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Welcome programmes

Best practice and strategy for designing welcome email campaigns and programmes.

Welcome programmes | September 2014

CONTENTSOverview ......................................................................................................................................................1

The welcome email ....................................................................................................................................2

The importance of welcome emails .........................................................................................................2

When should we send welcome emails? .................................................................................................3

Welcome tactics .........................................................................................................................................4

Tactic 1 – In-store sign-up using paper forms or cards ......................................................................................................4

Tactic 2 - Welcome purchase in-store .....................................................................................................................................4

Tactic 3 - Welcome email opt-in online ...................................................................................................................................5

Tactic 4 - Welcome registration online preference centres ...............................................................................................5

Tactic 5 - Welcome during online purchase ..........................................................................................................................6 Tactic 6 - In-store SMS sign up ..............................................................................................................................................6 The Welcome Programme .......................................................................................................................7

Set objectives for a welcome programme ............................................................................................................................8

What are the different types of programmes? .....................................................................................................................8

Introducing customer journeys ................................................................................................................................................8

Going cross-channel ..................................................................................................................................................................9

Incentives and loyalty .............................................................................................................................................................10

Welcome Best Practice ........................................................................................................................... 11

Wireframe ..................................................................................................................................................................................11

Best practice & ideas ...............................................................................................................................................................12

Welcome checklist ...................................................................................................................................................................17

Testing ........................................................................................................................................................................................18 Key things to remember ..........................................................................................................................................................19

Summary ....................................................................................................................................................................................19

Welcome programmes | 1

OVERVIEW

By Jalna Soulage, Digital Consultant

The Experian Digital Consultancy team created this best practice document, full of examples, clarifications, tips and best practice advice for our clients to help them take each program to the next level and increase conversions.

This document will review what best practice processes to follow when creating welcome emails, how to create welcome campaigns as well as provide examples of larger welcome programmes.


THE WELCOME EMAIL

Welcome emails are a type of triggered email (a message sent to a subscriber based on an event occurring) and are commonly the first email communication the customer will receive from a brand. This is one of the biggest opportunities a brand will get to make an exceptional first impression, captivate the consumer and set the relationship off to a good start from the beginning.

The importance of Welcome Emails

Welcome emails have extremely high transaction rates and revenue per email compared to regular promotional emails. This opportunity means that the brand can start converting subscribers into loyal consumers from the very start.Subscribers actively choose to interact with brands when they subscribe to receive communications from them, therefore marketers must respond in a timely manner to ensure they move them from an interested party to a loyal one. Starting a conversation and building a relationship takes time so it is important to consider having a robust welcome journey in place from the start. Welcome programmes, as explained further down in this report add value at each stage of the process. 93% of email marketers run welcome email programmes at least monthly (Forrester, January 2012). Make sure you are part of this percentage.

Key benefits of the welcome email:

Instantly welcomes the subscriber to the brand.

A timely response to a subscriber’s action.

Is a positive representation of the brand.

Sets the subscriber’s expectations on the customer journey to follow.

Starts the relationship between the brand and the subscriber.

Welcome emails see more than

3x the transactions and revenue per email over regular promotional mailings

86%Lift*

Unique Open Rate

Unique ClickRate

TransactionRate

Revenue per Email

196%Lift*

336%Lift* 320%

Lift*

Promotional Mailings Welcome Emails

* Over regular promotional mailings benchmarks

Source: Experian Marketing Services


Welcome emails should be sent immediately (in real-time), alternatively, they could be sent in batches daily, weekly or even monthly. Industry insight sees brands are trending more and more towards a real-time approach as results are seen to be higher. This is evident in all marketing verticals.

CUSTOMERS EXPECTATIONS The customers’ expectation is that a welcome email is generated immediately on having interacted with your brand for the first time. More information can be found in the integration chapter.

WHEN SHOULD WE SEND WELCOME EMAILS?

Brand Latency of 1st email Opens (%) Transactions (%) Clicks (%)

Brand A Real-time (under 5mn)

105.0 0.7 19.4

Brand B Real-time (under 10mn)

124.7 3.8 19.4

Brand C Real-time (under 30mn)

116.1 0.8 29.4

Brand D Batch (daily) 78.3 0.6 11Brand E Batch (daily) 90.6 0.6 10.7Brand F Batch (daily) 65 0.1 5.0

Real-time welcome emails see more than

10x The transactions rates and revenue per email over batched welcome mailings

Real-time welcomes Batched welcomes

Transaction rate

Revenue per email4.01% $5.83

0.40% $0.53

The table shown above shows the improvement in opens, clicks and transactions caused by a near real time welcome email versus a daily batch process.


