What does drip mean?

A drip campaign is a set of emails automatically sent to subscribers after they complete a set of actions. You get control over the action, the number of emails sent, and the send rate. These emails are individualized, addressing the receiver by name, and referencing the actions they took. The action can be anything-like singing up for an online course, adding items to cart without checking out, and so on. The drip campaigns aims at nurturing freemium customers, converting subscribers to buyers, and delivering useful content that ends with a CTA. 

Drip Marketing Explained 

Drip marketing is sending out a limited series of emails to your subscribers automatically, on a predefined timeline. Based on actions they perform on your site. Enterprises and business use it as a way of keeping touch with their audience in a way that is both personal and targeted. The marketing can be triggered by events such as:

• Placing an order
• Participating in a store event
• Subscribing to your webcast
• Abandoning a cart
• Contacting customer service department
• Inactivity for a certain duration of time. 

Drip marketing works because it is:

• Automated based on the aforementioned actions
• Sent on a set schedule to keep the subscriber engaged, but not too often that they are overwhelmed.

It is this second characteristic that gives this strategy its ‘drip’ name. Slow and steady, it can feature however many emails are necessary for proper communication, typically around five. Each campaign features content related to the action, but is personalized for each subscriber. As the sender, you only need to write the email once, and the rest of the process is automated.  

Are Drip Campaigns for you?

Like other email marketing strategies, drip campaigns are meant to boost your sales by increasing conversions, encouraging repeat business and reestablishing contact with dormant subscribers. Sharing on your company’s values helps you reinforce the relationship you have with your audience, and indicates that you bear the capacity to meet their needs. 

Since drip campaigns are individualized and targeted, they have a higher efficiency rate. They are ideal because most customers prefer buying from brands that recognize them by name.

How Are Drip Campaigns Used?

Drip campaigns are designed to reach a subscriber at the right time, with the right message, like a happy birthday, or a welcome note. Because of their automation, they allow you to work on other things that matter. 

Drip marketing emails offer you that invaluable connection with a user, without your input or your presence at the time when it matters the most. 

Types of Drip Campaigns

These are the types of drip campaigns to engage your leads and prospects with. 

Onboarding drip campaign

For when you enroll new subscribers. This campaign aims at sending introductory content to welcome new members. This drip should contain all the relevant information that a newcomer needs to learn about your brand. It is ideal for following up with people you may have met at a real-life event or sale that your company hosted. It should offer value to them, and urge them to get in touch with your sales department. The email should include links to blog posts offering information on upcoming events or sales, a limited-time coupon, or a series of discounted products that they have shown interest in. 

Retargeting drip campaign

Designed for users who have engaged with you in some way-downloaded an e-book, frequented some pages- but have not been around for a while. The purpose of retargeting is to bring them back or persuade a purchase. The emails can include an editable workbook to complement their e-book, feedback request, or a chat request from a member of your sales team. 

Post-Demo Campaign

Popular in tech circles where demos precede any actual sales. It is ideal for any business that offers demos for their products or services. Following the demonstration, it is important to underline how much more value your product offers over the competition. In these emails, you can include testimonials from past satisfied customers, tutorials on features that the leads may have expressed interest in, or an offer to a limited-time free trial. 

Date-based Campaigns

The ability to send emails to your audience on dates unique to them is one of the highlights of drip marketing. These date-based campaigns can be triggered by:

Subscriptions and Reorders

For businesses built to offer products or services on a subscription basis such as gyms, fitness studios, newsletters, farm produce delivery, groceries, a drip campaign is ideal for notifying your clients to renew their subscription. Highlight the successes you have had in the past, the value they are getting from you, and sway them with upcoming discounts or offerings. 

Anniversaries, birthdays and other special events may not invite a set of emails, but they offer an important contact opportunity that allows you to communicate your brands value and worth which might even culminate in a purchase. 

Communication based campaigns

Action triggers most drip campaigns, as noted previously. Here are a few of them that offer a premise for marketing.

First Purchase

When a buyer makes their first purchase, it offers a pristine opportunity to establish contact. Whether it is to appreciate their business, highlight some of the features and qualities of the products they have purchased or offer tips to maximize their purchase. This could be through suggestions for products that complement the ones purchased, or user reviews from customers who previously bought them. Engaging them this early makes them feel as part of the community, and sets you up for future business. 

Recommendations

Suggesting related items can help you increase your sales. These recommendations can be attached to your order confirmation email or the shipment tracking email. Conversely, you can do a follow-up a few weeks or months after to recommend parts or refills as necessary.

Follow-Up

For education and onboarding purposes. When someone talks to your customer service team or sales team for inquiries, clarifications, or shipping, a drip offers an opportunity to sign them up for more. For instance, if they reach out concerning a missing invoice, you can encourage them to sign up for emailed invoices. Similarly, if a user did not finish a tutorial video, demo or registration for a product, a drip campaign can persuade them to resume the task to completion and better connect them to your business.  

Abandoned carts

It is not unusual for a prospective buyer to add items to their cart then remove them, or abandon the cart altogether without finalizing their purchase. An abandoned cart drip can encourage them to review and possibly complete their purchase. They key is to be selective in the content you include in your email. Offering suggestions based on their abandoned cart without mentioning the specific items they ordered is the ideal approach likely to get a positive response. 

Leads

Interest shown by prospective users is prime for targeting. When someone enrolls for a webinar, downloads content from your site, or uses interactive tool. It is an indicator of interest. If you offer pressure washing services, you can offer tips on gutter cleaning, or promote your grease removal products. Lead nurturing is delicate and multifaceted and can be anything from detailing a product’s features. Outlining benefits derived from an online course to explaining the benefits and features of the services you offer. Nurturing your leads is a good way to increase conversions and add value to purchases. 

Unsubscribe

If a user chooses to exit your emailing list, you can do a follow-up for feedback on what you can do differently. If they unsubscribe from a service such as a gym membership, you can offer a discount or incentive to win them back.

Do a follow-up three or six months later to ‘checkup’ on them, and inquire if they have reconsidered your offerings. 

Setting up a drip campaign

A drip campaign is always running, doing the work behind the scenes. Nurturing and marketing, to offer you every chance of success. Here are simple steps to follow when setting up a drip marketing campaign.

Define your triggers

Decide the events that will kick-start the drip, based on what you have to offer. It is at this step where you define the goals of the drip. Whether it’s for promotion, increasing brand awareness, increase revenue or increase engagement with users. Determining your goals helps you measure progress and success.

Know your users

This will help you know who to target with your campaign. Will first purchase drips be sent to all new members, or those who complete purchases?

Craft your content

Drip emails are typically short and succinct. Create compelling content to appeal to your readers, ensuring to maintain your brands message and quality. 

Keep track

Metrics are essential in analyzing the performance of your campaign. From click and open rates to click through and conversion rates. The measurements will help you adjust and adapt your campaign until it offers satisfactory ROI.

Maintain

Ensure to update the content of your drips with time. As your offerings change, so should the material of your emails. 

Finally, determine when to remove someone from the drip. If the sale is made, they need to be unenrolled to ensure their experience with you remains positive. Set triggers that will remove users from the campaign once the goal of the drip has been achieved. 

Summary

You need to choose your drip campaign software wisely. As drips work on automation, an automation tool that offers you the flexibility of segmenting your recipients and setting schedules is desirable. It should integrate effortlessly with your CRM, offer real-time data, and allow you the freedom to adjust, update and personalize your campaigns as you wish. It should have a simple UI to allow your sales team to adopt it with ease.