When you start a new relationship with a customer, you want a good way to break the ice. You can do that by sending a welcome email. It’s a nice touch, and many customers appreciate it.
But you can do better by initiating an onboarding email sequence. This would include multiple emails throughout the customer lifecycle, each with diverse purposes--all aiming to educate users, engage with your customer, break the ice, provide information, and nurture the new relationship.
Thinking carefully about onboarding emails can provide dramatic benefits for your organization.
What is an onboarding email?
In simple terms, an onboarding process email is the first step in establishing communication and engaging with a new client. The term can also apply to the first method of communication with prospective customers.
In general, it’s a marketing email that helps the customer get to know your brand. You can include a welcome packet that provides information clients need and a survey that enables you to gain a better understanding of your customer.
Used correctly, they can begin an entire email sequence that welcomes new customers and helps with conversions and retention.
Onboarding emails actually come in several distinct types, each serving different purposes across organizations. The employee onboarding process introduces new team members to company culture, policies, and workflows. It might include receiving the employee handbook and training sessions.
On the other hand, the user onboarding process guides people through product features and functionality. Customer onboarding focuses on building relationships and encouraging purchases. Each type serves a specific purpose in the onboarding process, though all aim to create positive experiences and long-term engagement.
Onboarding vs. welcome emails
To clarify, we can explore the differences between onboarding and welcome emails.
Typically, the welcome email is the very first thing you send a new customer when they commit to your services or products. It confirms their commitment and sends them general information, welcoming them into the fold.
You could consider this the first email in an onboarding email chain.
The rest of the onboarding emails provide additional information and serve different processes. The idea is to engage with the customer to make them feel good about their choice and maintain a positive, direct relationship with them. Onboarding emails can recommend additional services or products and include surveys to get to know the customer. They can even help a client sign up for your loyalty program.
Anything that engages with the customer beyond that initial welcome email would fall under the purview of onboarding, whereas the welcome email is a single message in the chain.
Reasons to use an onboarding email campaign
Since user onboarding emails go out in the early stages of your relationship with a new customer, they represent an amazing way to turn new clients into regulars. Here’s how.
Engage with new users
This is the first listed reason on purpose. The general motivation behind onboarding email campaigns is engagement. You’re giving information about yourself to the customer. That helps them understand who you are and what you offer.
You're also giving them more resources to take advantage of your offerings.
Most of all, you’re establishing a connection with your clients. That helps engagement, which can drive all your metrics: customer retention, conversion, ROI, etc. It all boils down to providing an avenue to build and manage customer relationships.
Improve the customer experience
Engaging with the customer is essential, but it’s a means to an end. One of those ends is customer success and satisfaction. When you improve the customer experience, they spend more money on your products or services. They tell their friends or peers about you. They leave you good reviews. They stick around for a long-term relationship.
Ultimately, you’re trying to supply emails with genuine value. For product lines, you're highlighting key features that solve specific problems. You're sending clients coupon codes. You're pointing out things that they may not know. You're asking them to tell you more about themselves. You're offering solutions to their problems.
When you make it engaging, they feel valued, and that’s vital for customer experience.
Obtain feedback
Feedback is invaluable. Within your email chain, you can include a feedback survey. This is why the chain has been described as a conversation up to this point. You’re inviting feedback, and when you get it, the support team can learn from your customers.
Honest feedback helps you refine your methods, reallocate resources, and delve into what drives the customer experience and makes your business valuable to the consumer. It's the centerpiece of all of your customer retention strategies.
Boost conversions
One of the reasons you want your customers to notice your value and feel good is so that they'll spend more money and use your product often.
You’re able to solve problems for your customer. They recognize that, so they put their trust in your products and services.
Ultimately, that boosts your conversions per customer, which is a measurable way that the onboarding chain benefits your business.
Highlight your value
Highlighting other products or services shows your continued value to the customer. So do coupon codes or special offers. The same goes for any resource you can provide that solves problems for the customer.