WELCOME TACTICS

There are many different ways in which a customer can sign up to a brand. For example in store, online, at an event, on social sites and via third parties. Some brands will choose a quick sign-up form (email only), while others will request more information during the sign-up process such as name and address.

In a world where customers are overwhelmed with information, welcome emails must be personalised and targeted to break through the advertising noise. The welcome email should identify behaviours taking place in addition to the email channel and recognise those actions and react to them. Below are a few considerations and opportunities for different sign-up types.

TACTIC 1 – IN-STORE SIGN-UP USING PAPER FORMS OR CARDS.

Paper in-store sign-ups are very common practice for retailers. In-store paper forms and cards are quick and easy to fill-out. Almost free of charge, retailers will often only gather an email address but they will collect a very high number of them.

Delay It is important to note the speed at which retailers can process the information. Some will process weekly; others can take anything from 30-90 days. In conjunction, the likelihood of a subscriber forgetting that they signed up by the time they receive their first message makes this conversation delicate. A gentle but catchy subject line might be used to ease the customer into opening the first email. Be sure to always remind them of the source of the opt-in and show the date and store name to avoid a negative customer experience.

Double opt-in Best practice states that when using quick sign-ups, via a postcard, marketers should include a double opt-in to ensure full compliance and data quality. The first welcome email should be used to confirm subscription and the second to welcome the subscriber.

TACTIC 2 – WELCOME PURCHASE IN-STORE

Asking for a customer’s email address at the point-of-sale is a great acquisition technique. Marketers love this practice as it has a very high uptake, especially when linked to a “green” policy such as saving paper with an e-receipt.

When creating a communication after capturing an email address at the till, it is best to include the store name and date of when it was captured to alleviate concerns. The subject line must also refer to the fact that the customer signed up in-store.

Considerations Consider replacing in-store paper cards with POS sign-up. Most modern POS system support forms and web access. Email addresses can be added to the marketing database in real-time and an associated welcome email triggered immediately.


TACTIC 3 - WELCOME EMAIL OPT-IN ONLINE

Quick online sign up forms are also a common practice. Brands will generally have between one and three sign up boxes on their website including in page forms and pop-ups. To conform to best practice, be sure you have a double opt-in in your 1st welcome email. If no confirmation, the email address should be removed from your database.

Setting expectations Setting the scene at this stage is key to developing a long and loyal relationship. Subscribers must be explicitly told what they have just signed up for, with a clear unsubscribe in case this doesn’t meet expectation. Including links of previous newsletters (or best performing ones) may be done to reassure the user as well as promoting the brand. See below for an example of an expectation setting email.

Mobile rendering Customers may have gone through the quick sign-up process as they are on a mobile phone, therefore ensure your email is mobile optimised.

Advertise brand services Did you know that security, delivery and return policy are the main barriers to buying online? Marketers must not disregard it. The subscriber needs reassurance, especially as there was no initial purchase. A 24/7 contact number or online live chat details work very well in welcome programmes.

TACTIC 4 - WELCOME REGISTRATION ONLINE PREFERENCE CENTRE

Preference centres allow marketers to collect the most information about their subscriber. Marketers often spend a lot of time trying to infer preferences through behaviour when often asking the customer is the fastest and most accurate method of understanding their needs.

Historical Information Use what you know. Once the customer has spent time on your site browsing specific areas, clicking on products, it is time to consider using this information to display recently viewed items for example.

Incentivise Welcome programmes with vouchers have 2.5 times higher conversion rates than welcome emails without coupons (Experian Marketing Services, 2013). We advise our clients to build a testing plan to determine how well incentivising works for its brand and customers.


TACTIC 5 - WELCOME DURING ONLINE PURCHASE Customers also have the possibility of signing up to newsletters during an online purchase. By adding more than the email address a substantial amount of information becomes available to marketers.

E-receipt After purchase, the customer will receive a confirmation of purchase email as well as any other transactional email. Although this is technically a service email, it is also a great opportunity to welcome the customer. Consider asking the customer to complete the rest of their profile or log into the preference centre.

TACTIC 6 - IN-STORE SMS SIGN UP A Welcome SMS would be sent to the subscriber after they sign up in-store via a dedicated short code, giving their email address and obviously their mobile telephone number. As a standard practice, an SMS confirmation text and email sent in real-time should welcome and thank the customer for visiting the store, as well as setting future communication expectations with a clear STOP opt-out.

E-receipt After purchase, the customer will receive a confirmation of purchase email as well as any other transactional email. Although this is technically a service email, it is also a great opportunity to welcome the customer. Consider asking the customer to complete the rest of their profile or log into the preference centre.

