Topica's Blog

When someone signs up for your newsletter, they have taken initiative and expressed an explicit interest in your business or organization. Not responding to this action by failing to reach out to them is a huge mistake. This is an especially big mistake if you don’t send weekly or daily newsletters and your new subscriber won’t hear from you for weeks or months. The longer your new subscribers go without hearing from you, the more likely they are to forget about you and mark you as SPAM when they finally receive that first campaign. Inbox delivery with the major ISPs is increasingly based on engagement; failing to connect with new subscribers in the precious moments after they first sign up makes an already difficult job even harder.

Welcoming subscribers is when autoresponders really shine. Because you don’t want to (or can’t) create a new campaign each time someone signs up for your newsletter, an autoresponder that is triggered by a “New Subscriber” will streamline the process and save you time.  Set up a “Welcome” autoresponder that does the following:

• Thanks subscribers for joining the newsletter
• Sets the right expectations
• Asks them to add you to their address book
• Lets them know you will be sending them a few emails to get them caught up to speed (more on this in next week’s tip)

You can always get creative and add more content to your welcome email. I’ve joined newsletters where I am given a brief company history, links to similar newsletters that I may be interested in, or even a discount code for one of their products. Just be careful not to ask too much from your new subscribers and don’t overload them with information. This is an introductory phases of the marketer – subscriber relationship, tread carefully.

Next week we will have a tip on getting your new subscribers “up to speed” on your newsletter so keep your eyes peeled to our blog. Until then…

Happy Emailing!

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Filed under: Best Practices, Marketing Tips, Using Autoresponders, Welcome