What is a Drip Campaign?
A Drip Campaign is a type of marketing strategy used for the programmed and systematized sending of emails to users with the purpose of directing them to purchase a product or service.
This term, also known as lifecycle emails, automated email campaigns, drip marketing, autoresponders, and marketing automation, is a technique within inbound marketing that allows you to maintain close contact with potential customers by providing them with accurate information at the right time.
Recommended reading: Everything you need to know about Drip Marketing
How does a Drip Campaign work?
As mentioned before, Drip Campaigns are sets of emails that are sent every so often or when users perform a specific action.
The emails follow a logical order depending on how the user interacts with the brand, such as how often he/she visits the website, what is the opening rate of the emails, or how many times he/she clicks on a product or service.
All this information is stored in a database to plan strategies that provide the right information at the right time and to a specific user.
It should be noted that although this technique is based on the programmed sending of emails, less frequently, the use of other media such as SMS text messages, social media, etc., is observed.
When should I use a Drip Campaign?
Drip Campaigns encompass several marketing strategies, and in all of them, a common objective prevails: to guide the customer to make the purchase action.
The use of a Drip Campaign is recommended when it is necessary to provide relevant information to a specific group of people to drive them to become customers.
Some of the cases can be:
- Nurturing potential customers: once the company knows who the potential customers are, there are many ways to nurture their interest in the product or service it offers, such as teaching them what it means, how to use it, offering them free trials, among others.
- Hello: Welcome emails are an opportunity to shine in the eyes of potential customers to introduce them to your product and show them some of your company’s content.
This is because since most users expect to receive a welcome when they subscribe to a website or newsletter, they usually open it when they receive it.
- Induction: once users are registered and have general information about what the company offers, it is time to introduce along with newsletters or welcome small goals to encourage them to use and buy them.
- Abandoned shopping carts: when users add products to the shopping cart and do not complete the purchase, a Drip Campaign is very useful to remind them that the product is still available and why not? Remind them that the stock is limited and can run out quickly.
- Recommendations: having information about potential customers’ tastes and habits is a powerful weapon because it allows you to know what they like and what they don’t like. For example, if a customer buys a bicycle, you can recommend purchasing an accessory or garment to compliment the purchase.
Another example is if someone buys a Kindle from Amazon, then Amazon, as a strategy, recommends sending emails to buy Kindle eBooks or accessories.
- Renewals: you can take advantage of Drip Campaigns when users go through the process of renewing a subscription, either if it is automatically renewed, is exhausted, or is about to expire.
- Confirmations: another adequate opportunity to use this strategy is when the user has made a purchase or has renewed the subscription.
When they confirm, you can send them a drip to thank them and take advantage of the opportunity to send them links to new products to maintain their interest in the brand.
- Engagement: one way to attract customers to a website can be to create a drip of information to make them feel engaged and eventually become paying customers.
A simple and easy to apply example is when a user has been away from the site for a while and sends you an email saying “We Miss You”, this will create a feeling of affection that may encourage them to support the sender.
- Unsubscribing: Marketing opportunities sometimes flourish in the least thought places, and when a user unsubscribes, you should not miss the moment to send a drip that can be something like, “you don’t know how sorry we are to see you go.”
Recommended reading: Why Marketing could be your next big move
How do I make a Drip Campaign?
Identify what the objective is
First of all, it is important, and a must, to establish what are the objectives or goals to achieve; some may be:
Make a new product known, make users more aware of a brand, generate sales revenue, capture customer feedback, get new registrations for an event, get users to participate, etc.
Determine who this campaign is aimed at
Once the Drip Campaign’s objective is clear, the target audience is selected or segmented, whether it is new customers, frequent customers, sporadic customers or others, so that the right people receive the messages and the goals are achieved.
Define how many Drips the Campaign will have
In order to effectively nurture the users and direct them to the proposed objective, it is necessary to plan how many touches the Drip Campaign will have. The approximate amount is 4 to 11 emails per month, but each case is particular.
For example, in the B2B business model, it is recommended not to send more than 5 drips per month.
Related reading; how to create a B2B Marketing Strategy.
Personalized content
To achieve effectiveness in this type of campaign, it is important to take the necessary time to create content with relevance and be a little personalized for certain segments.
Knowing when to stop the drip:
It is important to know when to remove a user from the Drip Campaign if for example, the objective is that the user makes a subscription. In fact, he already made it; it is a bad experience for him to receive later an email asking him to subscribe, even, this may indicate that it is a hoax or he may simply feel like another customer for the brand because he does not remember it.
It is important to note that there are popular tools on the market that will help save time and money when making Drip Campaigns. Among the best known are: ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, EngageBay.