SageOne Nurture Flow

THE PROCESS

Research, concept, design, test

RESEARCH

What do people who become paid subscribers do differently during their trial?

We already had a captive and interested audience who had signed up for the free trial of SageOne.  I researched whether there were any behaviors or patterns during this trial period that influenced the decision to convert.

 
Evaluate in-app user behavior data for success patterns
We were able to obtain a spreadsheet of user behavior data performed during their free trial and sifted through it to find any correlations between engagement with certian features and conversion.

What I found was that users who completed certian tasks during their trial were more likely to convert to a paid subscription at the end of their free trial.  

 
Actions that influenced paid conversion

• Sending an invoice
• Setting up online payment
• Sending a quote
• Adding an expense account
• Connecting a bank account
• Creating a project
• Creating a task
• Adding a collaborator

CONCEPT

Encourage users to take Key Actions with a multivariate email campaign driven by their in-application behavior

Goal: Encourage users to perform at least two Key Actions during their free trial
Given that we knew which behaviors would drive customer subscription, we wanted to inform and teach users about these features in order to encourage them to do them.  We were not able to adjust the onboarding process or usability concerns within the application, so we focused on creating an email campaign.  

Craft user flow such that users are only told to perform actions they have not yet taken
We were able to get data from the application itself about what actions users took during their trial, so I wrote logic into the user flow such that users were only sent an email asking them to take a Key Action that they had not performed already. 

 
Prioritized Key Actions:

• Send an invoice
• Connect a bank account
• Send a quote
• Set up online payment
• Add an expense account

 
Steps to accomplishing the goal:

• Get the user to log in
• Tell the user to do one of the Key Actions
• Tell the user to perform another Key Action (but don't tell them to do one they've already done)

 
I collaborated with the product marketing manager on:

• Determining the user flow

• Writing logic for who gets each email based on behavior

• Checking for redundancies in messaging and logic

This email flow teaches and encourages specific meaningful actions that translate to customer satisfaction and paid subscription.

Early version of user flow informed timing of emails but lacked the researched CTA and targeted logic based on user behavior.  Redacted to preserve confidentiality.

Final user flow with timing on emails, content plan, behavior and targeting logic and parallel sales call plan.  Redacted to preserve confidentiality. 

DESIGN

Write copy, design responsive layouts for email campaign in Eloqua

With the user flow and conditional logic determined, I co-wrote copy, and designed responsive emails.  We were able to get real user behavior data from the SageOne application and attach it to each user so that they received targeted emails automatically based on the logic loaded into Eloqua.  

In parallel, the product marketing manager coordinated with the sales team for phone calls timed with email flow.

Screenshots from a few of the emails in the nurture flow.  All emails were responsive.

TEST

Validate user flow, make refinements

Initially, this user flow was tested with a portion of the free trial users.  It performed very well, although we found a few finer points to refine:

• Added second reminder email for users who had not logged in yet
• Tweaked which features we prioritized in the second CTA email
• Added deep linking from email CTA to that feature screen within the application

IMPACT

Measurable influence on user behavior

Doubled paid conversion

Those who went through this nurture flow converted to subscription at twice the rate of those who did not.  Getting people to meaninguflly engage with different features during trial translated to real value.

45% increase in app logins

We had a tangible effect on user behavior by getting a much higher application login rate than customers before the nurture flow was implemented.

Highest open and CTR at Sage globally

The average open rate for the campaign was 35% and the average click through rate was 4.4%.  These were the highest rates for any product email campaign for Sage globally.

RETROSPECT

Nurture flow expanded to other SageOne markets, but app usability issues remained 

Sales calls + email campaign were most effective when combined
Sales calles that fit into the cadence of the email nurture flow proved far more effective for converting users to subscription than either would have been alone.  No one component in this plan would have worked as well by itself.

Following the successful launch, this user flow was adapted for other markets
With the success of the user flow for SageOne standard, we were asked to adapt the flow for SageOne Invoicing and then for those products' launch in the Canadian market.  SageOne has since launched in several other markets including Europe, Africa and Australia. 

Could have had longer-term ongoing impact paired with improved app usability
At the time, customer retention was a problem as there were usability issues with the app that needed to be addressed.  Although making these changes was out of scope, should these issues have been resolved it could have improved the retention of paid subscribers over time.