After building my email list, I was ready to start sending drip emails. My problem? I had no idea what to say. I felt like a salesperson with this perfect prospect, but I couldn’t find the words to convey how to change this person's business.
This article will help you clarify what an email drip campaign is, what it can do, and how to make your own click-worthy email drip campaigns.
For instance, a lead who downloads a whitepaper on recruiting best practices might be included in a drip campaign that shares recruiting content. An email may include a request for a recruiting software demo as the final call to action (CTA).
Email drip campaigns can also be used for other marketing activities, such as:
Nurturing a freemium customer
Converting a blog subscriber
Delivering relevant content to leads from a certain industry.
For more insight, let's take a look at some eye-catching email drip campaign examples you can create to nurture prospects and leads.
When a lead submits their email through a form, it's time to welcome them to the company by sending them content they'll find useful. Your onboarding email drip sequence should provide value, entice leads to engage, and prompt them to contact sales.
Onboarding drip campaigns can send leads the following messages:
Blog posts and case studies relevant to their niche.
A limited-time welcome coupon.
A curation of products that they’ve already seen (signaling purchase intent).
This Levi's email responds to a Red Tab newsletter subscription. It's a unique welcome message that entices them to join the Member Program, which offers early access to new clothing releases, free shipping, and a limited discount of 20% off their first purchase, in addition to acknowledging their "onboarding."
A retargeting drip campaign targets users who’ve engaged meaningfully with your content. A white paper was downloaded, a page was visited multiple times, or an ebook was downloaded.
In order to bring them back, you must provide them with more specific content so that they can make informed purchasing decisions. Also, you can find out what they thought of the resources they used.
In your lead nurturing emails, you can send your prospects:
Fillable workbook for the ebook or guide they recently downloaded.
Email directly from a sales representative requesting a chat.
A request for feedback regarding the resource they downloaded.
Litmus's retargeting email drip campaign is aimed at pre-existing subscribers. It includes a call to action to reserve a spot for an upcoming seminar. There are also free ebook attachments that provide valuable information on optimizing the software for businesses.
This would apply mainly to the tech industry, where sales reps often provide product demos to prospects and leads. This drip campaign would also work if you offer any product that can be demonstrated live.
You should re-emphasize your product's value after a demo, and bring success stories from other companies. You can also send guides on how to get higher-ups on board.
A post-demo campaign could include the following content:
Past client video testimonials.
Tutorials on a specific feature that was of interest to the lead.
Access to an exclusive free trial offer that you extended while on the phone.
Using this post-demo drip campaign example, Away, a luggage company, walks users through using and replacing the Carry-On ejectable battery. Leads may not be familiar with the battery at first, but may become more interested in purchasing after learning more about it.
After chatting with a few friends in sales about their best secrets and open rates, David Sneider, former head of growth at Sendbloom and current CEO at Expand, provided the following quote:
“Introductory email messaging is the ‘tip of the spear’ for starting business relationships. The copy you write needs to be sharp yet sincere, showing that you can provide value without inundating them. Ultimately the recipient should feel as if all you want is to improve their day and their business.”
This made sense to me. If I'm more authentic, then the engagement and longevity of my relationships should strengthen.
As I prodded David further, he revealed his top tips and best practices for drip campaigns - along with three of his most successful email templates.
You'll need a sales automation tool to schedule drip campaigns in advance and target them to different segments of your leads. HubSpot Sales Hub, for example, allows you to create and send email drip campaigns sequences.
Drip campaign software should integrate seamlessly with your CRM and offer real-time performance metrics that enable you to tweak and update your campaigns as needed. In addition, it should enable deep personalization - no two leads should receive the same email. The greeting should at the very least address the recipient.
Last but not least, your sales reps should be able to easily and quickly adopt your software.
Are you trying to re-engage dormant customers? Nurture new leads? Cross-sell existing customers?
Identify the action you want your reader to take at the end of the drip campaign and create a road map to get them there.
Ask yourself which of the following goals is most aligned with your own:
As soon as you determine your campaign's goal, think about whom you will segment into this drip. This brings us to our next point.
get the right message at the right time. The first step in this process is to determine who will opt into your list or who would be segmented into a drip campaign. To find out, ask yourself the following questions:
Answering these questions will help you determine who you're targeting, how you'll segment this audience, and how you'll reach and provide value to that audience.
