40. Copy Your Onboarding Might Be Missing

In this episode, Samantha digs into one of the most overlooked areas in a service-based business: onboarding copy. Most business owners pour energy into attracting new leads, but let the experience go flat the moment someone fills out a contact form. This episode walks through the full client journey, from that first inquiry to kickoff, and shows exactly where nurture emails and branded copy can keep people warm, excited, and moving forward.

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Transcript

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Hey pals, welcome back to Copy and the Marketing Podcast, where I teach you how to write copy that sounds like you but converts better. And today we are talking about several pieces of copy that go overlooked too often, and that is your onboarding copy. Now, I have long said, and you can go back to previous episodes and hear me say this, there's a difference between content and copy. Content is tends to be for computers. It tends to fill space. It tends to be more educational. Copy is here to convert, but they are a Venn diagram. And so this copy is very uniquely positioned to convert because it is your onboarding copy. It's what takes people from being aware of you and to having a conversation with you, to eventually buying from you and working with you long term. And what we never wanna do is put our best copy forward only to people who have not yet purchased from us. We want the people who are closer into our orbit to feel that same warm feeling and to help guide them to clicking the button, making the sale, signing the contract, paying the invoice. Okay? So today we're going to talk about onboarding copy. Now, onboarding copy in small businesses may look different from large businesses. So if you found this podcast and you are potentially an employee for a large corporation, you might say, "Wow, Sam, I had no idea that my company did this much behind the scenes to get people into our orbit." But if you're a small business owner, we have to wear all of the hats. We are marketers. We are financiers. We are managers. We are strategists. And all of that comes to play in the client acquisition process. So I'm gonna make a few assumptions here. I'm gonna make the assumption that the person listening to this is a service provider, that you are offering done for you services, and that you are selling through sales calls The other assumption here is that you have some sort of CRM or customer relationship management system. This looks different for all of us, and it might be aspirational for you. But the two that I work with the most often with myself and my clients are a client of Dubsado, D-U-B-S-A-D-O, or HoneyBook is the other popular one in the small business space. Some people are also leveraging Notion and Google to do things like collect signatures and automate emails. But the two CRMs that I find that are most common in the small business space are Dubsado and HoneyBook. Other ones that you may be using include HubSpot is a big one, especially for companies who are over a couple million dollars. So I've worked with all of those. They all have very similar flows. People who are experts in them might say, "Sam, they are not similar at all. How dare you?" But again, we are basing off the assumption that you are a service-based business owner and that you are going to need these processes if you don't have them in place already. If you have them in place already, continue listening because I might have some copy ideas that help you make even more money from the systems that are supporting you. Let's go. So I'm going to break up my copy thoughts into three separate spaces here. The first is from when people have filled out your form, typically on your website, but before you get them on a call. The second group of copy that we're going to talk about is once you've gotten them on a call, what copy do you need? And then finally, what copy do you need in your onboarding system after they have become a client? And when I say become a client, this means that they have signed their contract and paid their first invoice or a deposit, okay? So starting at the top, people navigate to you. They find you either through your email list, through a referral, through SEO, and they landed on your website and they say, "Okay, this is the person that I want to work with." They go to your contact page, they fill out a form. This will likely set in motion a series of automations. At the basis, it gets them on your calendar and you both get a notification that says so-and-so is on your calendar. Great. Now, how can we make this even more of a red carpet rollout for somebody who is about to meet you? The goal here is to keep it on brand and to keep them excited to show up with you, to show up to a conversation with you. So the first piece of copy that you're going to want to send is a call confirmation. Typically, this is going to be automated by either Dubsado or if you have a third-party scheduling system, it will come from them. Some of them are customizable, some of them are not. However, if they are customizable, this is an opportunity to keep people clicking and keep them in your world. So this call confirmation will not only tell them Hey, great, you're on the calendar," it will also give them a link to add it to their calendar. This is imperative for your show-up rates that the email that they receive gives them the opportunity to add it to their calendar, not just says, "Hey, you're on. I'll see you soon," but there's a link to get it added. Most scheduling platforms are gonna offer this, including Dubsado and HoneyBook and their third-party providers, but also TidyCal, Calendly, all are going to send an email that has a one-click Add to Cal link. You can further edit this email to be even more on brand for you, though. You might wanna add in personality like emojis or say, "Woo-hoo, I'm so glad you're here." You can change the subject line to be on brand. You could change the font within it to be some of