1 The Key to Email Onboarding The Welcome Email The Quick Win Email The Milestone Email 2 Examples You Can Replicate 3 Implementation Table of Contents
Intro to Successful Onboarding 1
What is onboarding?
“Having a poor onboarding experience for your customers can pretty much kill your growth … if not your business.” — Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures
The Welcome Email
The Purpose of the Welcome Email • Build of the momentum of the signup • Move users to the next step, not the final goal • Set the tone for their experience Example goals • “Complete your profile…”
Why This Email Rocks • Simple, clear and bold • Connecting a new platform to SumAll means they can start collecting data and therefore create value for users • Contrasting button, friction-free copy
Why This Emails Rocks • The email is a simple catalyst to get new people logged in • Basecamp is confident that the product will sell itself
The Purpose of the “Quick Win” Email • Get new users engaged with your product • Introduce them to features you know people love
Why This Email Rocks • Very useful feature (remember, onboarding is largely a product issue, email is just a catalyst) • Piques interest with education, which tees up the CTA • Includes an example and a deep link to create your own
Why This Email Rocks • Knowledge is power – the more users understand your product, the more value they’ll get from it
The Purpose of the Milestone Email • Reward people for good behavior • Reinforce the value your product is delivering • Build on the momentum by moving them to the next step Tips for great Milestone emails
Why This Email Rocks • Rewards engagement – makes the user feel good about it • Moves users to the next step by explaining advanced features
Why This Email Rocks • Gamification is a way turn behavior into habit • The imagery makes it clear there are move achievements to be unlocked (“I want the 20 designs trophy!”)
How to get started with triggered onboarding emails • Ask customers to go on a second date, not get married. • Define success and map out the steps to get users engaged, committed and 100% onboard
Places to learn more about onboarding • Nir Eyal (nirandfar.com): Behavior engineering, habit-forming products
The “Hail Mary” Email 4
The Purpose of the “Hail Mary” Email • Get as many trial customers to convert as possible • It helps improve the ROI of your top-line spend
Why This Email Rocks • This email actually worked and is how Vero became a Help Scout customer. • It was sent 5-6 months after my initial trial expired.
Why This Email Rocks • There are clear reasons to come back: Sprout highlight new features and/or feature I may not have seen.
3. Chris Hexton - Vero - @chexton
Chris is the co-founder and CEO of Vero, a
behavioral marketing platform. Based in
Sydney, Australia, Chris is growing an
international team of developers, marketers and
customer success managers.
5. 1 The Key to Email Onboarding
The Welcome Email
The Quick Win Email
The Milestone Email
2 Examples You Can Replicate
3 Implementation
Table of Contents
8. What is onboarding?
• The process of getting customers from “first touch” to “first
value” as quickly as possible
• A series of small conversions leading to a bigger, more
significant conversion.
• The removal of barriers to entry in your product/service.
Product vs. Marketing
• At it’s core, onboarding is a product challenge. Email helps you
communicate value. It can trigger the “light bulb” for new
users.
9. “Having a poor onboarding experience for your
customers can pretty much kill your growth … if
not your business.”
— Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures
11. The Purpose of the Welcome Email
• Build of the momentum of the signup
• Move users to the next step, not the final goal
• Set the tone for their experience
Example goals
• “Complete your profile…”
• “Create your first X…”
• “Import your data…”
• “Download the app…”
Welcome Emails
13. Why This Email Rocks
• Simple, clear and bold
• Connecting a new platform to SumAll means they can start
collecting data and therefore create value for users
• Contrasting button, friction-free copy
• Highly focused with a single call to action
SumAll
15. Why This Emails Rocks
• The email is a simple catalyst to get new people logged in
• Basecamp is confident that the product will sell itself
• It employs social proof to make users feel like they will miss
out if they ignore the email (“You’ve joined over 1,500,000
organizations just like yours…”)
Basecamp
17. The Purpose of the “Quick Win” Email
• Get new users engaged with your product
• Introduce them to features you know people love
• Move them from the inbox to the app as efficiently as possible
Tips for great “Quick Win” emails
• Focus on benefits, not features
• Deep link – If the CTA is to “create a new x”, link them to the
exact page
• Use data – Don’t ask people to do things they’ve already done
Quick Wins
19. Why This Email Rocks
• Very useful feature (remember, onboarding is largely a
product issue, email is just a catalyst)
• Piques interest with education, which tees up the CTA
• Includes an example and a deep link to create your own
Pinterest
21. Why This Email Rocks
• Knowledge is power – the more users understand your
product, the more value they’ll get from it
• Getting users engaged early creates a habit of conversion –
they get used to clicking your emails and engaging with your
brand
• They make it easy – look at the copy:
• “Quick, guided training on your schedule”
• “free, live training”
• “variety of class times to accommodate you”
Raven Tools
23. The Purpose of the Milestone Email
• Reward people for good behavior
• Reinforce the value your product is delivering
• Build on the momentum by moving them to the next step
Tips for great Milestone emails
• Use upbeat, positive copy to make users feel great about using
your product
• Use micro CTA’s to deepen your relationship (refer a friend,
follow on Twitter, check out our blog, etc.)
Milestone Emails
25. Why This Email Rocks
• Rewards engagement – makes the user feel good about it
• Moves users to the next step by explaining advanced features
• Arrives with context – it’s triggered as a direct result of my
behavior and comes almost immediately.
Evernote
27. Why This Email Rocks
• Gamification is a way turn behavior into habit
• The imagery makes it clear there are move achievements to be
unlocked (“I want the 20 designs trophy!”)
• Micro CTAs – Social media sharing cements a users’
commitment to your product
• Even more micro CTAs – Blogs and social media can inspire
and motivate users to engage more
Canva
28. How to get started with triggered onboarding emails
• Ask customers to go on a second date, not get married.
• Define success and map out the steps to get users engaged,
committed and 100% onboard
• Track data with tools like KISSmetrics – make your emails as
specific as possible based on their behavior
• Use tools like Vero for dynamic segmentation and highly
personalized emails
• Avoid time-based sequences – the chances of sending an
irrelevant email are very high
Getting Started
29.
30. Places to learn more about onboarding
• Nir Eyal (nirandfar.com): Behavior engineering, habit-forming
products
• Lincoln Murphy (sixteenventures.com): Churn reduction,
growth strategies and increased engagement
• Vero blog (blog.getvero.com): Examples, swipe files and
inspiration
Getting Started
32. The Purpose of the “Hail Mary” Email
• Get as many trial customers to convert as possible
• It helps improve the ROI of your top-line spend
• Encourage users to try new features and/or experience your
product again.
Tips for great Milestone emails
• Focus on benefits, not features
• Give an offer or share a new experience/feature/story
• Make it EASY
Hail Mary Emails
34. Why This Email Rocks
• This email actually worked and is how Vero became a Help
Scout customer.
• It was sent 5-6 months after my initial trial expired.
• A decent offer, a simple CTA with a simple next step.
• They use social proof – see quote.
• It’s super clean.
Help Scout
36. Why This Email Rocks
• There are clear reasons to come back: Sprout highlight new
features and/or feature I may not have seen.
• The process I have to take is three simple steps and gets me to
log back in (means they didn’t delete my account, that’s nice of
them :)
• It looks and feels ‘personal’. I could definitely hit respond and
ask questions or share concerns: great for both Sprout and
me.
Sprout Social