Send more emails than you think you should. Your customers want to hear from you. All they want is the right content delivered when they need it.
With that in mind, you can schedule one email per week. A B2B company should refrain from sending more than five emails per month, whereas B2C companies can get away with sending a little more.
Your drip campaign can last from four to eleven emails sent four, seven, or fourteen days apart. Identify how many touches you need to effectively nurture your audience and prime them for your offer.
It is a common misconception that drip campaigns are irrelevant and sent mindlessly without tailoring them to the audience's needs. In spite of the fact that some drip campaigns fit this description, your drip emails shouldn't.
With drip campaigns, you can send relevant and personalized content to certain segments.
As an example, if you create a case study, you can set up drip emails, automatically add recipients who download the case study to your campaign, and then send your drip campaign. Each drip email you send should include fresh content for your prospects. For example, you might follow up their initial case study download with a friendly email like this:
Tax season knocking too soon?
Greetings,
I see that you recently downloaded our customer case study featuring [Customer name]. Hopefully you found it useful.
I thought you might also like this blog post on “Six Simple Things SMBs Can Do Today to Make Tax Season Painless.”
I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Name (Your name)
A prospect's worst experience is taking your desired action without being unenrolled from your drip campaign. Suppose a prospect is enrolled in a drip campaign with the goal of scheduling a demo.
Getting an email on Tuesday asking them to schedule a demo on Thursday is a terrible customer experience.
When the email drip campaign has been altered so that it looks like you are sending the emails, it looks even worse. It appears that you either don't remember who your prospect is or have been a fake all along.
Create a trigger that will unenroll a prospect once they complete the desired action of the email drip campaign.
Feeling ready to create your drip campaign? Here are a few best practices to ensure your emails are in tip-top shape.
Long-form content can be useful in a few types of emails. For instance, you can create email drip campaigns with the story of how your company was founded if your lead is interested in that. You can add a CTA at the end for them to join a webinar on how to start their business.
Besides a case like this, you want them to get to the CTA as soon as possible. That means keeping your drip campaign emails two to three paragraphs long.
Every drip campaign email must include a CTA, whether you want the lead to schedule a call, tell you who to contact, or sign up for a free trial. After reading every email, leads should know what to do.
You should tailor your CTA based on where the buyer is in the buyer's journey. If they've just signed up, you can ask them to follow your company on social media. During the consideration stage, you can send them a white paper or a case study.
There has been much debate on the best time and weekday to send emails — lookup “email frequency” or “email cadence” in Google, and you’ll see what I mean.
Research by Campaign Monitor demonstrates that Fridays have the highest open and click-through rates at 18.9% and 2.7%, respectively. The research also suggests avoiding Saturdays.
While the research can be a good starting point, your cadence ultimately depends on when your leads interact most with your emails. So keep a close eye on performance metrics to determine what drives results for your business.
When is the best time to send drip emails? The data suggests that the early morning hours (even as early as 4 AM!) are highly effective, as most 9-to-5 office workers check their emails in the morning.
Your company's best time will depend on your leads, not just published research. Where does the majority of your customer base reside? What is their industry? Do they usually work odd hours and work from home? If they commute in the morning, do they prefer checking their email during their lunch break?
Like in the previous best practice, you’ll want to use your leads’ engagement behavior to decide when to send your emails.
In your drip campaign tool, you should be able to see open rates, CTR, and click-to-open rates. Especially important is the last one, as it shows you how many people clicked through after opening the email.
By tracking this information, you can determine the best time and day to send your emails. Furthermore, you can A/B test your CTA's wording, positioning, or design. The open rate can also be used to determine the effectiveness of your subject lines.
These three metrics are usually simple, easy to find, and most relevant to improving your drip campaign. But if you want, you can track other email marketing metrics, such as unsubscribe rate, to gauge the resonance of your emails with your audience.
Have you not heard back from your lead? Now is not the time to back down and assume they're lost. Send a follow-up email — again, again, and again. You’re not being annoying. The goal of a drip campaign is to offer value, and you have something valuable to offer. You’re never bothering. The goal is to assist them in improving their business process and generating the desired result.
If you fail to reconnect after several attempts (I recommend trying at least two times), you can then send a “breakup” email and remove the lead from the sequence.
