One of the best ways to do this is through your welcome email. This is your first chance to get people excited about your brand and share your story.

One of the best ways to do this is through your welcome email. This is your first chance to get people excited about your brand and share your story.

More often than not, welcome emails are an afterthought.

Your welcome email should get new members excited to contribute or take some sort of action. If a new contributor gets a response to their first post within 5 hours, they are significantly more likely to stay active and engaged in the community.

The best welcome emails include the following:

• A short intro about what your brand stands for

• Empowers them to be a part of the community’s journey

• Highlights what they can expect in the community

• Any relevant and helpful community guidelines

• Includes 1-2 CTAs maximum (Remember, the goal is to get them excited to participate, not completely overwhelm them!)

In this post, I’ll share 7 examples of communities that have great welcome emails.

1. Tech Ladies

Showcase your brand’s personality

Tech Ladies, a community devoted to helping women in technology startups get ahead in their career, does a great job of getting new members excited to join their community by using a fun image and one call-to-action (CTA). This showcases the personality that Tech Ladies embodies and shows new members exactly what they stand for.

2. Wave

Highlight that each member is a part of their larger mission

Wave, an accounting platform for freelancers and small business owners, uses their welcome email to empower new members. Their welcome email is short, sweet and to the point but highlights how each member plays a role in the Wave community as a whole.

3. Girls Night In

Share your origin story

Girls Night In, a fast-growing newsletter focused on self-care, is one of the few welcome emails that share how they got started.

To be honest, I’m not sure why more communities don’t do this since it’s one of the easiest ways to educate and get new members excited to participate in the community since you are bringing them along on your journey.

4. Nextdoor

Entice new members to post their first comment

As I shared earlier in this post, the sooner someone logs in and posts in the community, the more likely it will be that they’ll contribute a second time.

Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social network, takes this a step further by sharing three ways that a new member can contribute. They even include numbers and social proof to make these actions more compelling.

 

5. Oculus

Make it easy to access your knowledge base

This tip applies mainly to developer or technical support communities.

While this email could be shorter with fewer CTAs, Oculus highlights the most important information right in their welcome email and makes it easy to find and access their knowledge base.

6. Letgo

Share a quick win

Letgo, which is a neighborhood marketplace app, shares a quick win in their welcome email.

Smartphones are a common product that people sell on their app. So, they offered a tip helping people sell theirs faster. If a new seller has a great experience, they are going to be far more likely to continue using the app as well as share it with their friends.

7. RapidMiner

Integrate a chatbot into your onboarding experience

In addition to a welcome email, RapidMiner built an onboarding chatbot to answer questions and educate new members. This is a good example of “just-in-time onboarding.”

Learn more about the RapidMiner community, take a look at their case study!

 

In sum, your welcome email is a new member’s first impression of your brand. When your messaging resonates with your members, you’ll be far more likely to turn new members into active contributors and even brand evangelists.

The examples I shared can be used as an inspiration to help you write or revise your community’s welcome email.