Use Case: Sending a Welcome Email

  • Updated

Send new members a welcome email after they’ve signed up for, or purchased your products and services. This shows your appreciation and helps your new member begin any onboarding process you may have. With the Email Composer and Automated Programs, Act-On makes it quick and easy to send a welcome email when your contact has been converted to a member.

Overview

Industry: All industries
Primary Actor: Marketing Team
Stakeholders: Member Onboarding Team, Account Manager, Sales Team
Reason: Nurtured contact becomes a member
Goal: Welcome the new member, introduce new products and services, and/or begin the onboarding process 

 

Scenario

Your marketers have nurtured a prospective contact and successfully converted your contact into a member! It’s important to show your new member appreciation for signing up or purchasing your products and services. When a contact converts to a member, use Act-On to automatically send them a welcome email.

What Needs to Happen?

Before you send a welcome email, your contact needs to successfully complete the following steps:

  1. A prospective contact visits your website and interacts with your marketing materials, including emails, landing pages, forms, brochures, and webinars.
    With every interaction, they build their lead score and come closer to becoming a Marketing Qualified Lead.
    Your prospective contact’s lead score is high enough that you reach out to them to encourage a decision to sign up or purchase your products and services
    OR
    Your prospective contact reaches out to your organization with a view to signing up or purchasing your products and services.

  2. Following your encouragement, your contact makes a decision to sign up or make a purchase.

  3. Your contact follows through with their decision and signs up or makes a purchase.

Solution

You should send a welcome email to any new member within one business day of them signing up or making a purchase. This will reassure your customer after their decision and ensure a positive brand reputation – a quick welcome email tells the customer that your organization is prompt, inviting, and reliable!

This is the first point of contact with your new member. Use it to introduce them to their new account and prepare them for any onboarding process you may have.

Instructions

  1. Create a segment for New Members.
    • If you are using Act-On Contacts, follow the instructions here.
    • If you are using Marketing Lists, follow the instructions here.
    Define your segment criteria to add contacts to the segment who sign up or make a purchase.

  2. Create your welcome email in the Act-On Email Composer.
    Follow the instructions here
    Get started with a template from our Content Catalog or create an email from scratch.

  3. Set up an Automated Program that automatically sends your welcome email any time a contact is added to the New Members segment. To get started, in the content catalog, use the New Customer Welcome Campaign program template. 
    Go to Content > Catalog > Programs tab > New Customer Welcome Campaign > Download:

    UC_Welcome_Email_01.png

    Then follow the instructions in the Automated Journey Builder User Guide to create an Automated Program that sends your welcome email to contacts added to your New Members segment.

  4. Test your Automated Program as described in Test an Automated Program, and then start your Automated Program, as described in Start or Pause an Automated Program.

Outcome

You’ve successfully welcomed your new member! You’ve also invited them to view additional products and services you provide and begun any onboarding process you may have.

Next Steps

Build on your Automated Program to develop an in-depth welcome campaign. Create additional emails to introduce your new members to new products and services, and also guide them through any onboarding process you may have. Add Wait steps and Send Email steps, one for each additional email, to schedule how new members move through your campaign.

For a deeper dive, see the Campaign Playbook: Customer Welcome Campaign.

FAQs & Troubleshooting

How do I populate my New Members segment?

Contacts will likely join your New Members segment in one of the following ways:

  • You create a New Members segment in a static Primary List and manually add contacts who’ve officially signed up or made a purchase
  • You create a New Members segment with criteria that automatically populates with new members when syncing with your CRM. Learn more about this here.

Why is data missing from my New Members segment?

You may need to manually import and sync certain fields in your CRM for New Members segment data to appear in Act-On. For example, if you use the field “Start Date” in your CRM to define when contacts become members, you might need to manually import data from this field for it to show up in your Act-On Segment. To do this:

If you are using Act-On Contacts:

  1. Add standard or custom fields as explained in Add a new CRM Field to Act-On Contacts.
  2. Map and sync your CRM fields as explained in Map and Sync CRM Fields for Act-On Contacts.

