How to Build an Automated SMS Welcome Series in 2025

An SMS welcome series is a smart way to make a great first impression and build a strong and long-term relationship with your audience.

Instead of sending a single thank-you message, you can set up a series of welcome messages to nurture your relationship with your new subscribers. 

Of course, to automatically send welcome messages at scale, you need to use a versatile SMS tool.

In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to automate an SMS welcome series and engage with your new customers.

What Are SMS Welcome Series?

As the name suggests, an SMS welcome series is a sequence of welcome messages to new customers/subscribers/members.

An SMS welcome series is a set of automated text messages triggered by specific user actions.

A welcome series typically includes multiple messages (usually 3–5) designed to greet new subscribers while also introducing them to your brand.

You might wonder why it’s better to send several welcome SMS messages to a new subscriber. The primary goals of an SMS welcome series are to build relationships and guide them with more information.

The following table compares these two types of welcome messages:

Aspect	Single Welcome Message	Welcome SMS Series
Number of Messages	One	3-5 messages
Timing	Sent immediately after sign-up	Sent over a period of time
Engagement Depth	Surface-level engagement	Deeper, ongoing engagement
Complexity	Simple and quick to implement	Requires more planning
Goal	Acknowledge and welcome	Nurture and build a relationship

Here are some of the key benefits of sending a welcome SMS series:

1. Strong First Impression

Customers receive countless promotional messages every day. By sending a non-promotional welcome SMS that acknowledges their presence, you can create a strong brand impression.

This helps you engage with new customers immediately and start building long-term relationships.

2. Increasing Brand Awareness and Trust

A difference between a welcome series and a single thank-you message is that you can introduce new subscribers to your products, values, and offerings.

This is the fastest and most direct means of building trust and familiarity that will lead to more sales.

3. Higher Conversion Rates

A welcome SMS series gives you multiple opportunities to share offers and CTAs, which significantly increases conversion rates.

Compared to a single thank-you message, a welcome SMS series has a higher chance of encouraging new members to buy a product.

4. Two-Way Messaging with Feedback

Sending several welcome messages can combine with two-way messaging to give you the ability to collect feedback from your subscribers. 

This feedback helps refine your sales funnel and improve the customer experience. It also gives you a chance to collect customer details and apply SMS segmentation for better personalization in future SMS campaigns.

How to Build SMS Welcome Series

Now that you know the importance of sending a welcome SMS series, it’s time to see how to create and send personalized welcome messages at scale.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

The first step in any SMS marketing campaign is setting SMART goals. You need to clearly define what you want your welcome series to achieve.

Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Common examples include:

• Building trust with new subscribers
• Encouraging a first purchase (e.g., with a discount)
• Educating users about your brand or product

Here is an example of a SMART goal: 

“Convert 20% of new subscribers into customers within 7 days.”

Step 2: Get Clear Consent

Many people don’t like to receive text messages from brands. If you send multiple welcome messages without permission, they might block your number or flag it as spam.

In addition, sending promotional SMS without consent is illegal in many countries. For example, to send an SMS welcome series to U.S. residents, you must comply with TCPA regulations and obtain clear opt-in consent.

So when people subscribe to your website or make a purchase for the first time, be transparent about why you’re requesting their phone numbers.

Step 3: Choose the Right SMS Platform

You have to choose an SMS marketing tool that supports automation, scheduling, segmentation, and other advanced features.

If you’re using a WordPress website, your best chance is to integrate your SMS campaigns into your website. This way, you don’t have to switch your dashboard when running your SMS campaigns.

WP SMS is one of the best SMS plugins for this purpose. It allows you to automate the SMS welcome series when your website’s users fill out a form or purchase something.

This plugin supports 350+ SMS gateways and integrates with lots of other platforms like WooCommerce, Booking, FluentCRM, etc.

It offers a free plan with basic features that are suitable for small businesses. However, if you want to run large-scale campaigns, you’d better choose a premium package. You can also try its demo version to make sure about its capabilities.

Step 4: Segment Your Audience

You can’t send a single message to all people and expect a high engagement rate. So you need to divide your audience into segments based on factors like age, gender, location, job role, or purchase history.

With WP SMS, you can segment website subscribers and deliver targeted messages to each group. This allows you to personalize communication and improve engagement.

For example, you can define two segments as “New Customers” and “Returning Customers”. Then, you have to talk to them differently. 

Step 5: Build Your Welcome Series Structure

Designing a clear structure for your SMS welcome series is essential for maximizing engagement and conversions.

