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.