As you get to know the client, you can customize these things as well, and your onboarding helps you present a uniquely valuable experience.
How to create an onboarding email sequence
That might sound nice, but how do you actually build a winning welcome email series? What are the keys to success? You’ll find all of that in the simple steps listed below.
Identify your goals
It’s an intuitive starting point. What are you hoping to achieve with your onboarding email sequence? Are you trying to drive sales? Boost conversions? Get more favorable feedback? Generate positive surveys?
There are a lot of possible answers, and you should have more than one baked into your onboarding campaign. Once you identify your goals (and rank them), you can design the email sequence around those objectives.
Segment your audience
This is a way to enhance your marketing (which your onboarding chain supports). When you segment your audience, you break your contacts into smaller groups, enabling you to be more specific in how you engage with them and what you offer.
The onboarding emails include opportunities for client feedback. You can use that feedback to collect customer data for your segmentation process.
Write captivating content
It should go without saying, but people will only appreciate your emails and engage with them if they like the content. This can feel tricky, but there’s a simple rule to follow. If you were a customer, what would you want to see in an email?
If you always keep that question in mind, you can write content that appeals to your customers. Plus, captivating content drives engagement—which drives everything else.
Use a professional design
If you’re not a professional designer, that’s ok. You can still take advantage of professional designs in your email chain.
The easiest way is to use onboarding email examples and templates. There are countless onboarding email templates already available. They can help you with aesthetics and the layout of your email. When you have a strong layout (utilizing a clear subject line, main body content, and more), you can make your content even more captivating.
You can also look at sample onboarding emails to get a clear idea of how your email should look. Doing so can even inspire your content.
Include a CTA
Have you ever watched the commercials during the Super Bowl? Can you remember some of your favorites?
Thinking back on it, can you remember the commercial but not what it was trying to sell?
Those commercials broke a cardinal rule. In any marketing attempt, you want to remember the call to action. It’s great for your emails to have engaging content that the customer likes, but in the end, you should recommend a course of action. That’s the CTA, and it’s the last thing a client will see when they're done reading the email.
Someone might be casually skimming through your email. The CTA is a small but firm reinforcement that can get through to such a reader and encourage them to buy the product, enlist your services, or engage with your efforts.
Automate your process
Lastly, you want to be efficient. For that, you can automate the process. You can use automation tools, design your own APIs, or even hire software designers for this. However you go about it, when you utilize automated onboarding emails, you save on labor and maximize the value generated by onboarding communication.
Among marketing automation examples, this is a simple one to remember. You have a website where people can buy your products. Someone selects a few things they want to order and then gets distracted. After a while, you send an email letting them know that they have items in the online cart.
That simple reminder should be automated, and while it won’t convert every sale, it will genuinely remind some of your customers that they forgot to finish a purchase.
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Best practices for onboarding emails
Creating onboarding emails means crafting effective messages that genuinely connect with your new customers. Successful onboarding emails make people feel welcomed and excited about your brand.
Here are some proven practices that can help your emails stand out:
Keep emails short and clear
Your customers are busy people who appreciate messages that get straight to the point. Aim for concise content with clear headings and minimal fluff.
If you need to share detailed information, consider breaking it up across multiple emails or linking to more comprehensive resources on your website. Make sure all emails come from your company name to build trust with your audience.
Personalize content for better engagement
The best onboarding email examples all have one thing in common: they're personalized. Generic emails feel like spam. By using your customer's name and referencing specific actions they've taken, you immediately create a more meaningful connection.
Personalization can be as simple as addressing a recipient by name or recommending items based on their purchase history. This personal touch shows customers that you see them as individuals, not just another email address on your list.
Optimize for mobile devices
Most people check emails on their phones these days. An email that looks perfect on a desktop might be unreadable on a smaller screen. To ensure proper display across all devices, use responsive templates, keep your design simple, and test thoroughly before sending. Large, easy-to-tap buttons and readable font sizes are essential for mobile users.