Here is a typical welcome SMS series structure:

1. Length & Timing: Send 3–5 messages over 5–10 days. Adjust the frequency based on your audience and industry needs. Avoid overwhelming subscribers by spacing messages 2–3 days apart.

2. Message 1 (Immediate): Welcome + Incentive: You can start your SMS series with a warm greeting to acknowledge the subscriber’s opt-in or their first purchase. Personalize the message as much as possible to build a strong first impression.

3. Message 2 (Day 2): Brand Story or Value Prop: Mention the benefits of being part of your community and clearly say what they can expect from your SMS communications. Depending on your brand, you can also highlight your products or even redirect them to testimonials from previous customers.

4. Message 3 (Day 4): Call-to-Action (CTA): Try to encourage them to take immediate action like visiting your site or using a discount code.

5. Message 4 (Day 7): Additional Information: This is optional. You can send valuable links to guides, FAQs, or other useful links.

Step 6: Create Message Templates

Now it’s time to create SMS welcome message templates for each stage of your series structure.

Try to keep the messages short, focused on a single purpose, and include only necessary details. You must use tools like WP SMS that offer dynamic content features to define variables like names, dates, bills, etc.

This way, you can automatically customize the SMS welcome series according to the personal details of each recipient. 

Look at the following SMS templates and try to define similar templates for your brand using dynamic content features on WP SMS:

📩 Message 1: Immediate Welcome Message

📩 Message 2: Brand Introduction & Engagement

📩 Message 3: Engagement & Feedback Request

Step 7: Set Up Automation

Now, you must define triggers based on the subscribers’ behaviors to send an SMS welcome series.

For example, define a trigger for “Register a new user” or WP SMS and create an SMS template to send a welcome SMS series.

Of course, you need to test your welcome series to make sure everything is fine.

Examples of SMS Welcome Series

Let’s look at some practical examples of SMS welcome series from different industries to see how they work in real campaigns.

Example 1: E-Commerce – Fashion Retail

Imagine you have a brand in fashion retail and you want to sell your products using a WooCommerce platform.

You can consider SMS welcome series like the following examples to drive first purchase and introduce your brand values.

📩 Message 1

In the first message, you’ll have an immediate welcome along with a discount offer. Look at the example to see how:

📩 Message 2

After one day, you can send a message with a brand story and try to improve engagement. The following SMS sample shows how to do that:

📩 Message 3 

Your third message can be sent three days later and remind your customer of the discount. Here is an example:

📩 Message 4

Finally, you can send the following SMS to improve your partnership and offer to join social media profiles and get more perks:

Example 2: Health & Wellness – Gym Membership

This time, we want to consider an SMS welcome series for a gym. The following examples show how to encourage new members to visit and improve loyalty.

📩 Message 1

The first welcome message can be like the sample below: 

📩 Message 2

2-3 days later, you can send another message for motivation and facility introduction. Here is an example:

📩 Message 3

You can also send the third message after 4 days and remind them of their free session, and include the booking link. Look at the sample message to see how it works.

📩 Message 4

At last, you’d better send a message after a week and offer the new member a referral bonus.

Here is an SMS sample:

Tips for SMS Welcome Series

To make the most of your SMS welcome series, try to follow the tips below:

1. Timing Matters: Avoid sending welcome messages at inconvenient hours like late night or early morning. So you need to consider the best time to send your messages. 

2. Test Different Approaches: Use A/B testing to find the best version of your messages in terms of styles, lengths, and CTAs.

3. Provide an Opt-out Option: Respect international regulations about communication. For example, offer a way for unsubscription and get clear consent when sending promotional messages.

4. Leverage Multimedia: Consider using MMS with images, videos, or links to make your messages more engaging and visually appealing.

8. Make It Fun: You can use fun language to improve engagement. Of course, it should align with your brand culture.

9. Create a Sense of Urgency: Encourage subscribers to act quickly by including limited-time offers or expiring discounts. A sense of urgency makes your audience feel they might miss out on something valuable, increasing immediate engagement.

10. Offer a VIP Feel: Position your welcome SMS as an exclusive invitation, so recipients feel like valued members of a special group. This enhances loyalty right from the start.

Conclusion

A welcome SMS series can have a great impact on your engagement rates and customer loyalty. If you make a strong first impression, your customers are more likely to return to your brand in the future.

Of course, this is not as easy as it seems. You have to build a strong strategy to make the most of this opportunity. Try to choose an all-in-one SMS tool like WP SMS to automate your SMS series. If you need any help in your SMS marketing journey, you can contact us. You can also use the demo version of WP SMS to check its capabilities.

FAQs