Your acquisition methods have paid off, and also you’ve gained a brand new buyer! Now what? Your subsequent touchpoint units the stage on your whole relationship transferring ahead: your onboarding sequence. From onboarding emails to cell onboarding messages, the content material and timing of those communications can remodel a buyer from an unsure beginner to an enthusiastic energy consumer.
Cautious consideration to the onboarding e-mail sequence usually will get misplaced within the shuffle between entrepreneurs targeted on lead era and buyer success groups on problem-solving. However this stage is an important alternative to activate new clients, so benefit from it!
Right here’s what you want to create partaking onboarding emails:
What’s the distinction between a welcome e-mail and an onboarding e-mail?
A welcome e-mail is the primary message after somebody indicators up for a product or subscribes to a publication, and it’s usually the primary touchpoint in an onboarding e-mail sequence. Onboarding emails provide a set of subsequent steps for purchasers to get conversant in your product and begin seeing worth.
A welcome e-mail is used to make an incredible first impression. It’s your first alternative to open a dialogue and begin constructing relationships. After that, your onboarding e-mail sequence is designed to interact folks extra deeply along with your product. It’d embrace how-tos for organising their profile, studying the core performance, and every other actions that lead the shopper to activation.
Methods to write an onboarding e-mail: 6 finest practices
A profitable onboarding course of drives clients to take the actions that make them stick. So, your onboarding emails will likely be distinctive to your model, viewers, product, and trade. For instance, the best onboarding sequence for a fintech enterprise will look completely different than the most effective SaaS onboarding emails.
We analyzed emails from a few of our favourite manufacturers and recognized six traits that create a fascinating expertise.
1. Personalize your message
A powerful onboarding e-mail sequence is customized utilizing demographic and behavioral knowledge. Whilst you theoretically can welcome and onboard all of your clients with the identical messaging, talking to every particular person’s distinctive expertise is way more efficient.
With Liquid, you should use your buyer knowledge to create tailor-made content material for every buyer. When crafting your e-mail content material, contemplate attributes like time zone, location, particular occasions, standing, subscription kind, and firm title.
For instance, Bitly’s onboarding e-mail personalizes a to-do record based mostly on the actions recipients have taken and have but to take. We don’t know for positive, however think about Bitly leveraging dynamic content material to alter what the to-do record says based mostly on buyer actions.
>>> Need to see personalization in motion? Learn the way Notion’s customized onboarding resulted in a 49-51% open charge
2. Proactively deal with frequent issues and blockers
Put your self in your buyer’s sneakers. The place are they within the onboarding course of? What are they conversant in? What don’t they know? Look by means of assist tickets, often requested questions, and your mostly accessed documentation for perception into the place clients usually hit friction early of their journey.
Every message in your onboarding e-mail sequence ought to push folks additional into your product expertise—and that is the best time to assist them overcome hurdles they could encounter. The very best onboarding emails clarify why somebody ought to transfer ahead and supply precisely what they should do.
Perplexity overcomes new clients’ issues about AI on this onboarding e-mail pattern by offering up-front, sourced data and sources. The objective is to push those that’ve signed up however are nonetheless skeptical into motion.
>>> Seeing lots of clients drop off in the midst of onboarding? Try our on-demand webinar on diagnose and repair drop-off
3. Educate folks in regards to the worth of your product
Individuals usually consider a number of instruments without delay. They could join free trials, demo completely different choices, and even pay for a month to see how they prefer it. They’ll transfer on in the event that they don’t have a very good expertise in that preliminary get-to-know-you interval. Your onboarding e-mail sequence ought to educate folks about how your product solves their issues. Present sources that display your worth to clients.
Riverside makes it look simple on this onboarding e-mail. They provide three several types of academic content material: their data base, YouTube channel, and weblog. Nevertheless, their principal objective is to drive their viewers to make use of the product, which stays the first CTA.
4. Concentrate on the advantages for purchasers, not your product’s options
A characteristic is only a characteristic till your clients perceive why they need to care. You assume your product is superior, however your onboarding emails want to attach the dots for folks by specializing in their wants, ache factors, and wishes.
Typeform emphasizes its worth proposition with benefits-first headlines and duplicate paired with case research on this instance. The corporate exhibits clients what they will obtain with the product and builds belief with proof factors from well-known model names.
5. Provide a transparent name to motion
Often, onboarding emails ought to have only one major name to motion. It’s your decision your buyer to do all of the issues, however too many decisions could make it extra probably they gained’t do something in any respect. That’s as a result of selection paralysis is kryptonite for buying choices.
How does this apply to your onboarding e-mail sequence? The reply is within the thought of a sequence: craft a journey wherein every message results in a very powerful motion to take subsequent. Then, proceed to comply with up with well timed, related further steps.
For instance, the expansion advertising staff right here at Buyer.io makes use of this trial expiration e-mail to bolster the urgency and key advantages of upgrading. With solely 4 days left in a buyer’s trial, we make sure the CTA is obvious: improve now, or threat letting the magic slip away.
