How to Create a Welcome Campaign

Having a welcome campaign serves a number of purposes. Not only does it ensure that recipients are properly welcomed to your service, but it also makes sure you have the necessary permissions from them. A welcome campaign often includes a Double-Opt in Flow, a welcome email with information for new subscribers, and possibly a welcome bonus for new subscribers.

Our model example for this use case is a welcome campaign for Agillic Candy. Even if this example doesn't fit your use case perfectly, it's intended to generate useful ideas, best practices, and insights into how the platform works. Simply insert the data that does fit your use case.

Please note, this example uses some Events, Person Data, and landing pages that are pre-made and therefore, are prerequisites for this campaign. Most of these can be replaced by elements and fields that fit your company's use case. 

This article will go through the following steps in the process:

• How to Create a Target Group
• How to Create an Event
• How to Create a Welcome Email Campaign
• How to Create a Welcome SMS Voucher
• How to Execute Your Welcome Campaign in a Flow
• How to Execute Your SMS Voucher in a Flow

How to Create a Target Group

1. Open the Data module.
2. Select 'Target Groups' from the left sidebar.
3. Click the 'Create New Target Group' icon from the top toolbar.
4. Fill in the name of your Target Group and click 'Save'.
5. In the 'Conditions' panel, click on the plus icon and select 'Insert Condition'. Fill in the data fields with the following: Person Data | MOBILE | is empty | Condition not met. This means that the recipient in this Target Group can sign up by entering a phone number on the sign-up page. 
6. Click 'Save'. Please note that it's necessary to click 'Save' both in the 'Details' panel and the 'Conditions' panel. 

After you've created a Target Group for your email campaign, you'll need to create an Event for your SMS voucher. The email campaign now has a link with the attached Event.

How to Create an Event

1. Open the Data module.
2. Select 'Events' from the left sidebar.
3. Select the 'New Event' icon from the top toolbar.
4. Fill in the name of your Event 'Voucher SMS [initials]'.
5. Check the 'Reset Enabled' box in the 'Reset' panel.
6. In the 'After number of time(s) triggered' field, fill in the value of '1'. As Events are essentially counters, it means that you'll only need to click on the link once to get to the sign-up page. 
7. Click 'Save'.

Now that you've made your Target Group and Event, you'll need to create your campaign in the Channels module.

How to Create a Welcome Email Campaign

1. Open the Channels module and then select 'Email' and click on the folder you want your email to reside in.
2. Select 'Create Email' near the bottom of the left sidebar.
3. A pop-up window will appear where you can fill in the name of your email. Give the email an appropriate name, such as 'Welcome Email', and click 'OK'. There's a default layout as the template has already been premade.
4. Now, fill in the content in the 'Properties' panel in the right sidebar.
5. Fill in the 'Subject line', 'Sender Address', and 'Sender Name' with appropriate content that fits your use case.
6. Click on the preheader block which is the block at the top of your email. Fill it out with appropriate text. The preheader is the first snippet of the email that is shown to recipients in their email client.
7. Hover over a 'Content Block' and a toolbar will appear.
8. Click the plus icon in the 'Content Block' toolbar and a pop-up window will appear.
9. Select the heading block and fill out a fitting heading in your email.
10. Click on the 'Personalise' panel in the right sidebar. You might want to personalise this block with your first name. 
11. Click on the 'Select Person Data or Global Data' drop-down menu and select 'FIRSTNAME'. A '${FIRSTNAME}' placeholder text will be inserted.
12. Hover over a content block and click the plus icon.
13. Select a body block and fill in some content.
14. Highlight the text 'Click here'.
15. Click the 'Link' panel in the right sidebar.
16. Click the folder icon named 'web' and navigate to web/user/voucher confirmation.
17. Next, you need to insert your Event 'Voucher SMS [initials]'. Click the 'Select event' field and select the Event.
18. Hover over a content block and click the plus icon. 
19. Select the block containing the header, image, and body. Fill in the content which you'd like just mobile users to see.
20. Click on the image block and select the 'Image' panel from the right sidebar. 
21. In the drop-down menu, click the 'Media Browser' field and navigate to images/Products/1.png. If the image is too big, change the width to 225 in the 'Advanced' subpanel of the 'Images' panel.
22. In the body block, highlight the 'Click here' text.
23. Click the 'Link' panel in the right sidebar 
24. Click the folder icon named 'web' and navigate to web/user/voucher confirmation.
25. Hover over the block you just created.
26. Click the 'i' in the content block toolbar.
27. To personalise this content block, click on the 'Properties' field currently named 'Static' in the right sidebar, and select 'Multi Content'. A yellow outline will appear around the content block, which indicates that it's personalised.
28. Hover over the personalised content block and click the 'i' in the content block toolbar.
29. In the 'Properties' panel in the right sidebar, click the 'Select Target Group' drop-down menu and select your 'Mobile Users [initials]'.
30. Click 'Save'.

