How to write a welcome letter

What happens when someone starts a subscription to your newsletter?

Do you send them a nice, personal message that makes your new reader feel welcome? Or perhaps just a text message, a simple note to let them know that the registration worked?

Or, perhaps – nothing at all?

A welcome letter is a valuable opportunity to make a connection with your new subscriber. Take care of the opportunity by giving a positive image of your company.

Anyone who subscribes has taken a moment of his or her time to do so. Give them a reward – or at the very least say thank you. It means a lot. Here are a few tips on how to write welcome letters!

Include your company name in the subject line
Be sure to tell that your company is the sender. A subject line is short and should be able to be read and understood at a glance.

Use the words ”welcome” and ”thank you”
Too many welcome letters are a purely technical confirmation that a registration process has worked out. They say something like ”You have subscribed to our newsletter” – and nothing else. Tell your reader that you appreciate their time and interest.

Include links to your web site
At the moment of signing up, people have a strong interest in your business. Pick a few representative parts of your web site and include links to these pages in your welcome letter.

Include any login-data
If your recipient has registered with a username and a password, make sure that these data are included in your welcome. Your letter will most likely be saved as a reference.

How can you be contacted?
Contact information is a natural part of all e-mail communication. In the welcome letter, it is especially important to communicate accessibility and openness.

Do not talk about yourselves – talk about your subscriber!
A subscription to your newsletter suggests a certain interest. But it is not certain that everyone is interested your company history or your organisation. Most certainly, though, they are all interested in what you can do to improve their everyday life.

If possible – make it personal
The more personal your letter is, the more likely it is to be opened and read. Although there are limitations to what is possible in a welcome letter, perhaps you know the recipient’s name or city of residence – and then it is possible to make a filtered sending.

Do not forget an unsubscribe link
Just as contact information, an unsubscribe link is a natural part of all e-mail communication. You might think that it feels unnecessary with an unsubscribe link in a welcome letter – if you just registered, why would you want to unsubscribe immediately? No, perhaps you would not. But you give the reader the option to do so. And by that, you show respect for your recipients by always communicating on their terms.

Poll questions – a great way to get more information
The main purpose of a welcome letter is just that – to welcome someone. But as we have seen, it is possible to include offers or to add value for the reader in other ways. An easy way for you to collect more information about your new subscribers is to use a poll question. It may not give you as much information as a full-scale survey, but it is on the other hand easy to answer a poll question and it is not intrusive in any way.