Activation email template for users who signed up and never used it

When to send it

Two or three days after sign-up, to someone who has not done the one thing that makes your product useful. Not the same day, because they may still be getting to it. Not after two weeks, because by then they have forgotten they signed up.

Pick the one action that counts as "started using it": the first project, the first import, the first invoice. The email is about that action and nothing else. It stops the moment they do it.

The email

Subject: Did you get [Product] working?

Hi {{first_name}},

A few days ago you signed up for [Product], and you have not yet [the key action].

That is the step where [Product] starts being useful, and it is easy to put off. It takes about [two minutes]: [link]

If something got in the way, tell me what it was. Reply to this email and I will help you through it.

Sam

Two variations

Offer a hand. For a product with a setup step that trips people:

Subject: Want a hand with [Product]?

If setting up [Product] looked like more work than you had time for, I can do it with you. Reply to this email with a good time, or book one here: [link]

Sam

The last one, about a week later:

Subject: I'll stop here

This is the last time I will write about getting started with [Product]. Your account stays open if you want to come back to it: [link]. If you ever want a hand, reply to this email.

Sam

What to avoid

• Watching them. Say what you know ("you have not set up X yet"), not how you know it.
• Guilt. "You haven't logged in" lands badly. Talk about what they get from the step.
• Several steps. One action, one link.
• Going on forever. Two or three emails, then stop.
• Sending it to people who already did it. An activation email to an active user is worse than none.

How Kicklace sends it

This is what the Lifecycle map is for. Your customers sit at the furthest stage they have reached. The Signed up stage holds everyone who made an account, and the Activated stage is the one where your app says they did the first real thing. You decide what that is, and your server posts it with the kicklace package: kl.track("activated", { email }). Events lists what else can move people along.

A sequence on Signed up can start once they have been there a number of days. Kicklace stops a sequence for somebody the moment they move on from its stage, so a person who reaches Activated stops getting the nudges. That is the whole job: the email goes to the people who are stuck and to nobody else.

Kicklace writes a first version in your voice, and you change whatever you like. Nothing sends until you switch it on. Before you do, it shows who would have got it over the last 30 days, which is also a quick way to see how many people are stuck. You can send yourself a test. Each person gets each email once, and nobody gets more than one tip or check-in a day.

More on the idea is in activation emails, and the first week around it is in the onboarding email template. The demo shows it on your own site, with no sign-up, and pricing has the plans.

FAQ

How do I decide what counts as activated?

It is the first thing a person does that they could not do by only signing up. For an invoicing tool, the first invoice sent. For a note app, the first note saved. In Kicklace you say which event it is.

How many activation emails should I send?

Two or three, a few days apart, and then stop. The last one can say it is the last. That honesty is often what gets a reply.

What if they reply that they do not want it?

Thank them and leave it there. A reply like that is the most useful thing the email can produce, and it is yours to answer. Kicklace never answers a reply by itself.