Length of text SMS are short and should have a clear and succinct message. The SMS should aim to do one thing in addition to thanking the subscriber.

Lack of branding The lack of fonts and colours with text makes it difficult for brands to

advertise themselves emotionally. Consider adding an image of the brand logo after the text as a 2-part message. See the example, right.

SMS engagement SMS have a great open rate - out of all marketing text messages sent to consumers, over 95% are opened and read, with 83% being read within one hour. (Econsultancy, 2014).

Consider the following scenarios:

•Manage footfall traffic: Retailers could take the opportunity to promote something specific back in store with time sensitive incentives to make another purchase in-store

•Start the conversation with your customer through two way SMS whereby the brand asks the customers questions (customer experience at the till, or in store, recommendations, complaints...)

•Ask for interests: Keep it short and sweet with ‘Please tell us what interests you the most? 1. Blogs, 2. Make up, 3. Editorial news…’. If no SMS back, send welcome email 1 from quick sign-up.


THE WELCOME PROGRAMMES

A welcome program is a series of welcome emails aimed at gradually introducing the new subscriber to the brands product/service offering before they enter the promotional stream. Each stage needs to be an intelligent interaction and must create an opportunity for the subscriber.

25% of all B2C marketers send a single welcome email, after that the subscriber is added to the pool of promotional messages, leading to a high drop off rate.

As subscribers get to know the brand, each step becomes a bigger opportunity to make a sale.

Email 1 – welcome & thank you!

•Show related products, search history

•Website features, videos and how-to tips

•Localised content such as a store locator

•Information about other services - security, delivery and return policies

•Content from website

Email 2 & 3 – build the relationship and educate the customer on your brand

•Include more targeted content based on preferences

•Did you know facts and figures about brand/products/trends

•Information on store’s services

•Refer a friend programmes

•Heritage, blog, social media and community resources

Email 4 – set the tone for all future emails

•Welcome offers (always include an expiry date)

•Examples of previous newsletters

•Clearly set expectations of what happens now (e.g. weekly emails)

•Link to the preference centre to amend marketing preferences and opt-ins

Enter ExitEmail 1 Email 2 Email 3 Email 4


SET OBJECTIVES FOR A WELCOME PROGRAMME

It is essential to have a clear aim when drafting a welcome program. This may not suit all industries/brands. Each stage must have a clear objective with dedicated content. Managing the risk during the first communication is very important at this stage, as the relationship is still fragile.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PROGRAMMES?

Programmes vary. Each brand has its own way of welcoming subscribers. A retailer would not have the same approach as a financial institution. The length, content and cadence will be specific to each vertical.

If we look at an email from a financial institution on the right, the welcome program is very likely to last a couple of weeks, with a fairly high number of emails whereby each stage would aim to educate the subscriber on the product and services available.

A program for a retailer might look different. The welcome program would aim to build a relationship and incite conversion. The first welcome email would usually thank the customer for signing-up, the next one might be product orientated to incite a sale, the third might aim to deepen the relationship by giving the customer tips on how to use the recently purchased item.

If we looked at a high-tech company sending a welcome program after a purchase, the first email may be packed with ‘how to’ information after which the costumer might receive add on deals.

INTRODUCING CUSTOMER JOURNEYS

A more advanced welcome program is a customer journey. Typically customer journeys include both online and offline elements to match the experience your customer is having when interacting with your brand.

The journey below is an example of a potential customer journey showing how dormant (non-openers) are handled while engaged customers are taken through a welcome program before being flagged as Active and put into the standard monthly newsletter program.


A recent Econsultancy study revealed that 77% of people surveyed chose the number and complexity of key audiences as their biggest challenge. We therefor appreciate that developing the perfect journey is not the easiest of tasks, given the difficulty to understand your audience.

In today’s world, customers want to receive personalised and targeted content. As a result, subscribers are expecting to give away more personal information.

Ideally, this information should be requested as soon as possible in order to understand what it is that the subscriber is interested in, to avoid spamming them with impersonal information.

A useful tactic is to direct customers to a preference page where they can adjust their marketing preferences.

Enter Website

Active

Inactive

Open Open

1 Week 1 Week

Dormant

Dormant Dormant

eReceiptWelcome

EmailInformational

Email

DiscountOffer

InformationalEmail #2

ReactivationEmail

IntroduceCommunity

Open

GOING CROSS CHANNEL

Engaging a customer on more than one channel throughout the journey is a proven method of increasing engagement. Common pairings of channels are Email and SMS or Email and Direct Print.

