Review the Whistles Welcome email with me

I got a great response to the review of the Skims Abandoned Cart emails that I did (let me know if you didn’t get a copy and I’ll forward it to you), so I thought I’d repeat the exercise witha Welcome email.

Today’s retailer up for review: Whistles

Let’s break it down section by section.

Subject line

It’s nice, but it’s too long. The most effective subject lines are under 6 words. They could split this in half and move the second half to the preivew text. Also, don’t feel you have to ask for first name at sign up. I’m a big believer in asking for the bare minimum, and using more personalisation fields like this later in the customer journey. Once they buy from you, you’ll have this data anyway. Whilst they’re still a lead, I think this is a nice to have and it’s not going to have a significant effect on the Click Rate of your email.

1st content block 

I like the welcoming title here.

They are ticking off the important fundamentals of a first welcome email here:

• Thank the subscriber for signing up

• Reaffirms benefits of being a subscriber and sets expectations

• Highlights welcome offer

Note the welcome offer here is unique. This allows for full traceablity from sign up to purchase, and no sharing or re-use of the code. You could use a generic code however, if your priority is getting more sales and shares.

I'd improve the layout here by having a square or landscape image, which means the Call To Action to shop would be higher up - ideally it's above the scroll on a mobile device.

2nd content block

Store focus -  Whistles, who have an established presence on the UK high street, it makes sense for them to have an omnichannel approach and feature their stores here. Nearly all retailers who have stores find that customers who shop across both physical and e-commerce stores have a higher lifetime value than those that only shop in one channel.

If you don’t have stores, feature your 1-2 of your best selling categories here instead. (Whistles cover this further down in their email).

3rd content block 

Journal focus - I wouldn’t personally focus on brand content in the first welcome email, but perhaps Whistles know that their content pages convert well, and that their new subscribers are looking for style inspiration and advice. 

I’d recommend switching this out for a row of your Instagram images, and invite the subscriber to follow you on social media. The more channels you can speak to them on, in order to build trust and stay top of mind, the better.

I haven’t included the whole sequence here, but please don’t stop at just one email in your Welcome Flow. There will be subscribers who need more nurturing before they shop with you for the first time. 

If you’d like to disucss your Welcome Flow (and other flows) and how it can be optimised, book a free discovery call with me here.

Hannah x