your brand fonts if you want. Another great way that you can use this call confirmation email is it says, "Add to your calendar here," but then go in and say, "And if you'd like to see some of my past work, click here." Maybe it takes them to a portfolio. Or feel free, like, if you're a millennial like me, you may wanna cyberstalk me. I'll make it easy. Here's a link to my LinkedIn and to my Instagram. This just keeps people in your world and gives them that little bit of flavor for who they're about to meet. Additionally, when people get on your calendar, you can also bounce them to a call confirmation page or to a thank you page. At every step of the process, it is imperative to remind people what working with you is like, both from a feeling standpoint, so that's the words that you're using, and to give them a rundown of what to expect. So you may wanna send them to a thank you page that says, "Great, you've taken the first step to make your bookkeeping easier," or, "You've taken the first step to beautifying your website project," if you're a designer. And the next steps are, one, we'll have our conversation. Two, if we find out that we're a great fit, I will send you a contract and invoice. And three, three months from today, you will have a brand-new website. So keep them abreast of what is happening throughout the process, especially if you have the opportunity to leverage a thank you page. Depending on how far out people book with you, you could have a few show-up emails as well. Of course, you're gonna have one that goes out automatically that says, "Hey, our meeting is in either 24 hours or one hour." Maybe you have both of those. But you could also continue to throw in things like, "Hey, if you wanna check out my Instagram or LinkedIn," or one that my friend Devin at devinlee.com, if you wanna check her out, she's a systems expert and builds people's onboardings in Dubsado and other programs. Something she recommended was to have a, "Hey, I'm so excited to talk to you. While you're waiting, here's a list of some of my favorite resources for blank." And it sends people out to podcasts that she's been on and some of the softwares that she uses or that she's an expert in. Use these show-up emails or these reminder emails to further demonstrate your expertise. Typically, these emails are gonna be just a few sentences long, but ultimately between when people fill out your form and they get on the calendar, you're gonna have the opportunity to send a couple of emails and potentially add a thank you page that helps you start to develop that relationship, and it's all gonna be automated. The next step to onboarding somebody is to actually get on a call with them. Then you've got copy that comes to them after you've had this call. So assuming that people do wanna work with you and that we're continuing to onboard, 'cause you probably won't talk to them again if the call doesn't go well, you're gonna need emails to them, and you're gonna need proposals to them. So again, reiterating what Devin, our systems expert, says, is that you need to make sure that people know exactly where they are in the process every time you reach out to them. So when you get off a call with them, you're probably gonna go and create your contract and invoice and proposal. Now, proposals themselves can be amazing and beautiful, especially if you're using Dubsado or HoneyBook. And inside of those proposals, you get to be prescriptive. So this is an opportunity to take what would be content, or it could be very legalese, and add some copy into it. Within proposals, you can typically add add-on services that are recommendations, and I'll give you a very specific example here. I am eloping this year, and in my elopement planner's package, in her proposal, she had add-ons at the bottom. So it wasn't just, "Here's my basic services." She gave me examples of other people that she could hire or other services that we could add on to our wedding weekend. I at no point felt like they were coming out of the blue Or that she was trying to sell me something. They felt like additional services that I would want. So think about using your proposal as a place to position a broader scope where you could end up selling more to your clients. And also think of your proposals as somewhere where you can be super on brand when working with them. Other examples of this might be if you're in the travel industry, you might have your basic travel planning package, but you could also have some add-ons like offering one-on-ones with each member of the trip for a specific price. Or you could have, if you were a designer, you could add on a branding package in addition to your design package. So proposals are simply an opportunity for people to understand what the full scope of working with you is, and you can position additional products here and be super on brand and fun and add photos and imagery and design them so that people are still getting that feel for who you are in the process. So again, after your call, you have the two opportunities, sending emails and also beautiful proposals with opportunities to sell in them. What do you need in the emails? First, you need to, again, be handholding people through the entire process. So you need to tell people what to do next. I always recommend doing this in the form of a checklist rather than plain text paragraphs. The reason why is people need to know with a heading, here's what I expect from you. One, fill out the contract. Sign the contract by X date. Two, put your deposit down. Click here to view your invoice. And three, any other homework that you might have for them. So that's email number one. If you don't hear from them right away, this is where you get to continue to hold people's hands. So you may want to send an email that says something like, hey, I sent over the contract and invoice yesterday. Let me know if you haven't received it and I can resend. As a reminder, we cannot guarantee your spot in my schedule until the proposal is accepted and we have a deposit. So you can start