Why & How to Use the Tried & Trued Marketing Tactic
When the kids say “drip” these days, they’re probably not referring to rain off the roof or water from the faucet; they’re more likely complimenting someone else’s fashion sense (for now at least, until it becomes uncool to say anymore). What is sure to last longer than the slang use of the word drip is the use of drip emails in marketing, which have been a powerful tool since email’s inception. Today, if you want to elevate your messaging game, consider adding some serious drip to your emails.
What is Drip Marketing?
Drip marketing involves sending out a series of messages at a deliberate, scheduled pace, or “drip,” based on a customer’s or prospect’s behaviors. While drip marketing can be used in everything from direct mail to social media, email is the most common type of drip marketing, due to its low cost and personalization capability.
Email is still one of the most popular forms of communication in the world, which makes it still one of the most effective ways for companies to connect with consumers. But just sending out one email may not be enough to capture and maintain your audience’s attention.
Typically automated, a drip email campaign consists of different pre-written marketing emails strategically sent out at specific intervals, to a specific target audience, and often triggered by a person’s actions or lack of action. For instance, when a customer abandons a digital shopping cart, they’re likely to trigger drip emails starting with a reminder to finish their purchase, followed by other emails and messages based on how they respond, or don’t, to each email. These emails can be more reminders, special savings offers, or other messaging to lure them back into the sales funnel.
Rather than overwhelming your audience with a bunch of emails at once and winding up on the dreaded block list, drip email campaigns are designed to give your recipients breathers in between. The speed of the drip is up to you and your strategy, be it over the course of a few days, weeks, or months.
Email drip campaigns are a great way to keep your brand in the minds of consumers, keep the lines of communication open, and encourage them to take further steps toward where you want them to go — whether to sign up for a newsletter, learn more about your product, or attend an event.
Another example would be a drip campaign for a loyalty program. When a person signs up, they automatically receive a simple email welcoming them and touting the benefits of the program. If they do purchase something, an email may be sent as a reminder of their points total along with a call to action (CTA) and directions to redeem them.
If they don’t purchase anything in a few days or weeks, a second email can be sent to showcase your products or entice them to take advantage of the program with a special offer or free points. If they have yet to make a purchase after months, another email may be triggered to remind them of you and your brand and the benefits of your products and the loyalty program.
Common Drip Email Campaigns
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- Welcome emails (newsletter, rewards program, etc.)
- Abandoned shopping cart reminders
- Product recommendations
- Special limited-time offers
- Subscription renewal reminders
- Trade-show follow-ups
- Event invitations
- New product introduction
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Benefits of Drip Email Campaigns
There are various advantages of using drip campaigns in your email marketing strategy. Among these benefits, drip emails:
Increase Conversions
The ultimate goal for most every marketing campaign is to enhance sales. Drip campaigns make it easier to lead consumers methodically through the sales funnel and toward successful conversions, at a pace that suits them best, be it a small step at a time or quickly to purchase.
Boost Efficiency
Marketing automation associated with drip emails often helps make emailing easier and faster. Instead of sending emails out one at a time manually and having to remember to do it every time in the series, drip email campaigns allow you to create all the content ahead of time, set up the optimal send schedule, and automatically drip your messages throughout the campaign.
Nurture Leads
Most, if not all, of your contacts should be interested in your product or service, but you’re likely not the only one in your industry, which means you have competition you have to get in front of. Your email recipients may still be deciding between you and them, so it’s imperative that you message them in ways to let them know why you’re their best choice. Drip emails allow you to gently reach out to your audience and continually nurture qualified leads, even if you’re not making the sale just yet.
Increase Engagement
You can increase engagement by tailoring your campaign to meet the needs of each individual contact according to where they are in the customer journey. This enables you to send emails at the right time when recipients will more likely see your message as soon as it hits their inboxes. Regular, relevant emails keep your brand at the forefront of your audience’s mind, fostering ongoing engagement and strengthening ongoing relationships.
Enhance Personalization
Instead of sending mass emails and delivering messages to your whole list at once, drip emails allow you to send personalized and relevant content to specific individuals. You increase your engagement chances by segmenting your audience and sending tailored content to them based on their earlier actions as well as their unique interests, shopping habits, demographics, and more.
Raise Brand Awareness
Your ever-evolving and ever-increasing contact lists give you the opportunity to keep the lines of communication open and plant your brand seeds in the fertile grounds of consumers’ minds. A consistent stream of emails will help you raise brand awareness, even if they don’t respond at first. Getting them to open just one is a step in the right direction.
Re-Engage Contacts
Drip emails allow you to re-engage with old and/or inactive contacts that haven’t thought about your brand or its offerings in a while. A drip campaign to these types of customers and contacts can reignite those stale relationships and begin the process of wooing them all over again.
Best Drip Email Campaign Practices
Entice Them to Open It
First things first: You have to get your audience to click open your emails or else your efforts will be all for naught. By creating clear, engaging, and persuasive subject lines and preheaders, you’re more likely to grab your recipients’ attention. Conveying the value they’ll get by opening your email is also essential — be it savings, relevant insight, or a better product.
Optimize for Mobile
Because mobile devices are so popular, your images and fonts must be optimized for mobile. Your emails must load quickly, be cleanly designed, attractive to the eyes, and easy to follow on all types of screen sizes — both mobile and desktop.
Create Targeted Messages
One of the biggest advantages drip emails have over many other types of marketing campaigns is the ability to narrow your audience down significantly and target them directly through their inboxes with personalized and relevant content. By personalizing your email with the receiver’s name, addressing specific pain points, and referring to other actions they may have already taken with your brand, you’ll create stronger bonds with them.
Be Clear, Concise, and Consistent
Brand consistency, brevity, and clarity are keys to successful messaging in all your touchpoints with your audience to strengthen and maintain your brand identity, and that includes your emails. Your branding elements, such as graphics, fonts, tone, and voice, should be consistent and your verbal short and sweet when possible. People don’t have all day to read your email. Just like everything else they do online, prepare for them to skim your content, so you’ll want to make your emails as easy to digest as possible.
Limit the Amount of Emails
Don’t overdo it in terms of how many emails you send in one campaign or how close together you dispatch them, so as not to bother recipients or overstate your case. You also want to send enough messages to get their attention and entice them to open. Three to five emails are a reasonable amount to send out in one drip campaign.
Incorporate Strong CTAs
Calls to action are crucial in all your marketing messaging, especially in your emails. Each email should have one or more clear and compelling CTAs that direct recipients to the next step in their journey. While the end goal is always always a conversion, there are often a number of steps along the way and some people take a different path to get there. Drip emails allow you to nudge customers in the direction they’re most comfortable with, by establishing the triggers and appropriate responses in your email creation.
Analyze & Adjust
As with most every marketing campaign, it’s important to monitor and assess your measurables and KPIs — such as click-through rates and open rates — throughout and after your drip campaign, so that you’ll know what worked and what didn’t. This helps you evolve and improve your future campaigns for better and better results.
Drip email campaigns are a powerful marketing tool that offers a ton of benefits. You can build stronger relationships with your subscribers and achieve your marketing goals more effectively.
Interested in deploying a drip campaign but not quite sure how to get started? M:7 Agency is here to help you find exactly whom to target along with just when and how to email them. Connect with us today to discuss your marketing goals!