In this second installment of the Talent Marketing Essentials series, we’re exploring the power of a warm welcome.
Regardless of your reason for the welcome, we should all be able to relate to being on the receiving end of a well-executed welcome strategy (as well as the feelings we’ve experienced as a result of a poorly-executed campaign or non-existent welcome), both in a Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C) environment. When you express an interest in something – purchasing a product, enrolling for a conference, signing up to receive blog or email updates, accept a job offer – you typically have a natural curiosity about it and are eager to learn more.
Now let’s put this into a Talent program framework. Think of a program you lead. Maybe it’s:
- Welcoming incoming new employees as part your onboarding experience upon offer acceptance
- Introducing matched pairs in a formal mentoring program
- Setting expectations for participating in a long-term leadership development program
- Providing helpful information and resources after registering for a conference, retreat, instructor-led training or other event
Got a program in mind? Great!
If you read the first installment of this series, you may have accessed the free workbook and learned how to create an email sequence that focuses around a welcome series for onboarding. Be sure to check out that post for some additional inspiration! Because of that, I’m going to step outside my typical onboarding wheelhouse today (gasp!) and use a different example that could trigger a one-time welcome email campaign. Let’s dig into the opportunities to think like a marketer in this way…
Example: Welcome an employee who enrolled (self-enrolls or is auto-enrolled by a company leader, supervisor or administrator) in an internal leadership development program.
Possible challenges with this example:
- System-generated emails, when left at default settings, are ugly and often ignored
- Uninformative emails get lost in the shuffle or just add to inbox chaos
- Participants really don’t understand what they’re signing up for (or what they’ve been signed up for by someone else)
Opportunities:
- Give your program participants a reason to get excited!
- Set clear expectations about what will take place, time commitments and content to be covered
- Share logistics, pre-work and helpful resources
- Invite participants to join pre-program discussion online
Is this an example that is relevant for your organization? Add this sample email text to your swipe file!
Hi *insert participant name*!
Thanks for registering for the Leadership Academy! We’re so excited that you’ll be joining the group for our upcoming 12-month cycle – we hope you’re excited, too!
To get started, here is some helpful information:
- The group will consist of 10-12 manager-level employees from different divisions across the organization. It will be a great opportunity for you to connect and learn from peers that you may not interact with regularly. Visit our discussion portal on the HUB (**include link**) to get acquainted with the other participants!
- This program will meet in person on the first Tuesday of every month from 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. in the ABC conference room.
- There will be assigned reading before each session – you will be responsible for preparing for a group discussion.
- There will also be a mentor and charitable service component to the program, as well as a self-paced curriculum that consists of online modules, short videos and curated resources.
Got questions? Feel free to contact us anytime at email@email.com
See you at the first meeting!
Your friend in learning,
Michelle
How to personalize it:
- Use your company or program logo
- Use your LMS or email software tools to personalize as appropriate (first name, etc)
- Include calendar invites so people can easily save key dates to their schedule
- Link to external content, discussion portals and other resources – make it easy for people to participate!
A thoughtfully-crafted welcome email is an easy-to-execute communication strategy to get people excited, connected and prepared, and encourage deeper participation within your program. I hope you were able to walk through that example with your own learning programs in mind, and imagine how a warm, authentic welcome could make your programs come alive!
Your turn: How do you “think like a marketer” with your learning programs? Share a comment below so others can learn from you!
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