Hey there!
This is the first email in what I hope will be a regular newsletter. One of my favourite ways to pass the time is to sign up to SaaS products, read their welcome email, and then analyse it to see what they could improve.
Yeah, I’m weird.
So I decided that every Monday I’d send you one of my welcome email teardowns.
The idea is that you can learn from their mistakes.
So, now that’s out the way, let’s talk about Trello.
I use Trello a lot for organising my thoughts and to-do lists. It’s a great product, and chances are you’ve already heard of it so I’ll save you the pitch.
But what about their welcome email?
Well, let’s take a look...
Firstly, the subject line is pretty bad. Sure it tells you what the email is about, but it definitely doesn’t entice me to open it.
A much better alternative would be something like: “Joe, it’s time to get shit done” (maybe without the shit part).
Sending the email from Taco (is that their real name?) is great. Much better than plain old “Trello”, and much much better than “Team Trello” (yuck).
Now, the email dives straight in. It doesn’t say hello. Call me old fashioned but it comes across as a little rude.
But… the intro does reiterate some of the benefits of the product. You get organised, motivated, and get more done (hence my subject line suggestion).
Another good thing Taco does in this email is provide some links to useful resources. Perhaps 5 is a bit much. It feels a little overwhelming that I might need 5 different resources. But it’s definitely a good idea to include some help.
The CTA is interesting. It’s one of the most important parts of your welcome email. Here, Trello wants you to go to your boards. But what if I haven’t set one up yet? I may not have finished that initial onboarding and so I don’t have a board. Perhaps it would be better to ask me to “Build a board”.
The email finishes with a paragraph that’s three lines too long. It sets expectations for future emails (great!) but it also confuses newsletters with notification emails (uh-oh!). Those are two different things and should be addressed separately.
Overall, this email is on the right track. But there’s still a fair number of improvements you could make.
I hope you found this interesting, at least a little helpful, and maybe even entertaining.
Until next time,
Joe
PS. Got a favourite SaaS product you want me to do a welcome email teardown for? Then just reply to this email and let me know.