In this post, I’ll give you a complete, step-by-step tutorial on adding to your existing onboarding campaign a set of sequences that will automatically send reminder emails to your LearnDash students to keep them engaged.
This tutorial and campaign are only for people who are using LearnDash with Memberium for Infusionsoft.
In a nutshell, the campaign I’m about to show you sends automated email reminders to complete specific courses that students haven’t yet completed. If a student has already completed certain courses, they won’t receive any email reminders to complete them.
The key component that powers this entire campaign is Memberium’s integration with LearnDash. Using the integration, we can apply Infusionsoft tags to members when they complete a course in LearnDash.
This allows you to send out automated email reminders to a student dynamically based on where they had last left off in their training. Here’s an explanation of what that means in simpler terms…
Let’s say, for example, you have a student who completes the first two courses in your program, then they stop making any progress for a week after that. This campaign will send out emails reminding them to come back and complete the third course and so forth until they finish your full program.
If a student ends up completing all of the LearnDash courses inside of your site, they won’t end up getting any email reminders since they’ve already completed it.
As another example, for students who don’t complete any courses after signing up for your course or membership program, this campaign can be used to automatically send them a series of emails reminding them to complete the first course and get started.
This Campaign Only Works for Courses Being Completed in Sequential Order
Please note that the campaign will only work with LearnDash courses that must be completed in a specific, pre-defined order. Meaning you must complete Course 1, then Course 2, 3, 4, etc. in order before moving on to the next course.
This practice of forcing members to take courses in a specific order is already recommended to reduce overwhelming them by giving them access to your full library of information all at once.
Why is Onboarding for New Customers Necessary?
One of the most crucial yet undervalued parts of a membership site or online course is its onboarding campaign.
How many times have you bought a course only to never end up completing it? How many where you didn’t even complete a single lesson?
We get it – people have busy lives that are full of distractions, but as a site owner there are steps you can take to keep members’ attention. This campaign is simply one of them.
When it comes to onboarding new members to your site, one of the easiest things you can do is simply follow up with them by email every so often to remind them to come back and progress forward with the program they invested in.
Another key reason to try to get more people to complete the course is that most people aren’t going to buy other products from you if they never completed and got value from the first thing they bought.
Step by Step Instructions
Here are the step by step instructions on building out a campaign just like the one shown in the video at the top of this post. If you haven’t already watched the video, it may help you grasp the overall concept of how the campaign works, but the instructions are detailed so that watching is not necessary.
Step 1: Create a New Campaign or Modify Existing
You may already have an onboarding campaign set up or you may need to set one up. Ultimately, by the end of this step, you need a campaign that has the following:
- Apply Main Access Tags (so members can access content)
- Generate a Password (HTTP POST)
- Send a Welcome Email (with login details)
If your existing campaign already has those in place, move on to the next step. Otherwise, keep reading and I’ll walk you through setting up a basic onboarding sequence.
In the image above, you can see we are triggering a campaign with a purchase goal. You will want this purchase goal to sync up with the product you’ve setup in Infusionsoft.
If you’re not using Infusionsoft to process payments, you can change this goal to a tag goal. Have your payment system apply a tag to each contact that purchases your course/program and then use that purchase tag to trigger this campaign.
Now we’ll look inside the first sequence attached to the goal:
Inside this sequence, the first thing we’re doing is applying the main access tag for your content. This may be a single tag (membership tag) or it could be multiple tags.
As a general rule (though your case could be different), this tag will be the tag associated with the membership level you’ve protected your content with.
In the example below, the course is protected with the “Membership Coach Access” membership. For this, we will apply the tag associated with that Membership level.
Next, you’ll configure an HTTP POST module that will generate a password for the member. This password will be emailed in the next step.
To set up the HTTP POST, you’ll need to follow this linked guide or use the screenshot below as a template.
After the POST is configured, send a welcome email that encourages members to sign into the site right away and start a course. You’ll want the email to include a link to the site, their username/email, and the password that was generated in the last step.
At that point, you can set a delay timer to wait for 4-7 days depending on when you want to send the first reminder email. Remember: the reminder email will only be sent if the member hasn’t completed the first course. If they complete it before the wait timer is over, they’ll never get the reminder email which is exactly how we want this to work.
Step 2: Create the First Reminder Sequence
In the image below, you can see the part of the campaign that this post is actually focusing on: the LearnDash Course Reminders
To give you a quick overview, there is a sequence for each course and a tag goal that follows the sequence. I’ll show you inside the sequences in a moment, but the sequences are setup to wait a certain period of time and then send a reminder email or multiple emails if you choose.
