Onboarding Emails

Eyewear brand Warby Parker sends website visitors this simple yet nicely designed email once they’ve created an account. The subject line “You’re in”) is both clear and creates a sense of belonging while the body of the email lets the recipient know the signup process was successful.

The rest of the onboarding content consists of a list of key benefits of having a Warby Parker account. Each benefit is easy to grasp thanks to the basic but fun graphics, limited text, and individual call to action.

This onboarding email by food subscription service Purple Carrot is a great example of how you can use subject lines to instantly bring your message across. The brand invites the email recipient to join its social media communities. Invitations like this make new users feel welcome and increase customer retention as the people who join your communities will keep getting exposed to your brand.

Purple Carrot’s “Let’s be friends” is such a warm welcome message, and it also does a great job of specifying who their communities are for: “like-minded plant-based eaters”. People want to be part of something special and your communities will have more success when you make it clear that they’re not just for everyone.

Customer loyalty isn’t built in a day. It’s based on positive experiences and trust. One way to build that trust is by sharing social proof as part of your boarding process. Rent the Runway does this amazingly well with this email that is the 4th in an onboarding email sequence of 12.

The brand combines quotes from paying customers with photos of those customers in RTR outfits and presents the quotes as tips for the new customer to get the most out of their membership. It’s social proof and helpful content in one.

Coffee subscription company MistoBox can’t brew its customers’ coffee for them, but it can it can improve their customer experience by giving them step-by-step instructions in the form of video tutorials.

Showing customers how to use your product or service also allows you to answer common questions (taking some workload off your customer support team) and highlight key features that they may have already forgotten about since they bought from you. On top of that, it makes for engaging content that you can use to drive traffic to your website. For that reason, it’s a good idea to host your explainer video or explanatory blog post on your site instead of including it completely within the email. Not all email clients are able to play videos either, and a whole post would make for a way-too-long email.

If you have an app and are sending a sequence of multiple onboarding emails, consider dedicating one email to directing new users toward your app.

We love the pun (“So appy together”) in the subject line of this email by cosmetics brand Lush as well as the clear call to action at the bottom of the email with links to the App Store and Google Play. The email’s to-the-point copy invokes a sense of FOMO (“never miss the latest Lush news”) and combines that with the benefits new users can get from downloading the app.

There is no reason onboarding emails shouldn’t be promotional emails. After all, part of user onboarding is introducing them to your products, isn’t it?

Bed Bath & Beyond aims to bring more customers to its online store by listing and linking to different brands it sells. If you’re one brand selling different products, you could list your most popular products, or you could list different types of products for different segments of your audience. Men, women, and kids is a typical one for fashion retailers.

Do you have a secret weapon? Something your competitors don’t have? Make sure to flaunt it! As part of the onboarding experience, outdoor brand Backcountry lets new subscribers know that they can get advice from true outdoor experts on their upcoming purchases. They share a dedicated phone number at the top of the email, making it super easy for recipients to get help.

Providing this type of advice makes it more likely that the customer buys and that they’ll be happy with their purchase. It also allows you to collect customer data beyond the typical metrics your email marketing tools can track.

If your initial onboarding email included a welcome offer but the new subscriber or new customer hasn’t taken you up on it yet, send them a reminder.

ALDO addresses its recipient by name and introduces a sense of urgency (“it disappears soon!”) in its welcome email to get the recipient to act. A welcome offer is a great way to get new leads or first-time customers to take the next step in their customer journey.

This email of the email welcome series itself is simple but the animated confetti GIF at the top captures the recipient’s attention well.

Do you have a loyalty program? Dedicate one of your automated onboarding emails to promoting it. In this onboarding email, beauty brand Ulta shows the new user how saving points can get them discounts on their next purchases, and how they can earn even more points if they get and pay with the Ultamate Rewards credit card. There’s one CTA that clearly outlines the next steps for the recipient to take: “Learn More & Apply Today.”

A rewards program is a good way to increase long-term engagement from customers as it incentivizes them to stick around and keep shopping with you. The fine print in this email with links back to the website for further reading also ensures the recipient has as much information they need to understand how the program works.

This onboarding email from sportswear brand Lululemon is aimed at setting new subscribers up for success. The “what you need to get started” in the email subject line makes it clear that the first step on their fitness journey should be to get themselves the correct (Lululemon) gear.

By including different products and product categories into its onboarding email, Lululemon surely manages to interest more people than if they’d focused on a single bestseller. An additional benefit is that once a recipient takes action and clicks one of the CTA, Lululemon gets more data about their shopping preferences.

It’s a good idea to gather data on new subscribers and customers as part of the onboarding process, as it allows you to target them better with future automated email sequences and as such both increase their email engagement and your sales.

If there’s something special about what you sell or how you produce it, an easy way to create more engaged customers is by making them feel invested in your brand. Wanderer Bracelets does this by sharing its production process in this onboarding email example.

The video of the hands of a craftsman at work adds a personal touch and shows new customers exactly how their bracelets are made. The email copy goes deeper into the process and lists some of the top reasons why buying a Wanderer Bracelet is a great idea. They’re made by hand using organic material, are adventure-ready, and on top of that, every purchase supports “sustainable work for artisans in Bali.” The brand’s sustainable character is emphasized even more by the logos at the bottom of the email of causes it participates in.

There’s one clear main CTA that invites the reader to take a specific action: “shop handmade bracelets.”