Writing a welcome email people read

The welcome email is the message a new subscriber is most likely to open, so it deserves more care than any other. It should arrive within minutes, say who it is from, and confirm what the reader signed up to receive.

A good welcome email does one thing well instead of several things badly. It might point to the three most helpful articles on the site, or explain how often messages will arrive, but it should not try to sell, survey and introduce the whole company at once.

Plain formatting usually works better than a heavy design. A short message that reads like a note from a person is easier to trust, and it displays properly on every phone and in every mail program.