You might be here because you know what a great welcome campaign is - all the strategy behind it - and just want to get some support in implementing one for your business.

That’s awesome, and if that’s the case - you can probably skim read the next bit. 

But, if you’re a little new to the concept of welcome emails, definitely take in the next bit of content. Or if you think you know what they are, but suddenly a bit of doubt is creeping in, keep on reading - intently. 

First of all, I want to verify some important, and common misconceptions of what a welcome campaign is.

A welcome campaign is not an onboarding campaign

An onboarding campaign is for new customers. Which many businesses also don’t do (but should).

Those people who hand over money for a product or service for the very first time. They need to be onboarded - not ignored. None of this “I’ve reeled them in, persuaded them to buy with my awesome marketing and I’m now washing my hands of them and going back to the rest of my juicy leads”.  

After sale nurture is just as important as lead nurturing. If you’re a marketer - please note the relationship you build with a lead, does not stop once they get to purchase stage or post purchase. Don’t hand them off to sales and think that’s them out of your life for good - oh no no no, you’re a part of their entire customer journey. 

You’re in it for the long haul my friend!

But alas, this is not a welcome campaign…

A welcome campaign should not be used in follow up

It’s also very common for businesses to throw a bit of welcome messaging into their follow up emails. For example when delivering a lead magnet, or responding to a webinar booking etc.

Follow up emails should be treated separately. You must follow up. The role of your follow up emails is to nudge your leads to consume the content they have requested, and educate them in a meaningful way.

Give them what they came for and do some super duper value add nurturing. 

Imagine if you added a welcome message to all of your follow up emails. Then some keen bean signs up for multiple lead magnets you offer. They are going to get that same welcome over and over again. Not very strategic, and won’t make a great impression.

Your welcome campaign should be standalone. Yes, there’s a balance to it, but to do both really well you mustn’t combine them.

Now we’ve established what a welcome campaign isn’t and how it shouldn’t be used, let’s get back to what they are - more importantly how we can help you to create a most excellent one!

What is a welcome campaign?

As I mentioned above, a welcome campaign isn’t what you send to new customers or as a lead magnet follow up. It is a series of emails that welcomes those who are brand new to your business / emailing list.

Any contact that has dropped into your list, should be welcomed. Because they are not just another number or someone you look at with £ (or $) signs in your eyes. They are a real person, with real problems who is looking for the perfect solution.

Something to take the pain away and replace it with positives.

The emails in your welcome campaign must be strategic, they must provide value to the consumer, and they should follow a structure that has proven success.

You need a welcome campaign because it:

• Clarifies who you are, including your all-important values

• Provides context around your products and services
• Shows your prospects how you can better their lives
• Increases likelihood of conversions down the line
• Builds trust in your brand and creates likeability
• Sets the scene for your readership & makes them comfortable
  
  

You can learn more about welcome campaigns in our blog: What is a welcome campaign?

A ninja welcome campaign project is: us helping you to welcome those amazing people in your list and set your business up for relationship building success.

How does the project work, and what are the objectives?

The aim of the project is to get you up and running with an automated campaign that welcomes each new contact as they enter your list. 

Our goal is to help you increase engagement, and educate your audience by clarifying who you are and what you stand for. Building a relationship built on trust and understanding.

This will help with overall email engagement and increase the chance of conversions.  

The project is designed so we can make it all happen for you. It’s super bespoke, taking our out of the box solution and adapting it to fit your brand strategy.

We will be using our tried and tested structure to create your campaign content. Whether you are B2B, B2C or even B2G - we have templates in place to suit your audience type. 

Content will be produced by us, with your input. We will draw out the information we require through questionnaires and calls. Taking all your insight and expertise, and turning it into an engaging story that introduces your business in the best way possible. 

We also design the look and feel of your campaign, and implement (build) it in your email marketing platform, using trigger tags and segmentation. 

If you want to do this yourself, that is an option and we’ll just create the content for you to run with. Please note, if you choose to DIY, you must be confident in creating drip campaigns, and using tags and segmentation - or your welcome campaign may not work.

You can also opt for an out of the box package, where we provide the templates - with some strategy - for you to go off and do everything yourself. From copywriting to design and implementation. Get in touch if this sounds more like what you’re after.

Why we offer the project in the first place

Tonnes of businesses don’t have a welcome series in place. Invesp collated some research that states only 57.7% of brands send welcome emails to their newly subscribed users. Yet a whopping 74% of people are expecting to receive a welcome immediately after they sign up.

Here’s another great thing about new subscribers…

They are more likely to do something you ask / interact with / complete an action (say “yes”) due to being in the ‘honeymoon phase’ with your brand. 

Plus with an average 50% open rate for welcome emails, a massive door is opened for you to wow them from day one, and to build a great relationship.

The pressure to get it right can be overwhelming, and unfortunately many businesses get it wrong.

There really is a lot a welcome campaign needs to do, in a small space… and many businesses don’t consider quite how much strategy is involved. 

So enter the Ninjas. We live and breath marketing strategy and automation. For years we have made it our mission to uncover the psychology and put into action marketing strategies that deliver results. 

