A welcome programme is one of the most important marketing automation campaigns you can run. It helps you build trust and loyalty with your new subscribers, customers, or users, and sets the tone for your future communication. A welcome programme can also help you segment your audience based on their preferences, interests, and behavior, and deliver more personalized and relevant content to them.

This will guide you through the steps and best practices for creating a successful welcome programme that engages your audience and drives conversions.

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives

Before you start creating your welcome programme, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with it. What are the main goals and objectives of your welcome programme? For example, do you want to:

  • Increase brand awareness and recognition
  • Educate your audience about your products or services
  • Encourage them to take a specific action (e.g., make a purchase, sign up for a trial, download an ebook, etc.)
  • Collect feedback or data from them
  • Nurture them towards becoming loyal customers or advocates

Having a clear goal will help you design your welcome programme accordingly and measure its effectiveness later.

Step 2: Choose your audience and trigger

Next, you need to decide who will receive your welcome programme and when. Depending on your business model and goal, you may want to target different segments of your audience with different welcome programmes. For example, you may have separate welcome programmes for:

  • Newsletter subscribers
  • Blog readers
  • Free trial users
  • First-time buyers
  • Repeat customers
  • Referrals

You also need to choose the trigger that will initiate your welcome programme. A trigger is an event or action that signals that someone has joined your audience and should receive your welcome programme. For example, some common triggers are:

  • Submission of a signup form on your website
  • Completion of a purchase on your online store
  • Registration for a free trial or demo of your software
  • Download of a lead magnet (e.g., ebook, webinar, checklist, etc.)
  • Referral from an existing customer or partner

You can set up the trigger on your marketing automation platform by using the tools and integrations available. For example, if you use Mailchimp as your marketing automation platform, you can create a one-click welcome automation by following these steps.

Step 3: Craft your welcome email(s)

Once you have defined your goal, audience, and trigger, it’s time to craft your welcome email(s). A welcome email is the first email that someone receives after joining your audience. It’s your chance to make a great first impression and start building a relationship with them.

A good welcome email should:

  • Thank them for joining your audience and show appreciation
  • Introduce yourself or your brand and tell them what to expect from you
  • Deliver on any promises or incentives you offered them (e.g., a discount code, a free ebook, etc.)
  • Provide value and useful information that helps them solve their problems or achieve their goals
  • Include a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA) that guides them to the next step
  • Be personalized and relevant to their needs and interests

Depending on your goal and audience, you may want to send more than one welcome email as part of your welcome programme. For example, you may want to send a series of emails that:

  • Educate them about your products or services and how they can benefit from them
  • Showcase social proof and testimonials from happy customers or users
  • Highlight your unique value proposition and competitive advantage
  • Address any common objections or questions they may have
  • Offer incentives or urgency to encourage them to take action sooner rather than later

However, be careful not to overwhelm or spam them with too many emails in a short period of time. You should space out your emails according to the optimal frequency and timing for your audience. You can use data and analytics to test and optimize your email frequency and timing.

Step 4: Set up the workflow

The final step is to set up the workflow for your welcome programme on your marketing automation platform. A workflow is a sequence of actions that are triggered by certain conditions or criteria. For example, if someone opens an email, selects a link, visits a webpage, fills out a form, etc., then they will receive another email, be added to another list, be tagged with a certain attribute, etc.

A workflow allows you to automate the delivery of your welcome programme based