Onboard more customers: how to write onboarding emails that convert
Imagine you’re hosting a cocktail party.
As your guests arrive you notice some already know everyone and have a clear drink of choice. All they need is their drink in hand and to know where to find the kitchen and bathroom, and they’re off.
Others arrive and they need a few introductions, some drink options and a full tour.
And then there’s a set who haven’t actually been to a cocktail party before and need dedicated hand holding before they can settle in and enjoy themselves.
Now imagine you just said “hey, thanks for coming” at the door and ushered them all inside.
These three sets of people are going to have very different experiences of your cocktail party. Some will make themselves right at home.
Some may feel confused or overwhelmed and give up before they’ve found their groove.
Some might turn around and walk right back out the door.
The moral of this little party?
To get the most out of a new experience or *ahem* product, the welcome matters.
This week we're solving for:
Problem: Generic onboarding flows that don't perform
Solution: Onboarding flows that effectively provides the welcome each customer needs
Spotlight: Email Teardown: The Hnry onboarding sequence
Let's get into it!
Problem: Your single, generic onboarding flow suits nobody
When you write up a well-meaning but generic onboarding flow, you unintentionally ignore the different beliefs, levels of knowledge and understanding of your customers.
It leaves them underserved and unable to access the full potential of your product.
However much they might need or want it.
To be effective, an onboarding (or welcome) sequence needs to be tailored to the different needs and experiences of your customers.
In fact, experience-driven businesses see almost 2X higher annual growth in customer retention, repeat purchase rates, and customer lifetime value than other organizations.
Which is preferable to watching your new users churn before they get anywhere, no?
Solution: Multipath Onboarding Sequences that personalize customer experience
Before creating your onboarding sequences there are two things you need to take into consideration:
You have to get in early
The biggest dropoff in users (over 40%!) happens in the first 7 days, making them the most critical for your conversions.
The goal for your onboarding sequence
What do you need your new users to do? That might be giving you information, educating, building trust, getting in touch, nudging to use a feature or converting to a paid customer.
At its most fundamental, onboarding is asking someone to change their current behaviour to a new behaviour.
Each of your Ideal Customers (guests) have signed up to your product with a different set of problems, hesitations and experiences.
What do each of your ICPs need to understand about themselves, their problem and your product to get to the point where they believe in your solution so much that they change their behaviour?
The job of your onboarding sequence is to smooth the changeover so there’s minimal disruption to each ICPs current behaviour.
Or to make it SO compelling that changing is a no-brainer.
Let’s take a look at an onboarding sequence in the wild...with a friendly teardown.
Spotlight: Hnry Onboarding Sequence Teardown
Hnry is an accounting platform designed for a group of people who are very dear to our hearts - sole traders.
By automating tax calculations and payments, their platform eliminates financial admin and saves these small businesses from huge headaches and End Of Financial Year bill shock.
Safe to say, they’ve filled a yawning gap in the market.
So what happens when you sign up?
Unfortunately, not a lot.
We know the first 7 days are critical to engage and convert new SaaS users before that 40%+ drop off.
Hnry only sends out 3 emails during this window.
Then a 4th email arrives 2 weeks later.
And given the content in the emails, we feel pretty confident Hnry has a single, unsegmented sequence for all new users.
Why do we think that? Well…
Email #1
Your first onboarding email should be working harrrrd to establish strong relationships and trust, particularly if it’s related to finance.
Because money.
Hnry claims to make accounting simple, but the first thing we hear from them is a lot of info about housekeeping.
The email content is generic and completely focused on the needs of Hnry the company, not Jiminy Croquet the freelancer who’s up to his neck in receipts.
Take a look…
We know that Hnry’s new user is at their most excited about the product because something just motivated them enough to sign up.
We also know that, when you click through to the app, Hnry needs a new user to complete their profile with additional information.
So how would we make this email welcoming and worth it for the reader?
Start by warmly welcoming the new user right from the subject line
Encourage the user to complete their profile by giving them a quick walkthrough in the email itself - maybe even with gifs!
Change the CTA to “Activate your Hnry account”
That’s it.
Point the user in the direction that best serves them and the platform. Let it happen!
Email #2 - received the day after sign up
A day after signing up, we receive an email from Karan, the managing director of Hnry.
Hnry gets this spot on. It’s personal and the fact that the managing director is reaching out makes the new user feel important and nurtured.
But, beyond that, the messaging falls flat for a few reasons…
As you can see, there are several great optimization opportunities for this email.
For us one question really stood out – Who is this email for?
Some follow up questions might include:
Is this sent only to the people who don’t complete their profile?
Is there an alternate email for people who’ve moved closer to the “aha” moment by completing their profile?
If Hnry already has data on their job title, why haven’t they touched on the pain points or language of that segment?
What is the next step? What path will make it easiest for the customer to adopt Hnry as a platform?
And so on…
Address these questions and we start getting closer to an onboarding flow that works like you want it to.
Email #3 - received 1 week after signing up
Apart from the fact Hnry has now lost 5 pivotal days to convert a customer…
The subject line is promising!
“What comes next?” is exactly what we need to know.
And it’s from James, the co-founder. That’s two wins right there!
But when we open the email…
Hnry’s still trying desperately to sell Hnry to someone who’s already signed up.
But they’re not telling them how to get the most from the service.
Here’s what we would do differently:
Show the new user what to do next
Seems so simple…
But a user who has already completed their profile will have a new next step.
A user whose profile is still incomplete either needs a reminder to go back and complete it, or they have some hesitations to overcome. To find out which it is, Hnry only needs to ask the users that fit this segment.
Email #4 - Received two weeks after signing up
Another week passes without an email from Hnry and then we receive a final nudge.
The subject line, “You’re so close!”, uses the Zeigarnik effect to compel people to finish their incomplete task. Well played!
With this kind of subject line you might expect a friendly-but-firm push in a particular direction.
And the first paragraph does read like it's going that way.
But then it quickly pivots into data-collection, which leads us to ask again…
What’s the purpose of this email?
Both actions, pushing the reader to send an invoice and data collection, are really valid and useful.
But not in the same email.
Hnry needs to decide on the action, or even better, split this into two emails.
More hyper-targeted emails are better than fewer emails that are crammed with confusing messaging.
Last Word
If you’re serving your leads a one-size-fits-all onboarding experience you’re missing out on valuable conversions, potential perfect-fit customers, and deeper customer relationships.
But welcome each segment at their current stage of awareness and market sophistication, and you’re on track to consistent, sustainable growth.