Start the relationship with your consumer off on the right foot with these tips for the perfect welcome email.

There is an unspoken rule of expectation that when someone greets you with "good morning," you will cordially respond. It is taught at an early age that being polite and courteous is the only way to interact with those around us.

The business of email marketing thrives on this same principle of polite reciprocation. Whether we are looking to inform customers about a new product or thank them for their business, the majority of our work relies on their ability to respond -- as well as our own. Personalization, subscription benefits and offers, setting subscriber expectations, introducing your brand and using viral marketing are all components that help create a successful welcome email.

In fact, the Email Experience Council, part of the DMA, recently released its 2007 Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study, which shows that welcome emails have significantly higher open rates than regular emails, although one quarter of the retailers surveyed do not use this critical tool. Despite the industry that your organization is a part of, sending a welcome email is an overall best practice that also confirms the email without requiring a double opt-in.

Consumers want to feel as though the information they are providing you with is going to be valued and put to good use. Quickly sending a personalized HTML-formatted welcome response is a giant leap in the right direction. Below is an example of an actual welcome email I received that rubbed me the wrong way for many obvious reasons -- spelling errors, missing line breaks and technical jargon. Experiencing this type of response from a company that I graciously gave my personal information to made me realize just how important a well-crafted welcome email really is to any new B2C relationship.

Thank you for signing up for the Millsberry community! This message was automatically generated based upon a signup occuring with this email address. If you did not signup for Millsberry, please disregard this email, you will not receive another from us.+---------------------------------------------------| Account Details:| Login: xxxxxx| Password: xxxxxx+---------------------------------------------------Thank You,-Millsberry Management

Author notes: Lindsey Secord is manager, product services at Premiere Global Services. Read full bio.