Your first touchpoints with a new customer are some of the most critical. By engaging customers early, you can lock in loyalty and prompt ongoing conversions, driving a high lifetime value. To ensure new subscribers become consistent buyers and even advocates for your brand, marketers must implement a thoughtfully crafted Welcome Series as part of their triggered campaign strategy.

The Welcome Series is a foundational automation within your marketing, and this basic building block has the potential to shape performance across the board. After all – first impressions make all the difference!

In this post, we’ll highlight the importance of a strong Welcome Series and walk you through tips, tricks, and real examples to help you optimize.

What is a Welcome Series?

A Welcome Series is a set of automated messages – email, SMS, or both – that your customers receive after subscribing to your mailing list. This is often the first major touchpoint with consumers who are interested in your brand and products.

As such, your Welcome Series should be a carefully crafted introduction to your brand that entices customers to stay subscribed and engaged beyond an initial discount code or special offer. This means ensuring your Welcome Series features a strong brand voice, fine-tuned personalization, and real value for your customers created through recommendations, loyalty information, and any other exciting perks.

Global Welcome Series Benchmarks for Email & SMS

Measuring performance is crucial to optimizing your welcome series, and industry benchmarks can help you set reasonable goals.  Listrak’s exclusive benchmark data is based on 125 billion email and SMS messages sent by our clients. To learn about our benchmark methodology and explore the numbers, download Listrak’s Cross-Channel Benchmark Report.

[EMAIL & SMS STATS]

Many retailers and brands are expanding their Welcome Series to SMS, and the results are clear, with conversion rates and revenue per send outpacing all other triggered SMS campaigns. Employing an email Welcome Series is still crucial, but adding an SMS version is a proven strategy for driving engagement and revenue.

Welcome Series Email & SMS Performance Results by Vertical

While a robust Welcome Series is important across all verticals, different types of retailers will see varying results. Discover whether your campaign performance measures up by finding your vertical below. Don’t see it? For the full list of benchmarks by vertical, including Beauty, Big Box, Pets & Animals, Sports & Outdoor, and more, download Listrak’s report.

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Welcome Series Best Practices

Your Welcome Series is your first, best chance to connect with customers when they are most engaged. See below for tips on crafting an effective, revenue-driving campaign.

• Get personal. Hook your customer by showing that you already understand them. Turn data such as browse history into targeted product recommendations as part of your Welcome Series emails, and watch the conversions roll in.
• Deploy multiple messages. Your Welcome Series should truly be a series, not a single email. This allows you to break your introductory messaging into attention-friendly chunks and keeps your brand top of mind for longer while the customer is at their most interested.
• Emphasize brand identity. Just as your Welcome Series is a chance to prove you know your customer, it’s also your best opportunity to ensure they know your brand. Employ a strong brand voice, include messaging about your vision and values, and make yourself memorable enough to continue standing out in their inbox.

Welcome Series Tests That Win

While your customization options may seem more limited with SMS than email, you still have plenty of opportunities to test, analyze, and optimize.

• Experiment with timing. While your first email should deploy immediately after the customer subscribes, try varying the time between subsequent emails in the series.
• A/B test flow lengths. Try a shorter or longer email series to gauge when engagement begins to drop off.
• Get creative with subject lines. Set your brand apart with eye-catching subject lines. If possible, include custom greetings with the subscriber’s name. Try different hooks to see what resonates.

Welcome Series Email & SMS Examples

Need a spark to set your creativity ablaze? Here are some real Welcome Series emails and text messages from Listrak clients to get you started.

How to Build Your Welcome Series in Listrak

Building robust triggered campaigns in Listrak is simple and easy to do. Consult the Listrak Help Center or your Account Manager for assistance.

Create Welcome Series in Listrak’s NextGen Platform

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Create a Smart, Robust Welcome Series with Listrak

Your Welcome Series is a key touchpoint along the customer journey that enables you to turn curious first-time buyers into lifelong fans. By crafting your Welcome Series with care – and continually testing and optimizing – you can ensure that every subscriber’s introduction to your brand is informative, appealing, and impactful.

Whether you’re looking to build a Welcome Series from scratch or refine your existing messaging, your Listrak Account Manager is ready to assist. Reach out today to start crafting a Welcome Series that starts your customer relationships on the right foot.