Today I was helping a client write guidelines. That’s a good time to be succinct & concise. People will glaze over them so make your points easy to skim. Less is more.

That exercise reminded me of this great welcome I received when I registered at docstoc. I saved it to share as an example. It accomplishes many things:

  • a warm welcome
  • personalizes the message & tells me who the community manager is
  • invites me to engage immediately
  • thanks me for choosing to join

Subject: Welcome to docstoc
Hey,
I saw you recently signed up and wanted to send you a message to say hello and welcome.
I’m Kat, the Community Manager here at docstoc, so if you have any feedback or recommendations about the site, please feel free to message me back.
Please consider taking a moment to upload and share some of your documents, so we can continue to grow our community.
http://www.docstoc.com/uploads/bulkupload.aspx
And FYI, you can embed any document on docstoc on other blogs or websites.
http://blog.docstoc.com/embed-documents-on-docstoc-into-your-blog-or-webiste.html
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/422284/Embed-Documents-in-Myspace
Thank you for joining our site, and I look forward to chatting,.
Kat

Thank You,

The docstoc team

What would you add to it? Do you reach out to your newcomers? Does it make a difference?