What Is a Drip Campaign?
If you’ve looked into email marketing, you’ve probably heard of a drip campaign. But you’ve never used one, or you want to but don’t know how to get started. Check out the blog post below to learn more about drip campaigns, what they are, and why they work.
- “Drips” bits of content to people slowly over time
A drip campaign is a specific type of email marketing. There are tons of different ways to utilize email marketing, and drip campaigns are one of the best.
A drip campaign is basically a way to communicate with your target audience over a period of time.
Much like a dripping faucet slowly leaks water a little bit at a time, a drip campaign “drips” out content slowly over time.
A drip campaign is a marketing strategy that involves sending a series of pre-written, automated messages to prospects or customers over a set period of time. The aim of a drip campaign is to gradually nurture leads or build relationships with customers, by delivering relevant and valuable content or offers at specific intervals.
Drip campaigns are often used in email marketing, but can also be implemented through other channels such as social media, text messaging, or direct mail. They are a powerful tool for staying top of mind with your audience, increasing engagement, and driving conversions over time.
What does a typical drip campaign look like?
A typical drip campaign has anywhere from three to ten (and sometimes even more!) emails in succession. These emails each have a specific purpose and message.
For example:
You own a home remodeling business and want to re-engage customers who have visited your website multiple times but haven’t made a purchase.
Did you know that only 3% of people are at the “ready to buy” stage when looking at products and services online?
So you create an email drip campaign to help them move along in the sales process.
When they came to your site, they were looking for more information, browsing through their options – they were simply in the “gathering information” stage.
It’s important to not push sales too hard at these stages; it will simply irritate your potential customers. Instead, what you need to do is help them through each stage of the journey.
With your first email, you can give them more information on home remodeling, such as:
- Types of tile and flooring
- Typical cost and length of a project
- How to choose what’s best for your home
- Styles of remodeling (i.e., cabinets, counter tops, etc.)
Your first few emails in your drip campaign can get your potential customer from the “gathering information” stage to the “price quote” stage.
Of course, always offer CTAs throughout your emails to encourage action – just don’t get overly pushy and salesy. Let them buy when they’re ready.
What do I need to keep in mind when building a drip campaign?
When building drip campaigns, it’s important to understand your target audience, as well as your industry.
Have you ever heard of a buyer persona? It can help you accomplish that goal. According to Hubspot:
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on real data and insights about your target market. It is a detailed profile that describes the demographics, psychographics, behavior patterns, motivations, goals, and pain points of your potential customers.
Creating buyer personas is a crucial step in developing effective marketing and sales strategies, as it helps businesses to understand and empathize with their target audience. By identifying the needs, preferences, and challenges of their ideal customers, businesses can tailor their messaging, product development, and customer experience to better resonate with their audience.
Buyer personas can be created through various methods such as surveys, interviews, analytics data, and market research. They are typically named and given a personality to make them more relatable and memorable, and can be used as a reference point throughout the marketing and sales process.
Who is your ideal customer?
So take a moment to think about who your ideal customer is, and what your current customers look like.
So what should you include in a buyer persona? Well, typically, you should look at demographics like:
- Age
- Gender
- Income Level
- Education Level
- Family size
- Location
- Languages spoken
- Race
It can sound overwhelming, but don’t worry; platforms like Facebook make it simple to learn more about your customers and zero in on your target audience.
You can also include things like:
- Ethnicity
- Relationship status
- Interests and hobbies
- Religious beliefs
- Typical buying patterns and purchases
- Ownership of certain items (like cars, homes, etc.)
- Political views
- Favorite media
It’s really amazing just how detailed you can get. And the more detailed you get, the better! People don’t want generic advertising. They want personalized messages just for them. In other words, nowadays, people want advertising to be less generic (“give me money”) and more human, like a personal conversation. It builds trust with your audience.
Getting to know your audience also means getting to know what questions they want answered and how best to communicate those answers to them.
Think about your most Frequently Asked Questions. A great thing to do would be build a drip based on these FAQs and answering them for your customers. It will feel tailored to them, customer-focused, and helpful.
This is how you give your audience value through a drip campaign.
Are drip campaigns effective?
If done correctly, they can be extremely effective! Check out the following statistics:
- Open rates for drip campaigns are about 80% higher than single send emails, and average click-through rates are three times higher.
- Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rates compared to mass email blasts.
- Drip campaigns can generate 50% more sales-ready leads through steady communication with customers.
- Companies that excel at drip campaigns generate 80% more sales at 33% lower costs.
- Companies have seen a 20% increase in sales after using drip campaigns to nurture leads.
- Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.
- Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
- Relevant emails sent through drip campaigns drive 18 times more revenue than generic emails.
- Businesses that nurture their leads see a 45% increase in lead generation ROI when compared to businesses that don’t.
- Companies that automate the lead nurturing process through marketing platforms like email see at least a 10% increase in revenue in as little as 6 months.
Examples of Successful Drip Campaigns
Email Courses
- All About Planners
- Buzzfeed Life
Companies like BuzzfeedLife and AllAboutPlanners.com.au have utilized the Email Course layout for email drips with a lot of success. In the case of All About Planners, they built a “How to Make Your Own DIY Planner” course – and it all comes to you through email, one step at a time. Each step is thoroughly explained with blog posts, pictures, and videos, as well as internal and external links for more help. When done with all the steps, the final email suggests purchasing a more in-depth course on how to build a planner. They even offer exclusive access to a free printables library upon subscribing!
BuzzfeedLife offers this cool fitness plan drip campaign:
Basically, these emails do three things:
- Offer value to the consumer
- Build trust and credibility
- Keep your audience interested and your business top of mind
Re-Engagement
Sometimes customers disappear for a while. So how do you get them back? With re-engagement campaigns, like this one from Typeform:
Did you know that it’s cheaper to re-engage customers you already have rather than attracting new customers?
It’s 7x more expensive to attract new customers than to retain existing ones.
Check out the people on your email list who are inactive and target them specifically.
- Tell them you miss them – Make them feel valued.
- Provide incentive – Whether it’s a coupon, a limited time offer, or a percentage off a certain product, you need to offer them something they value.
If they’re really tough to capture, you may need to provide a bit more of a push. For example, utilize a “This is your last chance for savings” type of message. It creates urgency, which can really drive sales.
Finally, make sure you include an “unsubscribe” option. Customers will get frustrated if it’s not there. It’s always best to offer them a message asking if they want to be removed from your list. Give them an easy unsubscribe link. Then you can spend more time focusing on people who are actually interested in your brand.
Education
Another great way to use drip campaigns is providing education to your audience. In a lot of industries, it takes a while for potential customers to convert. This is because they want to gather information and compare options before making a decision. Examples include real estate, home remodeling, and pool builders.
So help them do just that! Provide them with the information they need to make a more informed decision. Show them how to use your site. Detail all the cool things they can do on your website.
Here’s an example:
Start Building Successful Drip Campaigns with EWR Digital
The EWR Digital team has been building successful drip campaigns and internet marketing strategies for businesses all over the U.S. and the globe since 1999. If you’re ready to boost your sales, earn more customers, and grow your business, call us at 713-592-6724 today to get started!
Email Marketing: What is a drip campaign? | EWR Digital – Houston, TX