Leads that fail to convert should be sent a survey link. Measuring metrics is one thing. Hearing straight from your leads on what you can do better is another.
You should create a survey and find out why the lead wasn't interested. Was it simply not the right time? Did they choose a competitor? By understanding these answers, you can create a drip campaign that engages prospects throughout the buyer's journey.
These drip campaign templates demonstrate these best practices. Check it out and get inspired.
Hi [Prospect],
My name is [Name], and I'm the founder of Shipping Company. We work with organizations like Sears and Target to hold FedEx and UPS accountable.
We track all your shipments, identify late deliveries, and file claims on your behalf. You only pay when package tracking is credited to your account.
What would be the best way to get 15 minutes on your calendar to explore if this would be valuable to [Company]?
Best,
[Your name]
Pro tip: A/B Test Your Pitch. You can A/B test different features of your product or services in the second paragraph of the first drip email to find out what prospects find most relevant. For testing, I simply send each version and track the open and click rates with HubSpot Sales.
Dear [Prospect],
My company, [Shipping Company], gives you real-time visibility into your shipments, lets you know when any have been delivered late, and tracks packages on your behalf.
We get paid based on performance, so if we don't save you money, we don't get paid. Who would be the best person to speak with at [Company]?
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Hi [Prospect],
I wanted to make sure you saw my earlier message. If you could tell me about the pains of package tracking at [Company], that would be great.
If you are the appropriate person to speak with, what does your calendar look like early next week? If not, who do you recommend I talk to?
[Your name]
In light of David's examples, I have concluded that my drip emails should each contain a few key points.
Time-wise, each drip can be sent anywhere from two days to a week after the previous message.
Now that you have some drip email campaign templates, let's look at some drip emails brands have created. You can use them as inspiration or turn them into templates for your own brand, depending on your needs.
One of the easiest ways to share information about your product is to attend or conduct industry events. The majority of attendees will be highly interested in the event's topic, so you can also chat with the right leads.
You should use an event drip campaign to remind your audience about the event since they may be busy and forget about it.
An excellent event drip campaign comes from Zuper. Having developed Field Service Management Software, the brand understands the challenges of it. In order to boost customer acquisition, Zuper designed an event drip campaign to assist prospects with these concerns.
Zuper's drip campaign begins with a simple email that includes a link to their website and simply reminds the lead about the event.
A few days later, Zuper sends another email introducing its product, briefly explaining how it helps clients, and inviting the reader to schedule a demo.
When the demo is over, Zuper reminds the prospect of their free trial offer, asks them to sign up, and answers any questions they may have.
It is clear from the screenshot that Zuper's drip campaign is based on simplicity. By using a few sentences, they can quickly persuade cold leads to sign up for a free trial. Therefore, you should keep your email drip campaigns simple and show customers that investing in your brand will reduce losses and increase revenue.
Rev has become one of the fastest and most accurate transcription services. Nick Gaudio, its former Director of Brand (now Director of Content at Rattle), shares this example of Rev sending interesting emails. Let's look at the first email in the drip campaign.
As a way to draw the reader into the message, Rev uses humor, places a CTA towards the end, and includes many links to help the reader learn more about the organization.
Next, Rev sends an email with a CTA that requires little or no effort to complete - download the Rev app. As a bonus, Rev makes the app free, which incentivizes readers to act.
But, Rev isn't done.
As a way to convert users still on the fence, Rev sends a case study of a popular brand (Spotify) to its warm audience.
Having built and grown websites for many years, Adam Connell is a marketing veteran.
Using the Blogging Wizard newsletter, he shares free resources, advice, and guides for building online brands. Adam's drip sequence begins with this email when users subscribe.
It's simple, doesn't require much from subscribers, and provides a resource library of value.
Subscribers receive another email after receiving the first one with links to Adam's popular content.
"The remaining emails in the sequence promote individual articles that are highly informative. Adam says that this results in directing as much traffic as possible.
According to Adam, the articles we select for these emails are typically helpful to most bloggers, regardless of their stage of blogging. Whenever we publish more helpful content, we add new emails to our sequence.
You're on your way to creating engaging email drip campaigns that convert your leads and prospects with these tips, best practices, examples, and templates. You can ensure your contacts receive the exact content they need to make a purchasing decision by consistently delivering value. You will see a dramatic increase in revenue at your company as a result of your team selling effortlessly.