Remember to Thank Your Customers – with an Email and a Side of Content

According to Email Experience Council and the Direct Marketing Association, welcome emails to new customers have “significantly” higher open rates than regular emails. The best part is, the majority of these emails just say “Thanks” and then give some links to other resources.  Here are some highlights from the study:

“Instead of engaging subscribers with incentives and links to products, departments, loyalty programs, catalogs and other
shopping-related material, a great number of the largest online retailers simply say hello and leave it at that. Though, in 2007:

• 98% of retailers’ welcome email now contains a link to their shopping site (up from 88% last year)
• 33% contain store locators (up from 31%)
• 14% containing links to catalog information (up from 6%)
• 58% of welcome emails were CAN-SPAM compliant in terms of including
  both a mailing address and unsubscribe method, versus 52% last year

The study shows that 72 percent of major online retailers send out welcome emails, up from 66 percent last year.”

I’m not sure how many of these emails are driving customers to content, but that would seem like the most relevant of emails.  For example, “Thank you so much for being our customer. Many of our new customers enjoyed reading ‘This eBook that is Very Valuable’. We hope you do as well.” So, nothing is better to customers than a thank you, plus some valuable and relevant content.