How to Set Up Automated Onboarding Checklists and Welcome Sequences in Keap

Streamlining the onboarding process for new clients or employees is critical for setting the right tone and ensuring long-term success. Manual onboarding is not only time-consuming but prone to inconsistencies and missed steps. Leveraging Keap’s powerful automation capabilities allows businesses to deliver a consistent, personalized, and efficient onboarding experience, freeing up valuable time for high-value interactions. This guide will walk you through setting up automated onboarding checklists and welcome sequences, transforming your new client or employee integration process into a seamless operation.

Step 1: Map Your Onboarding Journey and Define Segments in Keap

Before diving into Keap, take time to meticulously map out your ideal onboarding journey. Identify every touchpoint, piece of information, and action required from both your new client/employee and your internal team. What are the key milestones? What resources do they need at each stage? Once you have a clear journey, translate this into Keap tags and segments. For example, create tags like “New Client – Service A,” “New Hire – Marketing,” or “Onboarding Stage 1 Complete.” These tags will be the foundation for triggering specific sequences and personalizing communication, ensuring each individual receives highly relevant content and tasks based on their unique role or service.

Step 2: Design Your Onboarding Checklists and Tasks within Keap

With your journey mapped, it’s time to build the actionable components. Utilize Keap’s task management features to create your onboarding checklists. For each step identified in your journey, create a corresponding task. Assign these tasks to specific team members (e.g., “IT Setup” to IT, “Welcome Call” to Account Manager) and set due dates. For collecting initial information or confirmation from the new client/employee, leverage Keap Forms. These forms can gather necessary details, confirm receipt of documents, or serve as a ‘done’ button for a specific onboarding stage, which can then trigger subsequent automation.

Step 3: Craft Engaging Welcome Sequence Emails and Content

The welcome sequence is your opportunity to make a strong first impression and provide essential information. Develop a series of emails that guide your new client or employee through their initial days or weeks. This might include a warm welcome message, a link to key resources (e.g., employee handbook, client portal), an introduction to their primary contact, and clear next steps. Focus on clarity, conciseness, and value. Use Keap’s personalization features to dynamically insert names, roles, or company-specific information, making each communication feel tailored and genuine. Remember to provide contact information for support, should they have questions.

Step 4: Build the Automation Campaigns in Keap’s Campaign Builder

Now, connect all the pieces using Keap’s Campaign Builder. This visual drag-and-drop tool allows you to design the entire automated workflow. Start your campaign with a trigger, such as applying a “New Client” tag, submitting an onboarding form, or a deal stage changing to “Won.” From there, build out your sequences: the welcome email series, task assignments, and conditional logic. For example, after the welcome email, set a delay, then send the next email and assign a task to your team. Create goals within the campaign, such as “Onboarding Complete,” to mark the successful conclusion and potentially trigger further automations, like a follow-up survey.

Step 5: Implement Smart Trigger Points and Conditional Logic

The power of Keap lies in its ability to adapt. Implement smart trigger points that initiate specific sequences. This could be a tag applied manually by your sales team after a sale, an email submitted through a form on your website, or a purchase made. Use decision diamonds within your campaign to create conditional logic. For instance, if a new hire is in the “Sales” department, they receive a different set of emails and tasks than someone in “Operations.” This ensures that the automation is not just linear but intelligent, catering to the diverse needs of your various onboarding paths and providing a highly customized experience for each individual.

Step 6: Test Thoroughly, Refine, and Launch Your Keap Automation

Before going live, rigorous testing is non-negotiable. Create dummy contacts in Keap and run them through your entire onboarding campaign. Verify that emails are sent correctly and on time, tasks are assigned to the right people with the correct due dates, and all links and forms function as expected. Check the conditional logic to ensure contacts are routed correctly based on your criteria. Gather feedback from team members involved in the onboarding process. After testing and any necessary refinements, launch your automated system. Continue to monitor its performance, collect feedback from new clients/employees, and iterate to optimize the experience over time. This continuous improvement ensures your Keap automation remains efficient and effective.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: The Automated Recruiter: Your Blueprint for Transforming Talent Acquisition with Keap & AI