All our projects are devised to hone in on what audiences want and need, so that business we work with can deliver just that.

Every new subscriber in your list is a potential customer with incredible lifetime value.

By rolling out the red carpet with an incredible welcome campaign, you’re kick starting the all-important nurture process, and increasing the chance of gaining happy and engaged customers who want to spend with you.

The process: so what happens when you sign up?

We will get in touch to book a strategic call and send you some important questions that will help us to outline what you’re after and what will be involved.

On the call we will chat strategy, make a plan and go through a proposal. You can ask as many questions as you can think up and we’ll make sure you are completely clued up on the project.

Once you have signed off the proposal and contract we can begin the hard work! Getting all the information required to create an awesome welcome campaign for your business.

The project usually takes around 2-3 weeks to complete, depending on what’s involved, how many emails and how quickly we get your input.

Who is the project a good fit for?

Any business (B2B/B2C/B2G) that has a way for people to opt in to their list - whether that be on a website, social media etc. 

If you have a genuine list of opt ins, and you plan to communicate with them, you should be sending them a warm welcome.

For those of you who are ecommerce - it’s especially important. This is because most ecommerce businesses do it really badly, or not at all. 

Be the stand out, make a huge impact on your list and ensure they come to you over your competitors.

Who is the project not a good fit for?

Have you purchased your list? Are those emails coming from somewhere that they didn’t opt in - legitimately?

First off, naughty you. Secondly, you can’t be sending them welcome emails, they don’t even know they are in your list for heaven's sake. PS. if you’re already pushing sales to those people, you’re really damaging your rep. 

You need to have people entering your list via opt in - remember that is not someone who has purchased something, even if it’s the first time you’re getting their contact info. What do we call that email series? That’s right folks “onboarding”.

If you are keen to have a welcome series in place, you must be prepared to deliver what is promised to your audience in the welcome emails. Meet their expectations and you’ll be flying, don’t, and you’ll let them down.

You also need to be prepared to work with us. We’d love to be mind readers, or have a big book of everything you need to know about every business… but we don’t. We need you to provide the necessary information.

Finally, if you do not have marketing automation in place - or you’re not prepared to - then this isn’t going to work for you…

If that hasn’t scared you off, keep reading! We’re about to talk about the results 🙂

What results can you expect from a welcome campaign project?

What’s great about a campaign like this, is that the results are, more often than not, immediate. 

Maybe you already have a welcome campaign in place, but it’s not performing well and you're reaching out for help. If that’s the case, you should see a change in performance as soon as your campaign is up and running.

Here’s what you should expect going into this project:

1. Higher engagement rates

Engagement for your welcome campaign should be pretty good - if your subscribers are coming to you legitimately. It should also impact the engagement for future lead nurturing emails, blog emails and newsletters. As long as you have set expectations and your other emails aren’t… crap.

2. Improved segmentation

By setting up the campaign correctly with tags, when readers click the links within your emails and they will start to self-segment. You’ll get a better understanding of who they are and their interests to support targeted emailing in the future. 

3. More coupons being used

If you’re ecommerce and getting new sign ups using coupons/discounts, you should see a higher consumption of these coupons thanks to your welcome campaign.

4. Brand positioning

Because your welcome emails are your opportunity to talk about your brand (your only opportunity) doing this well will help to position you. You can showcase your expertise, highlight what makes you different and gain that love and trust from your audience. 

5. Unsubscribes

Oooh I had you panicking then! What I mean by ‘unsubscribes’, is persons who are not your ideal customer, and will never convert as they are completely wrong for your brand or not interested in anything you have to offer. 

You don’t want these people in your list. They will only dampen your campaign performance. You probably won’t get many, if at all… but it’s something to be aware of, and not frightened about. Context is everything…

Why you might not see the results you hope for:

First up you need to be driving traffic to your list. If you’re not getting sign ups, then you’re not getting much chance of delivering this campaign. Therefore, you’ll not see the open/engagement rates you might be hoping for. 

If the information you provide us with doesn’t align to what you say on your website, or other areas traffic is coming from, then you might just confuse your audience. They’ll be less likely to engage with the emails as they won’t connect with you as well. 

As I mentioned earlier, engagement with other emails you send, can be impacted by the quality of those emails - rather than stemming from the welcome campaign itself… Consistency is key!

If you decide to go DIY and implement the campaign yourself, without having a good understanding of setting up marketing automation in your email platform - you might not get it quite right. And that will likely affect the campaign's effectiveness.

What’s required to make your welcome campaign a success

We will give you the strategy, and help you understand why we are doing things a particular way. To create the campaign we will use our tried and tested structure, tailored to your business and audience.  

Our aim is to give you all the tools for success and ensure your new subscribers are getting the best welcome possible.

You need to provide the information we require to build the campaign for your business. And if you choose to DIY the campaign implementation, you’ll need to be up to scratch on how to do so in your marketing automation platform. 

Lastly, you need to (as I said before) drive traffic to your list. No sign up = no email delivery. It would be a waste of time and money… we know you don’t want that!

Further resources