[michaelbuckbee]

I run a SAAS and still personally (non-automated) send a welcome /check-in/onboard email to every single signup. I've sent a 1000+ in the last year.

I try to make them really personalized. Like if your website is acmewidgets.com - I'll put "Acme Widget Help?" as the subject.

My own takeaways:

1. Plain Text for sure

2. Super short - my standard sort of email is now about 3 sentences.

3. Ask a question - in my case there's a couple of driving reasons to sign up so I try and make sure they're doing ok.

Even with all of the above I still maybe am only getting a 30% response rate.

[ghostbrainalpha]

It's interesting, I read your comment and thought your non-automated emails sounded like a time waster for you and the recipient.

Then I saw that you have a Security SAAS and instantly felt different. I would love knowing there was a human I could connect with easily at your company. Definitely a smart move on your part.

[Veuxdo]

30% is really, really high for responses to an onboarding email. Manually sending out each one seems like a ton of work, though. I hope you have high customer LTV.

[GordonS]

This is exactly what I do to. I get around a 15% response rate, which I'd thought was pretty good before reading your 30% - though TBH I've no idea what might be expected?

[heliodor]

My customers are software engineers. The reply rate is abysmal. Sigh.