Now that you've made you email welcome campaign, it's time to make your SMS voucher.

How to Create a Welcome SMS Voucher

1. Open the Channels module and then select 'Email'. 
2. Open the 'SMS' folder and click on the folder that you want your SMS to reside in.
3. Click on 'Create SMS' near the bottom of the left sidebar.
4. A pop-up window will appear where you can fill in the name as 'Voucher Code [initials]' and click 'OK'.
5. Click on the 'Editor' icon in the toolbar.
6. A pop-up will appear where you can fill in the text in the email.
7. Click on the 'Insert Parameter' in the toolbar and select 'FIRSTNAME'. Then, a'${FIRSTNAME}' placeholder text will be inserted. If you want to add a line break to your SMS, add two line breaks in the SMS Editor. 
8. Click 'Save'.

Now that you've made your welcome campaign, you'll need to execute them in the Flows module.

How to Execute Your Welcome Campaign in a Flow

For this welcome campaign, you'll need to make two Flows - one for your email and one for your SMS.

1. Open the Flows module.
2. Select 'Create New Flow' from the top toolbar.
3. Fill in the name of your Flow 'Welcome Email'.
4. Set a schedule to the Flow by opening the 'Schedule' section in the panel to your right. You could run the welcome Flow on a daily schedule at 10AM for all new recipients. 
5. Click 'OK'.
6. Select the 'Email' icon from the top toolbar. Fill in the name of your Step 'Welcome Email'.
7. Click on the 'Email template' drop-down menu and select your Email Campaign.
8. Click 'OK'. Remember to also click the 'Save' icon from the top toolbar. If there's a red exclamation mark in your Flow, this indicates that the Flow hasn't been saved.

How to Execute Your SMS Voucher in a Flow

1. Open the Flows module.
2. Select the 'Create New Flow' icon from the top toolbar.
3. Fill in the name of your Flow as 'SMS Voucher [initials]'.
4. Click on the 'Triggers' section, click on the plus icon, and then click on 'Event'. 
5. Select the Event you made in the Data module 'Voucher SMS [initials]' from the drop-down menu.
6. Click the 'Set Value' field and fill in the value '1'. Now, a trigger has been added to your Flow with the value 1, which means that when you click on your Email in the link, the Event will reach 1 and then the SMS Flow is executed.
7. Click 'OK'.
8. Click 'SMS' in the 'Add step' toolbar to add an SMS-Step. Fill in the name of your Step as 'SMS Voucher [initals]'.
9. Click the 'SMS Template' field and select 'SMS Voucher[initials]'.
10. Click 'OK'. Remember to also click the 'Save' icon from the top toolbar.

As a final step, you will now need to Publish to Staging. To do this, simply hover over the 'Publish' button in the top bar and then click 'Publish to Staging'.

Agillic will now generate all edited content. You know that a Publish to Staging has been successful when you see a 'Successful publish to Staging' toast appear on the screen.

Testing the Welcome Campaign

In order to test the welcome campaign that you've set up on Staging, you should first make sure that you have a recipient on Staging who's part of the 'Welcome' Target Group. You can double-check this by predicting the Flow on Staging, to predict whether recipients will go into the Flow. 

When ready, simply execute the welcome Flow on Staging by clicking the play icon and hitting 'Execute on Staging'.

Suggested Next Steps

• Setting Up a Simple Email Newsletter Campaign