Sending an SMS to non-openers is an effective method of ensuring your message is heard. A simple message asking to confirm subscription and a link to update preferences online can be very effective in preventing a customer lapsing.

Don’t forget about direct print! With more brands moving to digital channels such as email the amount of “print spam” is reducing and a personalised print message has a high degree of success. Using personalised URL’s, QR codes and contact centre numbers ensure that you can track campaign success even from a print piece.

“Today’s brand must find a way to connect all of its channels if it is truly going to understand what its customers are doing. It’s not just about what they’re doing in the store versus what they do online, for example, but understanding the continuum of the entire customer experience

David Seifer, VP Ecommerce, LIDS Sports Group


INCENTIVES AND LOYALTY

Brands incentivise for more or less the same reasons: to promote sign up, generate traffic, sales, and conversions. Some keep it as a surprise from the customer until the first welcome email; some explicitly promote it.

When it comes down to it, marketers have the same dilemma: ‘When should we incentivise?’

This depends entirely on your brands personality, strategy and testing results. Does your brand generally promote sales or free delivery? Does this match your brands ethos? Do your customers react positively to incentives after a purchase? Or do your low engaged subscribers bring more sales after sending them offers? Which types of offers match your brand: Free deliveries, free complimentary products, discounts? Which offers do your customers react best to?

Most popular

Best unique click rates Compared to 1.5% unique click rate for other promotional mailings

Best transaction rates Compared to 0.06% transaction rate for other promotional mailings

$10 offClick rate: 2.80%

89% higher

$5 offTrans rate: 0.12%

2x higher

$ off coupons % off coupons

$10 off 20% off

Click rate: 2.50% 66% higher

20% off

Trans rate: 0.13% 2x higher

20% off

According to Experian’s 2013 Benchmark Report, £ off coupons and % off are the most popular ones, leading to higher click and transaction rates. Interestingly messaging for money off attracts higher click throughs but both convert at approximately the same rate.

The table below shows how different incentives in subject lines affect key metrics.

Objective Keyword Open ratevariance vs. average

Click rate variance vs average

Click to open rate variance vs. average

Unsubscribe rate variance vs. average

Incentives % off 6.1% 17.7% 10.9% 38.1%

Cheap -67.2% -71.6% -13.3% -34.6%

Free -23.7% -34.8% -14.6% 32.4%

Half price 11.5% -21.3% -29.4% 29.8%

Sale 10.7% 26.7% 14.4% 75.0%

Save -4.4% -27.4% -24.0% 38.2%

Win -21.0% -13.8% 9.2% 27.8%


WELCOME BEST PRACTICE

This section shows some best practice guidance for creating welcome emails drawn from Experian’s own experience as well as market examples.

WIREFRAME

Shown here is an example wireframe of a welcome email showing the key sections of:

•Welcome message

•Incentive

•Clear Call To Actions

•Mobile Application prompt

•Community links


BEST PRACTICE & IDEASMaking the first email similar in format to the website including menu items and logos promotes purchase.House of Fraser uses a clear ‘From Name’ and subject line. Boden goes one

step further and uses a good pre-header to show that this is a welcome email.

White listing is important especially at the beginning of a relationship with the client. Ensure you provide easy instructions to add the email address to the customers’ contacts.


Urban Outfitters choose the right message to send based on what they know from the customer.

Mr Porter sets expectation well with a clear diary of when the next emails will be arriving and what to expect from them.


Waitrose shows the customer what to expect from the weekly newsletter when they exit the welcome programme.

Sephora underlines why it is great to have signed-up and be part of the Sephora family in the first email.


Republic promotes a community on social media rather than just “share us” links. Data used to personalise: Device Type, Customer Postcode, and Weather Service


Finish Line uses live countdowns to show the time to the launch date and prompt urgency.

Data used to personalise: Launch Date.

Finish Line also uses the customer location to promote merchandise for the local teams in the email. Where the location is unclear or not within a team area they replace the content with a generic “Support Your Team” message.

Data used to personalise: Customer Location (via IP address or HTTP location).

American Eagle Outfitters promotes the mobile application when the email is opened on a small screen format device.

Data used to personalise: None, responsive design only.


WELCOME CHECKLIST

To help you We have now identified the importance of a welcome programme as part of the customer journey. The following steps will ensure that you get a programme up and running:

Clear From address

Subject line: Welcome and thank the subscriber

Whitelisting instructions

Setting expectations for further communications

State the acquisition source & date

List benefits of signing up

State frequency of emails

Primary Call To Action above fold

Incentive testing plan

Social icons

Clear unsubscribe link & contact number

Use creative techniques for maximum engagement

7 For All Mankind captures the imagination of their customers with an inspirational video in their welcome programme. The video degrades with the device ensuring a great experience for every different type of email reader or device.


