Onboarding Campaigns: Don’t Assume You Have Them at Hello

In this ongoing sequence, we’ll be “unboxing” must-have email campaigns important to any profitable advertising program.

We began with Welcome Messages, so the following logical step is to deal with what comes subsequent for brand spanking new subscribers: Onboarding.

Don’t Assume You Have Them at Hello

Many manufacturers ship a welcome email to new subscribers or prospects and cease there. But don’t assume you “have them” at howdy! By not following your welcome marketing campaign with an onboarding sequence, you’re lacking a golden alternative to solidify channel engagement, develop buyer loyalty, and immediate first or repeat purchases.

Onboarding campaigns construct on the robust basis laid by your welcome marketing campaign. In reality, manufacturers which deploy a Welcome Series are primarily combining welcome and onboarding efforts right into a single, multi-message marketing campaign, and if this seamless transition from welcome to onboarding works for you, we extremely endorse it.

Onboarding messages take the familiarity, appreciation, engagement and belief initiated in welcome messages to the following degree, plus present early response historical past and assist you collect extra information about your new subscribers. And as we all know, the extra information you will have, the extra customized, custom-made and related your campaigns might be.

The verdict is in on the facility of welcome and onboarding campaigns, which each fall beneath the class of triggered email made doable by advertising automation.

According to Internet Retailer, retailers that ship a welcome sequence see 13% extra income than these sending a single message. Automated emails get 53% extra conversion than stand-alone, broadcast campaigns, and open charges for automated email are 95% increased than for conventional messages.

Just as your welcome marketing campaign ought to have acknowledged targets and be deliberately designed to perform them, every message of your onboarding marketing campaign ought to have a particular goal. Every email within the sequence you design has a novel job to do.

Keep studying to grasp the 5 important components of all onboarding campaigns. Want much more superior techniques? Download our newest information, Unboxing Must-Have Marketing Campaigns: Onboarding Series.

5 Essential Ingredients for Amazing Onboarding Campaigns

1. Orient Newcomers to Your Brand

Ask your self this query: is it secure to imagine a brand new email subscriber or buyer is aware of her means round your model? Your web site? Your bodily retailer? Probably not.

So, one of many first aims of any good onboarding marketing campaign is offering steerage and orientation to your world.

Just as you wouldn’t assume a first-time customer to a shopping center, airport, or nation to know the panorama, you shouldn’t assume a brand new email subscriber is aware of yours. In reality, the broader your array of services and products, the broader the number of advantages you provide, the extra orientation your newcomers will want.

In these cases, longer onboarding sequence (5+ messages) are utterly justifiable and helpful as a result of it takes at least that a lot messaging bandwidth to incrementally talk a advantages roadmap in a means that’s clear and logical.

AARP is an ideal instance of a model that justifiably wants an extended onboarding sequence. The group affords a broad and deep array of member advantages starting from insurance coverage to monetary planning to journey to well being and wellness, plus articles, movies and different content material in every of those classes.

There’s no means they might presumably cowl all that floor in a single welcome message, and they should guarantee new members perceive the complete breadth of advantages and benefit from them.

That’s why their 6-message onboarding sequence (despatched after a brand new member welcome email deploys) takes its time detailing member advantages and content material category-by-category, even following-up practically six months later with a closing message to ensure subscribers get all they want.

An excellent transfer and a superb reminder that in case your onboarding sequence is longer and content-heavy like this, you’ll need a capstone message at the tip to sum issues up.

2. Build Cross-Channel Connections

Your onboarding sequence is your up-front likelihood to ascertain connections in different digital channels. You’ve welcomed your new member to email—now invite them to attach in associated channels, particularly social and cell.

If you acquired your new subscriber by way of the net, invite them to obtain your cell app if in case you have one. Whether they got here to you thru cell or net, invite them to attach on social media.

The following instance from Nordstrom is a wonderful illustration of inviting each cell app obtain and social community connections.

In case you haven’t heard it earlier than, a multi-channel buyer is all the time value greater than a single-channel buyer (cross-channel retailers have identified this for years, which is why they nonetheless ship catalogs regardless of having sturdy e-commerce websites and retail retailer footprints).

The similar holds true on-line: an omni-connected subscriber, person or buyer is extra beneficial than one restricted to a single channel, as a result of if you happen to lose a connection in a single channel, then it survives within the others.

3. Enable Behavioral Profiling

One of your onboarding marketing campaign’s superpowers is delivering an early-stage look at subscriber response habits and preferences. Because of the multi-message nature of an onboarding sequence, it offers a number of alternatives for recipients to open, click-on, and convert from email, which suggests you’ll quickly get a glance at the product/service/content material classes every individual is most fascinated about.

This, in flip, allows you to tailor future messages on a 1:1 foundation, particularly to particular person subscriber pursuits. It additionally permits automation so you possibly can kick-off nurturing or drip sequence most intently aligned with their pursuits.

This apply is named behavioral profiling—which means you enable your email subscribers to point out you thru their open, click on and conversion habits what resonates with them. Use precise recipient habits to information your sending and concentrating on selections as you go ahead. 

But, don’t restrict habits monitoring to only email opens and clicks! Be positive to trace habits throughout to net and/or cell web site visits and even offline transactions.

Take a glance at the next message from ladies’s retail attire model Johnny Was (the second of their 3-part onboarding sequence). They provide 4 distinct product class areas to discover—Tops, Dresses, Jackets, and Bottoms—plus hyperlinks for the catalog and for presents.

They’re doubtless utilizing this information to discern subscriber preferences and patterns, which ensures, for instance, that the following time they’ve a sale on attire they will selectively goal those that clicked on costume pages or higher but, purchased a costume.

4. Gather Self-Reported Data

While behavioral profiling offers inferred information—a useful directional indicator—what’s much more highly effective is voluntarily self-reported information subscribers provide up on their very own.

If you enable information gathering by way of a subscriber preferences or buyer profile heart, make sure that one among your onboarding steps invitations new subscribers to inform you extra about themselves and what they like.

Psychologically, this results in a optimistic mirroring impact: you ask what somebody needs, they inform you, you ship in accordance with their request, they usually really feel validated and rewarded which makes them extra receptive and trusting to ongoing affords and invites to have interaction.

See how Total Wine & More does it within the second message of their new email subscriber onboarding sequence under?

This is strictly what we as entrepreneurs need, so don’t miss the chance to proactively ask new subscribers to inform you their needs and wishes proper from the get-go.

5. Include a Bounceback/First Purchase Offer

Naturally, if you happen to’ve already purchased from a web site like eBags, their new subscriber welcome and onboarding messages aren’t going to be aimed at getting you to make a primary buy (the frequent case when individuals join email to get incentives or enter a sweepstakes, and so on.), however they need to capitalize on the prospect to get you to make a follow-up buy.

An onboarding sequence is the proper alternative to incorporate both a bounceback or first buy provide. If the brand new subscriber hasn’t purchased but, then make sure that your closing message (or a artistic block current within the template for the whole sequence) consists of an intro provide inviting the primary buy.

If the brand new subscriber did purchase, give them a proposal to “bounce back” and purchase once more, however make it actually value their whereas. An efficient bounceback provide is all the time extra profitable than your typical buyer acquisition affords and isn’t the kind of deal or low cost you’d use every single day.

Advanced Approaches to Onboarding

Now that you understand the 5 important components for a tremendous onboarding sequence, you will have a variety of selections to make. The nature of your corporation must also inform what you embody and your message cadence.

Go past the fundamentals and obtain our full information to study extra superior onboarding email techniques and sequencing approaches to think about in your message cadence.