Onboarding: lifecycle strategy and retention
Created the strategy and content for Greenpeace’s welcome journey, showing supporters what their donations help achieve and how to get involved. The aim was to reduce early cancellations and encourage supporters to stay beyond their first 90 days.
Role
Senior Lifecycle Marketing Specialist
Organisation
Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Launched
May 2022
Channels
Email, Phone, Direct Mail
Tools
HubSpot, Salesforce
Customers were cancelling within the first 90 days due to limited follow-up beyond the receipt email and a lack of structured onboarding.
New supporters weren't guided on what would happen after signing up or how they could stay involved.
Supporters didn't see early proof of what their support enabled, making it harder to feel confident or motivated.
The emotional peak after signing up wasn't used to build connection or reinforce commitment.
An overview of Greenpeace’s new donor onboarding journey.
Used supporter research to plan the welcome journey and agree on its goals.
Mapped the early donor journey across email, phone, SMS and direct mail.
Worked with colleagues in fundraising and across the data and insights, CRM and technology teams to coordinate delivery.
Created the content to thank supporters, show what their donations help achieve and explain how to get involved.
Brought together email content, a welcome video and a digital welcome pack.
Built the email journey in HubSpot using supporter data from Salesforce.
Worked with Deloitte on the connection between HubSpot and Salesforce.
Helped define who would enter the journey and what would trigger each communication.
Worked with the technical team to identify the data needed for reporting.
Ran A/B tests on the length of the onboarding journey to compare how different timings affected engagement and retention.
Reviewed engagement and team feedback to identify improvements to the journey.
Planned further tests with printed welcome packs, SMS, Whatsapp and personalised content.
In July 2024, Donor Republic, a leading Australian fundraising and donor engagement consultancy, reviewed the first 90 days of onboarding across 50 Australian charities and ranked Greenpeace Australia Pacific #1 overall for best in class onboarding.
Results are based on internal campaign reporting. Rounded or projected figures are identified where applicable.
Reduced donor cancellations within first 90 days
Content interaction rate
Engagement rate in the first month
Different audiences need different journeys. Someone making a single donation needs different follow up from someone committing to regular giving.
How someone joined matters too. A supporter who has already spoken to our team needs a different introduction from someone who signed up online.
Timing deserves as much attention as content. Testing the journey’s length helped us question how quickly to move from saying thank you to asking people to get involved.
Email engagement only tells part of the story. We also need to track who stays and who cancels after onboarding to understand whether the journey is doing its job.
Next, I’d like to test whether AI can help us tailor content to supporters’ interests and choose better times to contact them.