The welcome email flow is a crucial asset of your DTC growth. With the average Ecommerce repeat purchase rate hovering at around 30%, just 3 out of 10 customers will buy from you again after their initial order. Imagine the growth potential over a year if you were able to increase this repeat rate by just 5%.
In this piece, we’re going to show you how to create pitch perfect Klaviyo welcome flows that are super effective in retaining customers, improving brand awareness and simple to implement with tried and tested advice from PAASE Agency, Klaviyo and DTC brand, Mamamade.
You’ll learn...
According to Campaign Monitor, welcome emails have a 91% open rate and a 29% click-through rate. It’s also thought that new customers are most engaged within the first 48 hours of subscribing or placing an order. Striking while the iron is hot and using this period to communicate your brand story, USP and values can keep users engaged for the long-haul.
Welcome emails are not intended to be overtly ‘selly’ but instead are used to educate the customer on your brand story, invite them to join the community and perhaps offer incentives later on. The main aim is to nurture the customer and make them feel part of something.
When executed well, Klaviyo welcome series emails…
New customers need time to familiarize themselves with your brand and develop trust. They might have learnt about you through word of mouth or a sign-up offer, but their knowledge of your brand is likely to be minimal. Show them why they should believe in you rather than competitor #1.
Do you have a USP the world needs to know about? Does your product solve a growing problem? Have you been voted the best place to work in the UK? Whatever great stories you have to tell, the welcome series is the time to do it.
Andy Rixon, Commercial Director of PAASE Agency says,
Repeat customers spend 4 x more than one-time customers. With rising acquisition costs and iOS updates hampering growth, it’s becoming more and more important to drive repeatable revenue from your existing base. Growing a database of engaged, superfans rather than passive customers is retention gold dust.
When creating content for your welcome flows, it’s important to have a specific goal in mind. Although increased sales are the long-term goal, if the customer has recently made a purchase then think of the welcome series as more of a slow burn and set quick win goals such as increasing followers or website visits in the initial phase.
Examples of a welcome flow for a new customer include:
If the user has subscribed (perhaps to the newsletter) but hasn’t made a purchase yet, the goals are different as you want to convert that user to a customer.
Examples of a welcome flow for a subscriber who hasn't purchased include:
Klaviyo makes it super simple for you to implement Welcome Flows using their standard flow. Alternatively, you can also build your own. Welcome flows are triggered by lists which you’ll need to connect to Klaviyo to start the automation. We asked Klaviyo’s in-house expert, Jordan to explain more.
There are 4 key ways that new contacts can be added to a welcome list:
Once the list has been added to the flow (as seen in the example pictured above) the automation can begin. You can add more segmentation in the conditional splits section of Klaviyo. For instance, you can split by customers and non-customers or gender and split content for each.
98% of texts are opened. If you’d like to expand the reach of your welcome flow, Jordan recommends using Klaviyo to send SMS messages as part of the flow. Obviously you won’t be able to squeeze in long-form content such as your brand story into an SMS, but you can use it to redirect people to your website or communicate bite-sized information. Jordan recommends using SMS to communicate the following:
Unsure how to get started with your welcome flows? You can find plenty of inspiration for your Klaviyo welcome flows in the ‘Browse Ideas’ section of Klaviyo which include best practice and how to target customers vs. non-customers.
With all marketing activity, Klaviyo welcome flow automations start off as experiments. Jordan says, “A/B testing is a fantastic way to understand what people like and respond to. You can A/B test subject lines, dynamic content and segment by different audiences to find out what works.”
To showcase best practice Klaviyo welcome flow examples, we’ve called on Katie Walker, Growth Marketing Manager at Mamamade. Since introducing the welcome flow (pictured) the brand has achieved a 52.7% open rate - 6.7% above the industry benchmark. The order rate is 3.05% - 2% above industry averages.
Katie says: One of our best Klaviyo flows is our welcome flow. As a brand - our focus is on building our community of parents and really helping them feel welcome, supported and part of our 'Mamamates' wider community. Our welcome flow really aims to tick all of those boxes.
The content and language within our Welcome flow is friendly, on-brand and inclusive and offers lots of useful information about the brand that they might not already know and offers ways that we, as a brand can add value to them as a customer.
The email flow features a welcome from our founder, Sophie, as well as tips about how to make the most of their subscription and finally, social-proofing to hopefully make their path to purchase as frictionless as possible. These customers are still prospects so it's important we don't lose their attention.
In addition, we offer a welcome 10% off a first purchase so it's important the customer can easily see that discount code as it's likely that's why they signed up.
This flow is clearly working as Katie says, “In the last month (June 2022), 31% of our overall revenue has come via Klaviyo, with 14% of that specifically from flows, and our Welcome flow is by far the biggest revenue driver of all our flows.”
At Relo, our mission is to help DTC brands grow faster and stronger with products specifically designed to increase repurchase rates, grow subscription customers and keep subscription customers.
