A Welcome Series is a series of emails that introduce people to your brand. A Welcome Series is one of the most important touchpoints in the customer lifecycle. It’s so much more than just an email to deliver that coupon you promised them when they signed up. It introduces your customers to your brand, gets them excited about doing business with you, and lets them know what they can expect from your brand.
Activate a Welcome Workflow
Install one of our pre-built Workflows, or build your own. Our pre-built Workflows have Triggers already defined to work with your ecommerce platform and include recommended Action and Delay steps.
- Shopify Welcome Series
- WooCommerce Welcome Series
- Magento Welcome Series
- Shopper Activity API Welcome Series
Before we dive in, we’ve taken care of a few things for you:
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The “Subscriber Created” event adds anyone who is created in your Drip account to your welcome ‘flow. Anyone who submits a form, completes an order for the first time, or is imported via CSV file will enter this workflow.
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Delays are pre-set to ensure people hear from you at the right time. You can always change the delays to fit your needs or customer base by clicking on the delay step.
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Three basic email templates are provided to help structure your emails.
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An optional decision node to offer an incentive to people who haven’t made a purchase during their first week on your list.
Step One: Edit Your Emails
Use our Visual Email Builder to build your email. Add a header image, change any email settings and default styles, and drop in your subject line, CTA, and email copy. If you’d like to start with Drip’s template, all you need to do is make this email match your brand:
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Add your header logo.
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Edit the font and button colors under settings and default styles.
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Write a subject line and email copy in your brand voice.
Once your email is built, click Preview to see how the email looks on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Then, navigate back to the workflow editor and edit the other emails.
Once your email is written, your delays are set, and this journey is looking just how you’d like, toggle your workflow ON to welcome new people.
Helpful Tips
Here are some helpful tips about Workflows:
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Triggers are forward-facing. If you activate this workflow today, people who were added to your list yesterday will not enter it.
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Goals pull people down past any remaining steps and to the exit. If someone makes a purchase while they’re in this ‘flow, they’ll hit the placed an order goal at the bottom of the workflow. This ensures that your customers won’t receive any messaging that’s not relevant to them anymore after making their purchase.
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People can only be in a workflow at one time—so don’t worry about them entering this workflow once they’re already in it.
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After someone exits, they’re eligible to re-enter the workflow.
Welcome Workflow Best Practices
With any Welcome Series strategy, you want to think about the following concepts:
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Define your brand, values, and story. When someone opts into your list, they’re expressing interest in your brand but they might not have made a purchase from you yet. They might be shopping around and exploring other stores, or considering shopping from a big-box retailer. They’re expressing interest in your brand, and this is an incredibly important time to encourage them to purchase from you, not those other guys.
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Focus on products and categories that convert. When thinking about which products or categories to feature in your early messages, make sure to showcase those most likely to convert non-buyers into buyers rather than just your top sellers.
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Strategic Incentives. Promotion will always move product, but it’s mission-critical to understand the downstream impact of discounting. Understand which offers are most likely to convert for your brand (e.g. $X off of $Y or more vs. a blanket X% discount).
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Set Positive Expectations. Every brand has its own set of rules (return policy, referral programs, etc.) and customers who activate on that particular offer. More often than not, you are better off walking your customer down the willingness to pay curve by giving them a little time to pay full price, then offer a modest discount to those who still have not converted and wait even a bit longer to offer a deep discount.
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Social Proof. Include a static quote in the email regarding your product line. 90% of consumers look at product reviews before making a purchase.
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Personal Welcome. From a staff member or the owner of the company.
Create Great Email Content
Data shows that a series of three welcome emails generate 90% more orders than a single welcome email, so we’re going to focus on three emails that we suggest plus a bonus email to help with our overall strategy.
Support your email with high-quality images. Polished, clean imagery will create the right effect. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Whatever your key goal of the welcome email is, stick to a clear structure and bright CTA buttons.
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Email 1: Introduction to your brand
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Thank them for joining your community and highlight any possible perks.
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State your UVP and clearly inform the customer about why you exist in the market. Inform the customer about the problem your brand solves.
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What to expect from doing business with my brand - this could be a personal note from the owner or founder.
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What to expect from being on the email marketing list.
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Email 2: Talk about your ethos
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What are your products and what makes them unique?
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Social media share from real-life customers.
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How is the product made or designed or manufactured?
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Email 3: Product recommendations
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Top-selling showcase. Use the Top Selling product content block that allows you to easily add your store’s top-selling products into your email.
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Bundle products together. A company that sells beauty products may bundle facewash, toner, and moisturizer together because they are related products. Suggest that people buy these together!
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Email 4: Incentive email
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What kind of discount do you want to provide?
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Is this a discount you offered when they signed up?
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Is there an expiration date? I.e., could you send a countdown email if they don’t use it right away?
Measure Welcome Series Workflow Performance
After your Workflow has been active for a few days, see how it’s performing on your Workflow Dashboard . Here is where you:
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Evaluate the conversions you’re seeing from this Workflow.
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Look at the open and click-through rates of the emails to see what customers are engaging in.
This information tells you if you need to change it up or if your strategy is working.