Pardot Drip Campaign Idea: Employee Onboarding

I love marketing automation and the many ways we can utilize it to improve experiences and our Galvin brand. Although I enjoy writing about marketing automation best practices and thought leadership it is fun to sit back and share ideas on how we utilize Pardot. So I wanted to share with you a Pardot Drip Campaign Idea for onboarding a new employee who joins the team.

Employee Onboarding 21-Day Drip Campaign

As I’ve watched new employees join the Galvin team I’ve noticed that there is a set of sequences they all seem to take. On the first day a new employee would spend most of the day getting acquainted to the people, the policies, the processes, the technology we use and so much more. Then, for the remainder of the week the new employee will go through a series of meetings in which they will be trained on how to do certain things. This process seems to work just fine but for a new employee its like drinking from a fire hose. As a result, things will get missed or forgotten.

So we put our heads together on how we could improve this overall process. So we set out to create a 21-day drip campaign in which every new employee is entered into this campaign the moment they accept the job offer (typically 2 weeks before their start date).

Here is our Employee Onboarding Drip Cadence

Employee Accepts Offer -> Placed into “New Employee List“
Day 1: Welcome Email from their new manager – This is an email welcoming them to the Galvin team which includes their accepted offer along with copies of legal documentation (W-2, etc) that they can work on over the next two weeks.
- Add Task to Salesforce: We also utilize our Pardot and Salesforce integration to assign a new task in Salesforce to our internal IT to start the process of getting their technology ready.
Day 2: Email from one of their colleagues – On the next day the new employee would receive a welcome message from one of their colleagues they will be working with.
Day 3: New Employee Tips for Success – This email is to inform the new employee on how they can grow within Galvin. It will share stories, ideas and other facts.
Day 5: Email about our office location, New Augusta area in Indianapolis – We are fortunate enough to work in a historical area in Indianapolis called the New Augusta area. Our building is unique and is an old post office built in 1855. We always enjoy telling tell the story of the building and history as it is part of our brand. So naturally we want everyone else who works at Galvin to know the same story.
Day 7: Training – During the interview process we discuss training programs and expectations. This email is to introduce them to both mandatory training and suggested training.
Day 10: Why the Dog? – A lot of people ask why our logo has a dog in it. So we want to make sure everyone who works at Galvin understands the brand.
Day 12: What to expect on your first day – This email will come just before their first day at Galvin informing them on what they can expect on their first day. It will include the first day agenda, a reminder of what they should bring and other fun surprises.
Day 15: Update your preferences – This email will ask them to change their email preferences to their new galvintech.com email address.
Day 17: Documentation Reap – This email will recap the policies, processes and other important information they got introduced to. This email will have access to the various Salesforce Chatter groups where important information is stored. This should hopefully get them acclimated to our various Chatter groups.
Day 18: Where is this and that – This email will include of list of items that generally everyone asks for. This is for things like office and computer supplies and other items everyone generally asks for.
Day 21: Our Final Email – This is the final email we send to them with a surprise.
- Move to “Employee Email List” – we then move the employee out of the “New Employee List” and into our general “Employee Email List”.

This is a fairly simply drip campaign to put together. We then revisit the cadence about 2-3x / year to make sure it is working as it should and we try to find ways to make it better.

Does your company have an employee onboarding program? If so, I’d love to hear what ideas you have created and have worked. Just leave a comment below.

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