What Is An Email Marketing Drip Campaign?

What is an email marketing drip campaign? Well, there’s a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that it’s a series of automated emails that slowly drips relevant content and information to the audience over time. A drip rather than an overwhelming flood. 

The long answer is that there are numerous types of drip campaigns designed to achieve different goals and outcomes.  

However you look at it, email marketing drip campaigns are a powerful and versatile way of keeping leads engaged. Over the length of the campaign, you can use relevant content, special offers, and testimonials to nurture leads and move them down the sales funnel.

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Definition of an email marketing drip campaign 

There’s a little bit more you should know about drip campaigns. First off, they’re static. Each campaign contains a set of pre-determined emails in a sequence. That sequence is either sent at a specific time or triggered by a lead.

For example, signing up to a webinar or joining a waitlist would be triggers. You might want to highlight a new product or service. In that case, you would build your email marketing drip campaign around the release and send it to your entire list. 

Key elements of an email marketing drip campaign

To recap, an email marketing drip campaign is always:

• Automated: There’s no manual intervention to set up and send the next email in the sequence. All the writing and planning is done beforehand to form a sequence.
• Time-sensitive or action-triggered: Drip campaigns don’t run indefinitely. They roll out over a fixed time, and are either released to a schedule or triggered by an action. 
• A fixed sequence: Each email is carefully placed and plotted, with messaging designed to engage leads and nurture them down the sales funnel.

Benefits of using drip campaigns vs traditional email marketing

Traditional email marketing has its place, but it can’t always do what a drip campaign can.

With a strong, well-thought-out drip campaign, you can:

• Harness personalized communication at scale to reach more leads and customers.
• Engage your audience for long periods without overwhelming them.
• Move leads through the sales funnel more efficiently with staggered content and strong CTAs. 
• Use targeted, relevant messaging and content to improve conversions and ROI.
• Save time and boost engagement speed by using automation.
• Sell on repeat to existing customers. 

By comparison, traditional email marketing relies too heavily on seasonal campaigns and one-and-done messaging. With a drip campaign, you can reach leads when it’s appropriate. That means triggering campaigns when leads are invested and at their most receptive, and staying front of mind thanks to a pre-planned sequence.  

When can you use an email marketing drip campaign?

Now you know what an email marketing drip campaign is, let’s take a look at how and when you can use one.  

1. Onboarding new customers 

Use the sequential emails of a drip campaign to gradually teach customers about your business and how to best use your products and services. Unveil new features and offers to make them comfortable.  

2. Nurturing new leads

New leads won’t necessarily become customers right away. They might need a bit of attention and finessing, depending on how warm they are. Sending useful content (informed by their ScoreApp data) and how-to guides alongside testimonials will bring them steadily down the sales funnel. 

3. After delivering a lead magnet 

If someone has completed a lead magnet, then it’s the perfect time to reel them in. Start with a breakdown of their quiz results and what they mean, or with content relevant to anything they’ve signed up for and go from there. 

4. Re-engaging dormant contacts 

Whether you’ve been left holding an abandoned cart, or you just haven’t had any engagement from a lead in a while, a drip campaign can tempt them back. Special offers and limited-time deals often prove irresistible. 

5. Promotional drip campaigns 

Launching a new product or service? A short-term drip campaign is a strong way to let your existing customers and your warm/hot leads know about it. A drip campaign gives you more time to get into the details than with a single mailshot, while selling the concept to cooler leads. 

Create a successful email drip campaign

That’s the when of using a successful email drip campaign, but what about the how? Here’s what you have to do to create an email drip campaign that works. 

Target your audience

A drip campaign works best when it’s targeted. Make sure your email list is split into segments before deciding who the recipients are. By sending your campaign to smaller, better-defined groups, you’re far more likely to engage them with a sequence they can relate to. Hitting ‘send to all’ should never be an option when it comes to drip.

If you’ve integrated ScoreApp with your email marketing platform, then you can sit back and relax. ScoreApp uses the individual data it gleans from lead magnets such as quizzes and sign-up forms to automatically segment your email list according to your specific criteria (location, budget, size, etc).  

Set clear goals

We all need to have a goal, especially if we’re rolling out a drip campaign. Drips work best with direction, be it increasing sales, encouraging sign-ups for an event or course, or improving retention. 

Whatever the purpose of your email marketing drip campaign, make sure you know what it is before rolling out. 

Create triggers for events

Attaching drip campaigns to triggers is a surefire way to catch a receptive audience. Think of setting a campaign to send when:

• Someone signs up for your newsletter, showing they want to hear more from you.
• A potential customer has abandoned their shopping cart and could use a nudge back towards a conversion.
• Someone’s downloaded a free resource. If they’ve grabbed your ebook, then chances are they’re open to engaging further.

However you choose to kick off your drip campaign, ScoreApp’s automation tools will make setting up the rules a doddle. That way, you’ll never miss a lead. 

Create compelling content

Of course, if you’re going to establish a chain of emails, then you need to make sure they’re full of valuable, actionable, and engaging email content.

Some evergreen content ideas include:

• Links to blog posts and how-to-guides that address the pain points found in ScoreApp quiz results
• Case studies and testimonials that show off your skills and products
• Hints and tips to achieve known goals, or get the most out of a product
• Links to further content, such as webinars and downloads

Add an irresistible call to action (CTA)

Each stage of a drip campaign should end with a clear and irresistible CTA designed to move readers towards the next step.

It could be booking a call or a demo, taking advantage of a special offer, or signing up to an event. Whatever the desired action, you have to be sure it’s clearly signposted. Spelling it out and highlighting the benefits of following along is the best way to get people onside. 

ScoreApp’s A/B testing is instant, so you can try multiple CTAs at once and see which one is the strongest hook.

Enhance your email marketing drip campaigns with ScoreApp 

Email marketing drip campaigns are your chance to speak to an engaged audience and keep nurturing them for longer. By using relevant event-specific triggers, valuable content, and compelling CTAs, you can nurture your warm leads toward a stronger relationship and a greater chance of conversion.

And when you add ScoreApp into the mix? Well, that’s when you get the benefit of automation, advanced lead segmentation, and a rich vein of data to inform personalized content that pops. So, if you’re going to create a drip campaign, you really should be taking advantage of ScoreApp’s buffs.

ScoreApp is free to try, so what are you waiting for? Get in touch and start improving your email marketing drip campaigns today.