TESTING

Testing different aspects of your welcome means constantly increasing its performance. The following should be tested –

Subject lines:

•LENGTH: Length does not matter. The aim is to get the message across. Be aware of mobile usage on the rise, it is important to understand the opportunity and threats this brings. For example, mobile devices display less characters in the inbox.

•COMPANY NAME: Including the company name in a subject line is generally a good idea as the brand becomes more visible. However, it is important to test how subject line branding performs for each segment.

•TONE: The tone of voice should aim at connecting the brand and its subscriber. It’s not because a brand provides financial services that the tone shouldn’t be friendly and outgoing. Test power words, curiosity, formal / factual language vs emotional thesaurus. Testing these will be important, as some users will be unable to relate to one or the other.

•PERSONALISATION: It has become a common practice to use the subscriber’s name in the subject line. Do test a few other fields to understand which works the best for your segments. Be mindful that some ISPs identify personalised subject lines with forename as spam.

•SYMBOLS: The use of symbols is a great way to draw attention to the email, as people automatically look at what doesn’t conform to the rest. Question yourself on which symbol is relevant for your brand.

Day and time of send

TIme of Day:

•MORNING: Many marketers send morning emails to ensure top of the inbox placement. Also, subscribers will be getting out of bed, having breakfast or on their commute to work, meaning that they have a fair amount of time to dedicate to reading your emails.

•AFTERNOON: Depending on your audience, some might be at work, others at school or even at home. The likelihood of the audience checking their emails and clicking through between 2 and 4 is high.

•EVENING: Subscribers are usually at home, with family or friends. It is the perfect time to send newsworthy content, which customers will want to talk about and share with others. Offers or exciting stories should be sent at this time.

•NIGHT: Some brands send at night time to be the 1st ones in the inbox the next day, some brands have realized their highest transaction rates when deploying over night. However, it is important to note that receiving emails at 4am might displease some users. Some brands have realized their highest transaction rates when deploying over night.

DAY OF WEEK:

•We advise all clients to test which day of which is optimum for each stage of the welcome journey. Some might find weekdays to work better than weekend and vis versa.

•Note that events such as payday, news years, Christmas or Valentines Day for example, must also be taken into consideration, and should be excluded when testing best time of day / day of week.

•MONDAY: The first day of the week is considered to be the worse for click rates. Subscribers are likely to mass delete, as their in boxes are full from the weekend.

•TUESDAY: Customers are in an open frame of mind to open and read your messages. Educational emails, or ones which don’t necessarily require clicks such as updates or news, tend to work best earlier in the week.

•WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY: Mid week is ideal for emails, which require action, as users have a couple of days to think about it before converting over the weekend.

•FRIDAY: Friday is an irregular day for most people. Either very busy, or very quiet, emails have a 50/50 chance of being opened and clicked.

•SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The weekend is a particularly good time to send emails, which aim at conversion. Users have a lot more free time to sit down, interact and convert.


Content and copy testing

•CONTENT: Content can be tested by placing certain aspects of your product or service offering in dissecting your email into blocks of content. Whether the block is promoting your app or your brand’s services, whether it is a social section, or even a block promoting a new feature of your product, test one at the time to see which is achieving the highest results.

•COPY: Copy testing means testing your tone, copy length, layout, format etc.… These can very much influence the decision to click or purchase. The same testing principles need to be applied in this case to test how you resonate with your subscribers. We advise drafting a clear testing plan whereby distinct tones are visible, same for copy length, layout etc.

KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER

•Don’t wait to introduce the brand: Real-time welcome emails are more effective than bulk sends.

•Add lots of personal touches.

•Optimise for mobile.

SUMMARY

We hope you have found the content of this document beneficial and don’t forget: the Digital World is forever evolving and marketers must keep up with it by reacting to changing customer needs. A plan which works today does not mean that it will work in 2 months. Marketers must constantly review their programmes.

Contact Details

Should you require any assistance, please contact our Cross Channel Marketing Experts on:

[email protected]

Experian Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Experian Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company registration number 653331. Registered office address: Landmark House, Experian Way, NG2 Business Park, Nottingham, NG80 1ZZ.

© 2014 The word “EXPERIAN” and the graphical device are trade marks of Experian and/or its associated companies and may be registered in the EU, USA and other countries. The graphical device is a registered Community design in the EU. All rights reserved. 09/14 | www.experian.co.uk/marketingservices

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