Welcome series

SETTING UP A WELCOME SERIES IN 30 MINUTES

Jake Patoski

Training & Learning

• What is a Welcome Series?• Setup!

• Autoresponse / triggers• Streaming emails• Conditions & Delay

• Activating the series• Suppression from main communications• Things to keep in mind

Setting up a Welcome Series in < 30 min

What is a Welcome Series?

• A set of emails sent to a supporter after joining your list

• or performing a certain action (donating, attending an event, etc.)

• The series 'welcomes' them to your organization, and gives them an orientation

• On the technical side: emails configured to launch:

• at a certain time, • if specific conditions are met, • and only on specific pages

• Uses these Salsa features: • Autoresponses / Triggers• Streaming Emails• Queries & smart groups for

suppression

Setup: Autoresponse/Trigger

• Package: Email Blasts -> Create Autoresponse

• Complete all the fields on the Configuration tab, except Target Email.

• Provide an internal-only Reference Name,

• leave the Type as “Reply Email”, • determine the From Name and From

Email that supporters should see in their inbox.

• On the Content tab, just like a normal email blast, provide a subject line for the email, and populate content for the HTML Body and Text Body sections.

• The Advanced Options tab will have us configure the Send Conditions and Timed Delay. We will come back to those shortly!

https://help.salsalabs.com/entries/22421676-Autoresponses-Email-Triggers

Setup: Streaming Emails

• Did you notice the “Update Trigger to Streaming Email” button?

• Clicking this will convert the autoresponse to a Streaming Email.

• The Streaming Email interface is mostly the same as a regular email blast

• Main differences• the addition of the Stream Options tab,

which lets you set the Send Conditions and Timed Trigger Delay.

• You will no longer configure the Targeting or Validation tab.

• You can create a Streaming Email at any step of the autoresponse.

• Fully set up an autoresponse, have less to do on a streaming email.

• Double check each step!

https://help.salsalabs.com/entries/22407142-Streaming-Emails

Setup: Conditions & Delay

• You don’t want everyone getting your welcome series, right?

• Send Conditions make sure a supporter meets certain criteria before sending.

• Welcome = new, so…• [[isNew]] == 1• Other conditions exist, so explore!• Question two: You don’t want your new

supporters getting three or four emails right in a row, right?

• Timed Trigger Delay will delay your email sending until the timer runs out.

• Incremented by the hour, so two days later = 48 hrs, a week later is 168 hours.

https://help.salsalabs.com/entries/22421676-Autoresponses-Email-Triggers#3

Activating the series

• A welcome series needs to be ‘attached’ to a page to run.

• On the Follow-up tab of each Salsa page, you can attach autoresponders/triggers.

• Click “Add an existing response” to find your existing autoresponses.

• Add as many as are included in your series.• Now when a supporter completes that page,

the triggers will line up and fire according to the conditions and delays.

https://help.salsalabs.com/entries/22546363-Sign-up-pages#4

Suppression from regular emails

• You may want to keep welcome series recipients from getting your regular emails

• First step: Create a group for your welcome series

• Second step: Decide what type of query to use to identify welcome series recipients

• Time based• Targeted by (Streaming emails only)• Status = New (Streaming emails only)

• Convert Step 1 group into smart group using Step 2 query

• When targeting your regular email blasts, add condition for “Is not a member of” your Step 1 group

Keep in mind…

• There is no way to cancel/stop a welcome series once it starts.

• A welcome series doesn’t require streaming emails; but is helpful for statistics tracking.

• Streaming emails combine the automation features of autoresponses / email triggers with the design template and statistics reporting features of email blasts.

• If you want to prevent other emails from being sent in middle of welcome series, you will need to create a suppression group.

• You’re not limited to one welcome series. Consider creating different ‘sets’ based on the type of action taken: if they came in from a donation page, an action page, or a regular signup page. Be sure to tailor your content accordingly!

CONTACT INFO

Web: help.salsalabs.com

Email: [email protected]

THANK YOU!