Why You Should Be Using Drip Campaigns

When someone subscribes to your email list, it’s important to capture their newfound interest by making a strong connection. The best marketers use drip campaigns to quickly interact with new fans in a short period of time.

A drip campaign is an automated series of emails sent to your subscribers. The emails are sent on a specific timeline or based on user actions. There’s no denying their effectiveness. The email marketing app Emma found that targeted emails are far more likely to earn clicks than general broadcast emails. In fact, links in drip emails are clicked 119% more often.

Drip campaigns typically begin with a welcome email that reminds the fan how they signed up and what they can expect from you. Further emails can take different shapes depending on your goals. A campaign may introduce your fans to your best content or answer common questions about your product or service. Some campaigns are almost entirely educational, designed to deliver tremendous value to subscribers.

The most common structure of drip campaigns is called lead nurturing: an email course that solves a subscriber’s problem. The fan signs up on your website because he’s interested in the information you promise. They involve five to seven emails with a two-day delay between each. Marketing automation experts at Drip report that lead nurturing creates 50% more customers ready to buy.

Throughout the emails, the campaign offers information that soothes the reader’s pain points. Each email should end with a call to action, usually a link to additional content or offers on your website.

Toward the end of the course, position your product or service as a logical solution to the problem with calls to action that encourage the visitor to sign up. By this point, you should have offered enough value that the reader considers you an expert.

As you begin to craft your email series, use these guidelines.

DO understand your reader. You have to create your copy to solve their problems. First, you have to know what their problems are.

DON’T be sales-y right away. If you hit your fan too hard with sales copy, you’ll turn them off from the experience. You must provide value first.

DO end every email with a call to action. Just because they’re done reading doesn’t mean they’re done engaging. This can be a link to a blog post, a social action (like, share, follow, etc.), or a link to a landing page.

DON’T rush the reader down the buyer’s journey. For instance, content that compares your service to competitors should come after you convince the user they need a service like yours in the first place.

DO move the user into your broadcast list once the drip campaign has completed. Most email marketing applications offer procedures like this.

We\’d love to hear your feedback on drip campaigns – on successes, failures, or even programs that you like or dislike.