Ensure a logical sequence and timing
Timing matters in relationships, including the one with your customer. Space out your emails to avoid overwhelming new users, and make sure each message builds logically on previous ones. Consider your customers' journeys and match your emails to where they are in the process of getting to know your brand or product.
Common mistakes to avoid in onboarding emails
Many businesses put considerable effort into creating onboarding emails but still miss the mark in crucial ways. Knowing what onboarding email mistakes to avoid can save you time, preserve your sender reputation, and prevent customers from hitting unsubscribe before you've had a chance to show them your value.
Sending too many emails too quickly
Enthusiasm is great, but bombarding new customers with daily emails can quickly lead to irritation. Nobody wants their inbox flooded with messages from a brand they just met. Respect your customers' space by carefully spacing out your communications and giving them time to digest each message before sending the next one.
Lacking personalization or relevance
When emails feel like they could have been sent to anyone, they tend to get ignored. Generic content that doesn't acknowledge who your customers are or what they're interested in comes across as lazy marketing. Take the time to segment your audience and tailor your messages based on their specific needs and behaviors.
Forgetting to test and optimize
Sending emails without checking how they look across different email clients and devices is like presenting at a meeting without preparing. Technical issues like broken links, formatting problems, or display errors can damage your credibility instantly. Always test your emails thoroughly before sending them to your entire list.
Not including a clear call-to-action
Even the most beautifully written email falls flat without direction on what to do next. Customers shouldn't have to guess what action you want them to take after reading your message.
Every email should include a prominently displayed, unmistakable call-to-action that guides them toward the next step in their journey with your brand.
How to measure the success of your onboarding emails
All the effort you put into crafting perfect onboarding emails means little if you can't tell whether they're working. Measuring performance helps you refine your approach and maximize the impact of your email sequence.
Key metrics to track
Tracking the right data helps you understand how your emails perform and where to make improvements. Here are the essential metrics to monitor:
- Open rates: These show whether your subject lines grab attention. A low open rate usually points to subject lines that need work or poor sending times.
- Click-through rates: These reveal if your content and calls to action compel readers to take the next step. Low CTR might mean your offer isn't relevant or your CTA isn't clear enough.
- Conversion rates: These tell you if readers complete your desired action after clicking. This metric connects your email directly to business results like purchases or sign-ups.
- Churn rate: This indicates customer retention over time. A decreasing churn rate suggests your onboarding emails are successfully building loyalty and engagement.
A/B testing for optimization
Guessing what works best is unnecessary when you can directly compare options. By creating two versions of your emails that differ in just one element — like subject line, image choice, or CTA placement — you can see which performs better with your audience. This approach helps you continuously improve your emails based on actual customer preferences rather than assumptions.
Using feedback to refine future campaigns
Numbers tell part of the story, but direct customer feedback provides invaluable insights. Pay attention to reply emails, survey responses, and customer service interactions related to your onboarding sequence. These qualitative inputs often reveal issues or opportunities that metrics alone might miss, helping you create increasingly relevant and effective email campaigns over time.
Use onboarding emails in your next campaign
Learning the steps of creating effective onboarding emails can offer your business a lot of benefits. You can use them effectively in your next campaign, and Mailchimp can help. You'll find countless tools for email marketing, automation, planning, execution, customer success, and more. Take full advantage of Mailchimp today to enhance your new employee and customer onboarding process.
Key Takeaways
- Onboarding emails are a powerful sequence that welcomes customers, builds relationships, and drives engagement far more effectively than a single welcome message.
- Successful onboarding emails require clear goals, audience segmentation, captivating content, and thoughtful timing to guide customers through their journey with your brand.
- Avoid sending too many emails too quickly, using generic messaging, skipping testing, or forgetting clear calls-to-action to keep subscribers engaged rather than annoyed.
- Track key email metrics like open rates and conversions, use A/B testing, and collect direct customer feedback to continuously refine your onboarding email strategy.