If you are using Marketing Lists:

  1. Go to Contacts > Marketing Lists and find the list with your New Members segment.
  2. Click the right-hand dropdown arrow and select Import/Export > <CRM> Sync Setup (the name will vary by CRM).
  3. In the pop-up window, click Select Pull-Update Fields.
  4. Select the field you’ve used to define new members, then click Save.
    Heads up! You cannot import the desired CRM field under Data Management > CRM Entities. Sync your CRM fields with your Primary List using the method above. For more information, see How do I add new fields to my CRM Marketing List?

 

When do contacts enter my automated program?

Contacts should enter your program as soon as they join your New Members segment. You can set this up with program settings in the Automated Journey Builder. To do this:

  1. Go to Automation > Automated Programs.
  2. Hover over your automated program and click Edit.
  3. Go to the Settings tab in the Automated Journey Builder.
  4. Under Contacts from source(s) will enter the program, set contact entry to Immediately.
Heads up! If your program is currently running, you’ll need to pause it to make changes. To do this, go to the Automated Programs Dashboard, hover over your automated program, and click Pause Program.

 

Can I test my welcome email’s automated program?

Yes! You can test your automated program before officially starting it and sending welcome messages. To do so, follow the instructions in Test an Automated Program.

Where can I find reporting for my welcome email?

You can find reporting and metrics for your welcome email in the Sent Message Report:

  1. Go to Automation > Automated Programs.
  2. Hover over your automated program and click Show dashboard.
  3. From the Report menu, open Email performance.
  4. Under Individual Emails, click on your welcome email to open the Sent Message report.
  5. View the results for your welcome email, including engagement and unique counts for email sends, bounces, and clicks.

Why didn’t my welcome email send?

Run a sent message report.
Go to  Outbound > Sent Messages > (select your email) > (right menu) Report. In the report, click the Not Sent/Suppressed number to see the reasons why in the Details column. For more details, see How to View Sent Message Reports.

Can I resend a welcome email?

Yes! If your new member did not open your first welcome email, use a Wait step, a Branch, and an additional Send Email step in your automated program to make sure they receive it again.

When resending an email, we recommend creating a duplicate copy of your email and adjusting the content of your email before resending it. This includes changing your email’s subject line, updating your email with different images, or changing your email’s body copy. This will help you increase your open rates and acts as an A/B test of your email; where you use your program’s results to see which version of your email performed best.

To do this:

A. Create a duplicate email

If you’ve already sent your original welcome email:

  1. Go to Outbound > New Message.
  2. Select Sent Message.
  3. In the pop-up menu, select your original welcome email and click Select.
  4. In the Email Composer, edit your duplicate welcome email, for example:
    • Change the subject line in the Address tab
    • Use the Design tab to change your email’s layout, images, or body content
  5. When you’re done editing, click Save.

If you haven’t sent your original welcome email, save it as a template first:

  1. Go to Outbound > Drafts to find your original welcome email.
  2. Click the drop-down arrow to the right, then click Resume Edit.
  3. In the Email Composer, click the arrow next to the Save button.
  4. Click Save As Template.
  5. Give your new template a name and select a folder, then Close the Email Composer.
  6. Go to Outbound > New Message.
  7. Select Template Message, then click on your template and click Select.
  8. In the Email Composer, edit your duplicate welcome email, for example:
    • Change the subject line in the Address tab
    • Use the Design tab to change your email’s layout, images, or body content
  9. When you’re done editing, click Save.

B. Create a wait step

  1. Go to Automation > Automated Programs.
  2. Hover over your automated program and click Edit.
  3. In the Automated Journey Builder, go to Build > Program Flow.
  4. Under your program's first 'Send Email' step, click the '+' icon.
  5. Select Wait, then select Wait for a set period of time.
  6. Specify how long you’d like to wait before checking whether a member opened your welcome email.
  7. Click Submit.

C. Create a branch to resend the duplicate email

Create a branch for new members who didn’t open your welcome email before the end of your specified wait step.

  1. Under your new Wait step, click the '+' icon.
  2. Select Branch.
  3. Give your Branch a Step Name.
  4. Select If Prospect Effectively Opened Message, then select your original welcome email.
  5. Click Submit.
  6. Under the NO branch, click the '+' icon.
  7. Select Send Email.
  8. Name this step "Resend Welcome Email", then select your duplicate welcome email.
  9. Click Submit.

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