Email Drip Campaign: Examples And Best Practices

What is a drip campaign?

A drip campaign is a marketing strategy that enables you to send an automated email sequence when certain conditions are met.

For instance, this type of tactic can be used to send a series of emails to those who signed up for your loyalty program.

• The first email may be a simple welcome message that introduces your brand and explains how the rewards program works.
• The second message may follow a few weeks later if they haven’t purchased anything and include a special promotion that’ll double the points they receive.
• The third email in the sequence may contain personalized product recommendations and a call to action (CTA) for the person to use their points.

Drip campaigns are scheduled in advance, and a lot of planning goes into the sequence to ensure messages are delivered to the right people at just the right time.

While newsletters are sent to everyone on your contact list, pre-written messages will only be sent out to specific people if they trigger the series with inactivity or a particular action.

Drip campaigns are also often referred to as automated marketing, lifecycle emails, automated email campaigns, and many other names.

Benefits of email drip campaigns

There are various pros to using drip campaigns in your email marketing strategy. Here are a few benefits you can take advantage of.

Boost conversions

Drip campaigns make it easier to move consumers through marketing and sales funnels, boosting the likelihood of a successful conversion. This is because the purpose of a drip campaign is to drive your contacts to complete an action.

Every email in your drip sequence should have a CTA that encourages leads to the following step in the funnel.

Save time

With the right marketing tools, you can count on marketing automation to do the heavy lifting for you. Rather than sending emails manually, create your content ahead of time and automatically deliver your messages to contacts without compromising customization or efficiency. This way, there’s no delay, and subscribers receive your messages at the most appropriate time.

Nurture leads

Some of your contacts may be highly interested in your products or services. However, individuals may be vetting different businesses and require additional details about your brand before they move to the next step in the buying journey and make a purchase.

Fortunately, drip campaigns can provide leads with a gentle nudge in the right direction by answering pressing questions, highlighting your product’s benefits, and more.

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 form of marketing enables you to send emails at the right time, ensuring subscribers see your message as soon as it lands in their inboxes.

Send personalized and relevant content

As mentioned, drip campaigns differ from mass emails that are sent to everyone in your contact lists. Instead of delivering messages to all your subscribers, you can send personalized and relevant content to specific individuals.

You can schedule and automate drip emails based on different audience segments, such as demographics, shopping habits, and so on. You can also create a drip campaign strategy that’s triggered by actions, like signing up for a free trial or clicking on a link in your email. Regardless, your contacts will receive content that’s appealing and tailored to their interests.

Stay top of mind

A stream of consistent emails means subscribers will often see your messages. While they may not engage with your content or open your emails, drip campaigns can go a long way in raising brand awareness and allow your business to remain top of mind.

Re-engage contacts

There are times when subscribers will stop interacting with your emails. While they may be interested in your products or services, their inactivity can hurt your engagement rate and other valuable marketing metrics.

Disengagement can happen for several reasons, and it’s important to determine why certain individuals lost interest in your messages in order to win them back. Once you know the reason behind their lapse in engagement, you can run a drip campaign to garner interest again.

Email drip campaign best practices

While running a drip email campaign is straightforward, several best practices can boost your marketing efforts.

Create targeted messages

A targeted email is a message tailored to a specific individual or segment, so it may contain content relevant to their needs. Consumers are regularly bombarded with boring marketing emails that are unoriginal, making personalization a must if you want to stand out from the crowd.

In fact, Statista reports that 60% of online shoppers wouldn’t be loyal to brands that sent non-personalized content.

In order to successfully implement a drip campaign, you must have a thorough understanding of your audience. For instance, it’s a good idea to know their pain points, demographics, and shopping preferences.

Various marketing tools can help you get to know your contacts better, allowing you to segment them into the appropriate categories.

According to The State of Personalization in Email Marketing survey conducted by Digiday and Jeeng, more than half of the respondents said that personalized email campaigns were somewhat or very effective in meeting their overall goals.

Plan your drip campaigns around the user journey

The user journey, also known as the customer journey, is the steps consumers take before making a purchase. As such, you want your drip campaign to revolve around possible touchpoints. Keep in mind that different customer journey phases will require a different drip strategy.

For example, you may send a series of emails to new subscribers in order for them to get to know your brand better. Or, an individual on your contact list may be browsing your products more than normal, indicating that they're considering making a purchase, so it can be beneficial to send a drip email campaign with a special promotion or product recommendations.

Enhancing each step of the user journey with drip emails can improve the customer experience and allow you to better understand your audience’s behavior.

Limit the number of drip campaigns emails

The key to implementing effective drip campaigns is sending the right amount of emails.

Keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong with sending too many messages. Many of your subscribers want to receive emails that contain discounts, promotions relevant to buying habits, and information that interests them.

However, you don’t want to overwhelm your contacts with several emails sent within a short period since doing so may drive them to unsubscribe. You also don’t want to send so few messages that your audience forgets about your business.

Deciding the number of emails you should send can be difficult to pinpoint. After all, it all depends on your audience and the industry your business is in. As a general guideline, create a drip campaign with 4 to 10 emails spaced out 4 days to 2 weeks apart.

