ll get access to samples and templates for your welcome email series so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Time to work on your first drafts. You’ll have time during the Jump Starter to begin filling in the blanks and editing copy that you can then add to your nonprofit’s email templates.