E-MARKETING: Make Your First Impression a Long-Lasting One.

While many of us now employ some form of e-marketing in our overall branding efforts, and almost all of us devote serious time, energy and resources to acquiring the almighty e-mail address, a lot of us may be overlooking one of the most crucial components to long-term success: the welcome e-mail.

According to Jeanniey Mullen, founder of the E-mail Experience Council, the "welcome message has become probably the most critical message in an e-mail marketing program because it not only serves to acknowledge permission and a relationship, but sets up expectations for how that relationship is going to develop." In other words, it creates a positive first impression.

The article in Marketing News goes on to identify a number of successful welcome e-mail tactics, including:

• An acknowledgment (subject line) that this is a welcome email, significantly improving open rates.
• A link to your website or e-commerce site.
• Delivery within 10 minutes of the consumer's interaction with your website or data entry.
• Rewards and incentives.
• The option to go to your website to enter more personalized data (if not collected earlier), to better pre-qualify the subscriber.

Mullen concludes that across all industries, research over the past two years indicates that the first three e-mails somebody receives from your company will define, for them, whether this is a relationship they're interested in maintaining. Guess that means we all have three chances to make a first impression. Or we get three strikes, and we're out.

SOURCE: Marketing News, NOISE
REPORTED BY: John Sprecher