You can conduct A/B testing to identify the most effective and appropriate amount of drip campaign emails to send. A/B testing tools make it easy to see which of your drip marketing emails performs better, allowing you to implement the best strategy at your company.

Write easy-to-read text

One of the top tips for writing an effective email is to write clearly and concisely. Some contacts may not have the time to thoroughly read your message, resulting in them skimming through the text, while others may read every single word you write.

As such, it’s important to appeal to both types of readers by keeping your text easy to read, short, and to the point.

When it comes to crafting the body of your email, always remember who you’re writing for. Think carefully about the different segments you have and write for each one while adhering to your brand’s tone and voice.

It’s also best practice to incorporate a CTA to guide contacts to the next step in the funnel.

But before writing the copy of your email, it’s a good idea to think about your subject line and preheader since they’re often the first pieces of information a user will see and.

Both of these elements are vital to grabbing the attention of your audience and provide a quick glance of what your message will be about. Make sure your subject line and email preheader are descriptive and engaging–the goal is to incentivize contacts to click on your email.

Analyze and adjust drip campaigns

Your drip campaign isn’t meant to stay the same. Instead, it should evolve as you learn more about your audience and new marketing tactics emerge. Your audience and business are constantly evolving, and what may have worked a few years ago may not be as effective today.

Take the time to regularly analyze your campaign and track vital metrics–such as clickthrough rate, engagement rate, and open rate–that provide insight into the performance of your campaign. Doing so can ensure that your strategy aligns with your audience’s needs and business goals.

Furthermore, the data gathered by your email drip campaigns can enable you to make informed decisions, leading to even better campaigns and results.

What should be in an email drip campaign?

Now that you know a few best practices let’s take a look at what an effective drip campaign contains. While there are many different ways of creating a drip email campaign, various elements are consistently used to build a successful drip campaign that drives sales.

• Personalization. By personalizing your email with the receiver’s name and relevant information, you can create a relationship with them.
• CTA. Regardless of your campaign’s goal, include a CTA button at the end of each email to encourage readers to take the next step in the user journey.
• Skimmable content. You want your email to be easy to digest, so readers can get the information they need quickly and easily.
• Brand consistency. Be consistent with every email you send to subscribers, ensuring designs, fonts, and colors are the same across different campaigns.

4 email drip campaign examples

Here are email drip campaign examples of the most popular types of email drip campaigns to help you create your own strategy.

Welcome emails

These emails can be sent to new subscribers after they join your mailing list or contacts that made their first purchase.

New subscribers

While they’ll receive your bulk messages, including newsletters and promotional emails, you also want to welcome them to your community.

The first welcome email you send in the series often contains an introduction of your brand and the expectations for future correspondence. Subsequent emails may contain discount codes or polls about the content they wish to see.

New customers

Drip email campaigns can be a great way to encourage customers to make repeat purchases. The initial email in the series may thank them for their order, while the following messages include surveys about the ordering process, shopping suggestions, or information about future promotions.

Product recommendations

Product recommendation emails allow you to entice leads and existing customers with products that they’re interested in. By recommending products, you can increase conversions and make contacts feel special with personalized emails.

Use this type of drip campaign to your advantage and increase your cross- and up-selling opportunities.

For leads, you may send them an email sequence related to the products they’ve looked at on your website or added to their wishlist. You may also do this for existing clients, plus provide suggestions based on previous purchases.

Abandoned cart

Sometimes, consumers add products to their carts and never complete their purchases. Whether they weren’t ready to buy or forgot about their items, abandoned cart emails can drive them back to your website.

These types of emails aren’t overly salesly. Instead, they’re gentle, providing an encouraging nudge that reminds consumers of what they left behind. However, you can create a sense of urgency with subsequent emails by stating you have limited inventory left or that your sale is ending soon. You can also include a coupon code or free shipping to tempt consumers further.

Lead nurturing

As mentioned earlier, drip marketing campaigns are beneficial for nurturing leads. Ultimately, these emails aim to deepen your connection with prospects, increase brand awareness, gain their trust, build loyalty, and boost conversions.

While it may take some time to accomplish these objectives, drip emails can convince prospects to make a purchase. Drip email campaigns essentially guide leads through the sales funnel until they’re ready to buy. Each message in the drip campaign is tailored to individual customers according to where they are in the buying process.

For this reason, it’s important to use a drip campaign to create a pathway for leads to easily follow.

Meet your customers on their journeys

A drip campaign enables you to send emails to prospective customers and existing clients. Doing so can help move contacts into different paths where the end goal is conversion.

In addition to helping you increase sales, drip emails can boost engagement, raise brand awareness, reduce disengagement, and remain top of mind. With the right email automation software, you can enjoy the benefits of drip marketing.

Mailchimp’s marketing automation tools allow you to engage with the right contacts and the best moment. Map out the buying journey and establish your triggers with our easy-to-use Customer Journey Builder.

Automate your emails to nurture leads, keep an eye on existing clients, and generate more sales–all with Mailchimp. Get started today and create effective drip campaign emails.