The tag goal that follows the sequence gets triggered when a member completed the course in question. When the tag goal is triggered, the member is pulled out of the sequence and advanced into the next sequence. This does two things: First, it stops the email reminders for the course they just completed and second, it starts the email reminders for the next course in the series (they’ll be sent if the course isn’t completed in 7-14 days – configurable).
Looking inside the first sequence (below) you can see there is an initial wait timer. You will set this to be however long you want from when the member leaves the onboarding sequence to when they get the first email reminder. Usually, you’ll want this to be at least a week in total. Keep in mind, in the example above, I also had a delay timer in the onboarding part of the campaign so that’s why here it’s only 1 day.
Next, we actually send an email to the member. I’ll give you some example copy in just a moment. Then we’re waiting for 5 days and sending another email reminder.
You can change the number of emails (add more, remove some) and also change how often they are sent to match your members and their expectations.
This sequence will be repeated for each course that you have.
Step 3: Email Reminder Content
In the emails, you’ll want to include content that is specific to the course you’re reminding them to check back into. Below, I’ve included a template you can use as a starting point.
If the template below doesn’t work for you, feel free to use your own copy. I understand this template won’t fit every single site.
Hey ~Contact.FirstName~, It’s been over a week since you joined [Program Name]. I wanted to take a moment and congratulate you for being ready to [End goal of the program]! To get started with [Program Name], we recommend you start watching or resume the [First Module Name with URL Linked] module to continue on with your training. Each of the lessons are just [Insert Average Time] long and easy to watch. Ready to get started? Start Watching This first section of [Program Name] will help you [Benefit of Program]. Each lesson will guide you through how to implement the actionable resources or assignment that we give you. [Insert Your Signature]
You’ll want to copy the text above into the email and update the formatting as needed.
Make sure to replace all the bracketed parts with content that makes sense for the course you’re reminding them to come back to.
On the links in the email, you can include a Memberium Autologin Link to automatically allow the member to get to the content without needing to enter their login details. Click here to read more or watch a video on how to implement that.
You can use this copy in all of your emails – just customizing some of the bracketed content to be different for each course.
Step 4: Setup Tag Goals
Once you have all the sequences in place, you’ll want to set up the tag goals that will stop members from receiving emails for courses they’ve already completed.
This is all done using the Memberium LearnDash Integration. On each course page, you’ll need to configure Memberium to apply a tag to the member when they complete the course.
In the screenshot above, you’re seeing the box where you’ll need to set up that tag. On your site, you’ll have a drop-down that will list the names of the tags along with their IDs which is super easy to use.
If you don’t already have tags, create some tags using a naming scheme such as “[COURSE NAME] – COMPLETED”
Once you’ve set the tags on all of your courses you’ll go back to the campaign and set those tags goals to trigger. For example, the first tag goal will be waiting for members to complete the first course and receive the tag you’ve set there. The second tag goal is waiting for the second course completed tag to be applied. You get the idea.
Step 5: Ensure Cancelled Members are Removed
One last thing to setup is a tag goal that will remove members who have cancelled or been removed from your membership site. We don’t want cancelled members to receive reminder emails to come back to the content they don’t have access to. It’s not a good experience.
You can see above that I have a tag goal hooked up to each of the sequences so that when a member cancels they are pulled out no matter what sequence they are in. This tag goal is triggered when they receive a CANC tag for the membership.
I’ve set up Infusionsoft to automatically apply the CANC tag for my membership after a payment has failed a certain number of times or if the member self-cancels the subscription using Memberium.
If you’re using a third-party eCommerce system (like WooCommerce), you’ll want that system to apply a tag that can be used to trigger this goal when a member cancels.
Additional Notes
Keep in mind that this is a template you can modify to meet your needs. Hopefully, you now understand the concepts of how to set up an automated reminder system like this.
You could use this system to get very detailed and remind members when they haven’t completed individual lessons. You’d just use the Memberium integration to apply tags for each lesson when it’s completed.
How to Test Everything and Make Sure It Works
The first step to test the campaign is to create a new test user in Infusionsoft. All you need to do is create the new test user with a first name and email address.
Once you’ve done that, place a test order or manually add the test contact to the campaign. This simulates someone entering the campaign after they’ve purchased access to your site.
You can take a look at your test contact’s record in Infusionsoft and look for the ‘Campaigns’ section near the middle of the page. From there, you can see the scheduled emails and when they’re going to be sent. You can then complete a course, come back, refresh, and see if the emails have changed (they should have moved to the next course emails).
After testing, you’re all set. If you do have questions, reach out to our support team and we’d be glad to help!
