Email marketing faces numerous obstacles: spam filters, high bounce rates and a generation of consumers that are inattentive to marketing messages that do not directly address their interests, or allow for external control, organization, and management.
And many marketers do not capitalize on the "key marketing moment" of the first interaction — or the welcome email — with just 76% of the largest online retailers sending those out, according to Smith-Harmon in the Retail Welcome Email Benchmark study (pdf).
"More than simply confirming that an action has been taken, the welcome email is the first chance you have to engage your new subscriber and provide immediate value from your email program," noted Stefan Pollard, senior strategic consultant with email service provider Responsys, a partner in the study.
Even those that do utilize the welcome email often struggle with the right message. A good welcome email should explain the benefits of being a subscriber and include a link to their homepage, for example — but many did not do so, the study found.
What's more, just one in four marketers (24%) asked subscribers for more information about themselves and their interests to boost the relevancy of future emails.
As an example of a poor welcome email, The Retail Email Blog pointed to Crutchfield, an online retailer for electronics. The welcome email was text-only; it didn't highlight the company's brand strengths or community features, including forums, blogs, or expert content:
The message also failed to promote the Crutchfield's human element: easy access to sales reps, or pictures of staff members or customers.
Perhaps in response, Crutchfield redesigned its newsletter to include these components, making it appear more like future newsletters and explaining what recipients can expect. See the new welcome email — all photos courtesy of the Retail Email blog:
The most obvious change was use of images. Text-only welcome emails are slowly being phased out — some 89% of retailers now send HTML welcome emails, up from 78% in 2007 and 69% in 2006.
But sending largely image-based emails with little or no text would still be a mistake. Some email clients, such as Gmail and Mozilla's Thunderbird, suppress images unless the user confirms s/he would like them displayed, UK firm Emailvision warned earlier this month.
Welcome emails are likely to evolve further, with more forward-to-a-friend links (now present in just 15% of welcome emails) and share-with-your-network links slowly being introduced, Smith-Harmon suggested.
Last month Nike added community sharing features to email blasts for its Lunartrainer+iD product line.
