Crafting Impactful First Impressions: Welcome Email Examples for Online Communities

You are about to launch your online community -- you designed it exactly the way you need, created a structure to organize the community, and posted content for seeding. Now, are you looking to write a memorable welcome email for your online community?

Although welcome email is something that a community owner must tackle at the very beginning of the community launch process, often we have noticed this activity getting pushed towards the end.

A welcome email is a crucial part of any community since it is a great opportunity for you to tell the story of your community as well as onboard the new members. When someone new joins your community you would be able to get them excited with a well-crafted welcome email.

Essentially your welcome email should be designed to thrill the member and prompt the member to perform an action. Motivating the members to contribute content at the very beginning is a key to improving engagement. Faster response, replies, and reaction to the first contribution made by a member goes a long way in etching a solid impression of the community.

In this post, I've compiled a list of 6 welcome emails for your community to inspire you and help you deliver a memorable first experience. However, before we move further, let's first look at the following common elements of any compelling welcome emails:

• Introduction to the mission of your community
• Encouraging the members to contribute to the community
• Links to get help and understand the community guidelines
• The value a member would get from the community (you can also showcase social proof)
• One or two call-to-actions to guide the members in the right direction

Shameless plug: Bettermode is a modern, fully customizable, and white-label community platform built with a collection of social media best practices.

Now let's get started with the examples:

1. Lenny's Newsletter Community

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Lenny Rachitsky,(previously PM/growth at Airbnb) writes an insightful weekly newsletter and tackles reader questions about product, growth, people management, and anything else that might be stressing out people at the office. In essence, Lenny is building a community of his newsletter subscribers.

When someone signs up for the newsletter, the welcome email, first of all, stands out because of the emoji-filled subject line. Once you open the email you get welcomed by none other than Austin Powers. This GIF image adds a humor element and makes it stand out from the other emails (keeps it memorable as well).

Further down the line, Lenny promotes the subscriber-only access and lays out what the subscriber should expect from the newsletter. Then he encourages the subscriber to start participating by asking for advice. Finally, a list of some of the hand-picked writings does the job of emphasizing the quality of newsletters they would receive going forward.

The CTA at the end is about sharing the newsletter which helps Lenny spread the word and gain more subscribers.

2. Product hunt

Product Hunt is a popular online network where product enthusiasts, early adopters, and product builders can share and discover new products.

The email subject line uses an emoji which helps in making it stand out. The email content succinctly explains what the community is all about and prompts the user to return to the community via two call-to-actions:

• Discovering new products from the home page
• Seeking feedback from the Maker Community if the new member is working on a new product

In the end, there is a link to Ship which encompasses various tools to successfully launch and build new products.

3. Indie Hackers

Indie Hacker is an online community for developers and tech-savvy people who are building projects and real businesses. The focus is always on creating a profitable business and staying independent.

The welcome email is minimalistic and quite straightforward. Courtland, the founder of the community speaks directly to the new member and builds an instant connection with - "You're my people". Then the email goes on to briefly share the story of the community and how it started. This is always important as people care about "the why" behind any product.

The email shares some stats on the number of amazing resources a member can access - 450+ interviews and 150+ podcasts. The call-to-action is a link to a survey with 5 questions that helps him get a better understanding of the types of members joining the community.

This is incredibly valuable as it can help the community owner deliver the right experience to the members and meet the expectations.

4. Behance

Behance is a social network created by Adobe which is the go-to platform for creative people to showcase their work and discover others' submissions.

The welcome email starts off with the mission of Behance and oozes amazing design elements throughout the email. There are three call-to-actions asking users to explore the posts, add their creative work, and build a project with Adobe Portfolio.

Finally, the email encourages users to download mobile apps to stay connected on the go.

5. Pipedrive Sales Community

This example is from a branded online community built by Pipedrive, a popular CRM solution. Pipedrive has built a highly engaging online community powered by Bettermode for sales and marketing people. It serves as a social hub for the customers of Pipedrive as well as sales and marketing people to share resources, best practices, give feedback, and learn from each other.

The welcome email of the Sales Community begins by sharing the story of the solution and answers the "why now?" question of the community. This further explains how salespeople can benefit from connecting and sharing knowledge. Then the email explains what they can do in the community which helps establish the exploitations.

There is a bullet point list of key elements of the community and a link to community guidelines. Finally, the CTA is designed to make the member return to the community.

6. Interconnected (Intercom's forum)

Intercom is yet another popular SaaS company in customer communication and support space. Intercom's forum is called Interconnected which is dedicated to Intercom's customers. This space allows the members to participate in different Q&A sections, join groups, and stay updated with the latest news.

The email is filled with emojis which is consistent with Intercom's messaging across channels. It starts by briefly introducing the forum and moves to the gamification system that assigns "Curious" status to the new members. So, the first call-to-action is about introducing users to the reputation and scoring system.

The next section is dedicated to onboarding the members and it has a call-to-action that offers a guided tour of the forum. The remarkable part is the pre-recorded welcome video in which Eric (Community Manager) and Kate (Customer Advocacy Manager) introduce the community and explain what the member can expect from the community.

The final call-to-action encourages users to post an introduction video in the group dedicated to the new members (Welcome Party).

We covered several examples of online communities -- now to summarize, the welcome email is the first chance to get the members hooked. Since they have already taken the first step to join, it is your turn to deliver wow experience.These sample emails will serve as an inspiration for you to craft a brand new welcome email or update the existing email.