Card Member Onboarding

Becoming an American Express Card Members is a big deal. For many people it is a sign of success. Having the Card in your wallet is nice, but Membership in this elite group comes with a ton of benefits that take time to learn and use. 

Previously, new Members went through a CRM-based onboarding program that provided all the information you needed, in every communication. This sequence lacked any continuity, didn’t build on previous knowledge and was not contextual to what the Card Member needed at that point in time.

We were asked to rethink this email series in a way that would increase engagement and turn early tenure Card Members into Amex loyalists.

Responsibilities: Creative Direction, Content Strategy, Design Direction,

Agency: Sandbox/Merge

The strategy:

The approach

The goal with this program is to establish card usage habits, build trust with new Card Members and open pathways to digital engagement, with that in mind, we shifted from a fixed sequence of content-heavy emails to a series of triggered, personalized micro-touches. Created a high-level content journey to define each communication, aligning with the milestones.

The sequence starts off with the essentials, and builds up to advanced benefits. We decided that each email should focus on a single topic or action. Any personalization or dynamic content would bring value and not just add fluff. Overall the emails should feel like a unified series with an ownable look and voice.

A design system was created based on atomic design principles.

New Additional Card Members also received these communications, with the same goal of increasing their digital engagement. This proved to be a challenge since benefits for them are significantly less than benefits afforded basic Card Members.