Setting up an Automated Welcome Series gives you an opportunity to provide valuable information, drive conversion on meaningful calls-to-action, and simply learn more about your audience. By asking relevant questions, Community Keywords can help you segment and tag Members in order to send more personalized texts in the future.
Let's get started
- Click on the Flows Tab in the navigation panel on the Web Dashboard.
- Click on Create New Flow.
- Chose Welcome Series from the list of templates.
Creating a Flow
On the right you will see a visual representation of the entire Member onboarding experience, including the Welcome Message and Confirmation Message that you composed during account activation. Both messages can be updated from this screen by clicking the ellipses to edit. On the left, you have the tools you need to add onto your Member onboarding experience. Add Steps and Actions by dragging them from the menu or clicking the (+) sign in the canvas editor.
Adding Delays
A Delay is a step type that will configure the amount of time to wait before triggering the next Action.
- When a Delay is added to your flow, options for multiple days, hours, minutes, or seconds can be selected. Click Done once you have set your desired delay.
NOTE: If no delay is set, the next action will be triggered immediately after the previous one. A delay can be set up to a maximum of 7 days.
Assigning Actions
Send SMS is an Action that allows you to automate a customized text to your Members. This is a great opportunity to learn more about your Members and have them self-sort into communities you have created.
- Compose a custom message that you would like to send to your audience after each delay. Click Done and you will see the the action saved on your canvas. Add additional steps and actions as needed to create your ideal Welcome Series flow!
NOTE: By default, SMS from your Automated Welcome Series will not be sent during Quiet Hours. There is a checkbox below your message editor that allows you to Ignore Quiet Hours. Read more about Quiet Hours here.
Attaching Media
You can attach images (.jpg, .png), animations (.gif), and audio recordings (.mp3) as long as they do not exceed 1MB. You can attach videos (.mov) if they do not exceed 50MB (sent via SMS only).
- You can attach a supported media file to any message within your Automated Welcome Series. The media file will be sent to your Members as a hosted content link and will amount to 43 characters in your message. This applies to all file types.
- If you have MMS enabled, the media file will be represented as 1 MMS in the lower righthand corner of the compose box. This applies only to images, animations, and audio recordings. Video files will be sent in the form of a Community Link Tracker (media.community.com).
Analytics
As new members text your Community number, you’ll be able to track engagement with your Automated Welcome Series for messages sent, total unique clicks, and click through rate.
- Both clicks and click through rate (CTR) are unique counts. If a member clicks the link more than once, it will register as a single click in these metrics. (Only applies to messages with links)
THINGS TO NOTE
- Editing or deleting any message in the series will reset the analytics for the whole series. This ensures that you are getting the most accurate engagement data for the current series content.
- If changes are made to your Welcome Series Flow, any Members who are currently on the flow will finish it out while any new Members will begin your newly published flow.
- Flows are only accessible through the Web Dashboard.
- Automated Welcome Series is available for any account on a usage-based plan. Feel free to email us at yourfriends@community.com if you are interested in upgrading your plan.