6. Present, don’t inform with video content material
91% of individuals have watched an explainer video, and when requested how they’d prefer to study a services or products, 44% say they’d most like to look at a brief video (supply). This system is particularly helpful when you’ve gotten one thing complicated to clarify or should present folks full a particular sequence of actions.
Wistia successfully makes use of video in its onboarding sequence—significantly acceptable for a video software! They make it private by responding to what a buyer has already executed and displaying folks what to do subsequent. Bonus? Video is right for showcasing your model’s character and constructing an emotional connection along with your clients.
8 of the most effective onboarding emails
It’s useful to see these finest practices in motion as you set collectively your onboarding e-mail templates.. That’s why we’ve chosen eight of our favourite onboarding e-mail examples to encourage you.
Onboarding e-mail instance #1: Coda
Why we adore it: This tailor-made onboarding e-mail pattern guides folks by means of one in all Coda’s hottest use instances—taking notes throughout conferences—and supplies a template to get clients began. Clear language and informative graphics stroll the recipient by means of the how and why of every characteristic, culminating in a single, sturdy CTA.
Onboarding e-mail instance #2: Poshmark
Why we adore it: Poshmark is a clothes resale app. This e-mail continues to coach folks as they transfer by means of their journey. A Poshmark buyer may be each a purchaser and a vendor, and this e-mail educates patrons on how they will promote (or re-posh) objects they’ve bought earlier than. As an alternative of pigeonholing their viewers into both purchaser or vendor segments, Poshmark intertwines these journeys with a personalised message based mostly on the shopper’s earlier exercise, main patrons to grow to be sellers as effectively.
Onboarding e-mail instance #3: Bubble
Why we adore it: The very best SaaS onboarding emails break issues down into manageable chunks and assist folks take motion over time with a logical onboarding e-mail sequence. Bubble does simply that with their onboarding welcome e-mail. Easy, clear, and targeted, it doesn’t embrace something that distracts from the core message.
Onboarding e-mail instance #4: Canva
Why we adore it: Canva is a picture modifying and design software. On this onboarding e-mail, they take a choose-your-own-adventure method. As a result of Canva has many alternative use instances, the e-mail highlights 4 attainable beginning factors for a buyer’s journey with the platform. Prospects get simply sufficient option to customise their expertise with out being overwhelmed with choices—and Canva will get worthwhile intel about every individual’s pursuits for future campaigns.
Onboarding e-mail instance #5: Shopify
Why we adore it: Shopify is a web based storefront, and its clients have all kinds of experience in organising an e-commerce enterprise. This onboarding e-mail arrives early within the journey whereas persons are nonetheless of their free trial interval. Prospects can leap proper into including merchandise to their on-line retailer, but when they haven’t but created an internet site or snagged a customized area, the e-mail helps them take these essential steps.
Onboarding e-mail instance #6: Sonos
Why we adore it: This onboarding welcome e-mail from Sonos is customized based mostly on the precise speaker mannequin the recipient has bought. Sonos isn’t making an attempt to get folks to take motion on an internet site or in an app. As an alternative, they concentrate on pure training: successfully utilizing your Roam speaker. Every part addresses a typical hurdle folks might run into and supplies focused sources.
Onboarding e-mail instance #7: Jasper
Why we adore it: Jasper is a B2B AI software, and clients have only a week to discover the app with a free trial. So, the platform’s onboarding e-mail sequence wants to assist folks get began rapidly. This e-mail is laser-focused on inspiring clients to take a single motion: organising the Jasper Model Voice characteristic. With a transparent how-to and a single CTA, the objective is to make sure the recipient sees worth instantly from this characteristic (and continues utilizing their software).
Onboarding e-mail instance #8: Asana
Why we adore it: This is likely one of the finest examples of video utilized in onboarding to information folks towards an important subsequent step. Asana, a widely known undertaking administration software program product, goals to encourage new customers to collaborate with others of their workspace. Whereas the message supplies a few academic hyperlinks for a deeper dive, it strategically focuses on the video—probably as a result of it does the most effective job explaining use their software for collaboration. Plus, noting the size of the video is a pleasant contact: it units expectations so folks know precisely how a lot time partaking with the content material will take.
Begin constructing simpler onboarding emails
Your onboarding emails are a chance to attach, educate, drive product use, and begin constructing relationships. On the finish of the day, the most effective onboarding emails really feel like an extension of the product expertise, serving to folks truly get worth from a software they’ve simply begun attending to know. The examples right here ought to provide you with a number of inspiration to start crafting your individual onboarding campaigns.
Able to get began? See how one can create refined, customized onboarding flows with Buyer.io Journeys.
Don’t neglect, your e-mail campaigns are by no means really completed. When you’ve constructed your onboarding e-mail sequence, the following step is experimentation, iteration, and ongoing enchancment! We’ve obtained inspiration for you on that entrance too: obtain our eBook, 10 data-driven development advertising experiments.
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