> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hamla.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Welcome new customers
> The first message after someone joins gets opened more than anything else you will ever send. Use it properly.
Someone just gave you their email, or bought for the first time, or joined your loyalty scheme. Right now they are more interested in you than they will ever be again.
The welcome series is the one campaign where attention is free. Almost everything else is spent fighting for it.
## What you need
* **A way people join** — a [popup](/how-to/grow-your-list), a form, a first order, or an [event you send](/how-to/hamla-events)
* **Email**, on the Free plan. **Push** is a useful second step for anyone who accepted notifications
## Set it up
> Set up a welcome series: capture the email on site, welcome them by email an hour later, then a push a few days after
Three steps, spread out, is the shape that works for most businesses. Not because three is magic — because each one has a different job.
| Step | Timing | Its job |
| ----- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **1** | Immediately | Deliver whatever you promised. If they signed up for a code, the code is here |
| **2** | About an hour later | Say who you are and what to expect. This is the only message where people will actually read that |
| **3** | A few days later | Give them a reason to come back once — the thing you most want them to try |
## What to actually say
The second message is the one people get wrong. It is not a company history.
> We roast on Tuesdays, so anything you order midweek was roasted this week. Most people start with the Ethiopian. Reply to this email if you want a recommendation — it comes to me, not a helpdesk.
That does three things: gives them a fact worth knowing, removes the paralysis of choosing, and makes replying feel possible.
**Do not put a discount in every step.** If all three messages carry an offer, you have taught someone in their first week that there is always an offer. Put value in the middle message and let it do the work.
## What actually happens
Everyone who joins from now on enters the sequence at step one and moves through it on their own schedule — the person who joins tonight gets their second message an hour later, whatever anyone else is doing.
Anyone already on your list is untouched. A welcome series only ever applies going forward.
## Launch it
> Launch the welcome series
Then it runs for every new contact, indefinitely, until you pause it.
## Check on it
> How is the welcome series doing?
The number to watch is what happens **after** the third message — did they come back, order, book. High opens across all three and nothing afterwards means the sequence was pleasant and asked for nothing.
## Related
Getting people onto the list in the first place.
The next moment worth catching.
For when the welcome worked and then they drifted.
More ready-made asks.