to put these very supportive emails in place where you get to remind them that you're available. Also, if a couple of these emails come around and they haven't responded, it might be a good opportunity to reach out from your personal email rather than from your third party CRM like HoneyBook or Dubsado or HubSpot, just to make sure that they're getting them because sometimes these things go to spam. Or depending on your relationship, reach out to them on social media. So that's the second group of copy is the copy that happens after you've gotten them on a call and they've agreed to a project, but before they become a client is there's several emails where we get to handhold through the process and your proposals. Now, once they sign your proposal and put down a deposit, then they are officially a client. And you have the opportunity to send great on-brand copy here as well. Remember, again, you need to guide them through the entire process, and I have people come to me inside of Copy on Demand and say, Sam, somebody signed on, and then I, like, didn't hear from them again." And my first question to them is always, "Have you been reaching out to them, though? Have you told them what the process is and what their expectations are? Did they sign the contract and didn't realize that they were also supposed to schedule their kickoff call with you?" Because you may need to, again, write even more emails that get automated and go out to them depending on where they are in the process. Make sure that they know exactly what their next step is that you need them to do now and what the timeline is that you need them to do other tasks on. The more that you can remind them in every single email, the better off you'll be. You could also copy/paste a project timeline into the PS for every one of these emails if that's helpful for both you and them. And finally, another piece of copy here that I wanna be sure that you have once people are a client is getting feedback at every step of the way. This feedback is important for three reasons. The first is client voice. Why do you need client voice? So that you can be sure that the way that you are talking about their project is the same way that they are talking about their project. Because when you go to sell another project to somebody later on, you wanna be sure that you are speaking like your clients and not like you. The second is because testimonials are valuable. You can grab these testimonials to share on social media, to share in your sales copy in the future. And the third is to give you the opportunity to change the way that you're working with people. So if people absolutely love, your work, and they're giving you great feedback, great, then they're not asking you to change. But if people are saying, "This is great, but..." then you have the opportunity to either course-correct or position a different product in front of them that is going to serve them better. So I want you to think of asking for testimonials as an open conversation, but also potentially one of your biggest opportunities to upsell in the future there's a couple of pieces of technology that I wanna talk about here. The first is Senja. I believe it's spelled S-E-N-J-A, and this was recommended by my friend Devin Lee, who is a systems expert. What she has people do in her feedback is every so often, people get a check-in email, and this is important for her because her projects tend to be multiple months long. I'm not sure how often she sends them, but let's say that she sends them every two weeks. Every couple Fridays, somebody's getting an email that says, "Hey, are you happy with how we are working together?" And it rates it on a scale of one to five. She is able to use Senja to, if they say four or five, say, "Thanks. If you'd like to leave me a compliment, do so here." If it is a one to a three, she has it prompt something that says, "Oh, no, what can I be doing better?" And it sends her an email right away, so she knows that there's something that she needs to do to course-correct, and she can better deliver on her work. The other piece of software that you could use here is Block Builder. This is something that's new to me. It's less dynamic, but it's also a one-time pay offer. I believe I paid a hundred fifty dollars for it up front. And what Block Builder is, is there's a lot of uses for it, but I can embed a block into an email where people can click on it, and I can say something like, Are you enjoying how our project is going right now? Please let me know if there's anywhere that I need to course-correct." And it embeds it right into an email, and they can leave me that feedback right there, and it automatically sends me an email and lets me know that somebody has left me feedback. So either Senja or Block Builder could be great ways to ask for feedback and get more in-client voice. There's a lot of copy that goes into, like, literally every part of running a business, including into your onboarding sequence, and it's somewhere that kind of goes forgotten because most of our CRMs and our calendar platforms and other softwares send automatic emails, and oftentimes that is enough. But as you uplevel your business, it's important to continue to be as on brand as possible and to create a spider web. Give people lots of things to click on, and lots of ways to stay in your world. The more connected they are to you, the more connected they will feel to you, and the more connected they feel to you, the more likely they are to recommend you, to buy from you, and to keep you top of mind. So hopefully that gives you some great ideas for copy that you can use in your onboarding sequence if you aren't already. And if I forgot anything, reach out and let me know. Shoot me a message on Instagram, I'm at nomad.copy. And if you need a systems expert in your corner, I highly recommend Devin Lee. She's at D-E-V-I-N-L-E-E.com And of course, if you need a copywriter in your corner, reach out to me. I am at nomadcopyagency.com. Have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon