Drip Marketing: A Powerful Way to Nurture Leads and Boost Conversions

Nowadays in the plethora of digital advertisements, generic emails or SMSs are difficult to capture the attention of the audience. But in order to survive, businesses have to capture the attention of the audiences and maintain a healthy relationship with them. Well, there’s a solution to this which is drip marketing. Let’s learn about it.

The solution is drip marketing. It is a marketing strategy in which marketing emails are automatically sent to the audience at a set time, based on the actions they take or changes in their status. The emails are based on placing an order, attending an event, signing up for a webcast, abandoning a shopping cart, engaging with customer service, not placing an order for a while, etc. 

Through these kinds of emails, businesses keep in touch with their customers in a more personalized and targeted manner. Customers are likelier to buy from a company that recognizes and remembers them. 

The content of drip emails is prewritten and automated.

What is Drip Marketing?

Drip campaigns are sending time-based emails to people triggered by their actions.

These emails are prewritten and automated which saves you time and effort. You only have to focus on the copy of the content and the images used. Images and video in the content make it more appealing to the audience. Hence proper usage of images and videos will make your drip campaigns more effective. You can also link drip campaigns on your social media posts. When someone clicks there they’ll automatically receive the first series of automated drip emails. 

These campaigns can generate enormous ROI for your business. 

Need for Drip Marketing Campaigns

• According to surveys the open rates of drip campaigns are higher than other marketing emails. Because it inculcates a feeling of warmth in the audience. They feel that their needs are taken care of and on every action, they are getting obliged. This increases the brand value of a company. People think that your company is a great resource for them. Drip campaigns generate double the leads than simple marketing emails. 
• When the leads are nurtured they are more likely to purchase and become your customers than the ones not nurtured.  
• More audiences are engaged. Emails triggered by user actions have higher opening rates. 
• Drip marketing saves your time, money, and effort which results in increasing your productivity. Without any manual effort, you can actually get responses from customers
• Customer retention is also very high because every time when a customer gets a triggered email based on their actions they are obliged every time.
• It increases your brand awareness as people get more connected to your brand through your emails.
• The audience will get the exact content that they need at that time. Like leads aren’t interested to buy that many products from you like your previous customers. Hence you have to first convince the leads. They should be encouraged to buy first. There should difference in the emails sent to both of them.

How to set up a drip marketing campaign?

• Define your audience and goals- 

You have to figure out your target audience. There will be various segments of audiences. You have to decide which email will be sent to whom. For example, People who purchased for the first time will get different emails from your regular buyers or your qualified leads. You have to decide all the actions for which and the time at which the drip emails has to be sent. For each type of audience segment, you can create a buyer’s persona.

• Choose your channel to deliver the message 

The most commonly used channels when it comes to drip marketing are Emails and SMS. While email provides you with the option to send interactive and visually appealing campaigns, SMS message has the highest open rates.

• Develop Your Content and Messaging- 

Develop content that grabs the attention of the audience. Target the drip action and accordingly frame your content and messages. Then write a copy that is clear and captivating. The content should be to the point as well. The good the about drip content is its reusability.

• Set Up Your Drip Campaign-  

Once your channel, audience, and message are ready, you need to choose a platform to start scheduling drips. There are many solutions available that allow you to send the right message to the right customer at the right time. We recommend SuiteCRM Drip Campaign for more flexibility and advanced features at a reasonable price. Another option is Mailchimp, but its price increase exponentially with the number of recipients, which is not the case with prior.

• Launch Your Campaign-  

After deciding the strategy and setting up the campaign in the email marketing software. Then finally check the user segments and if required readjust them. It’s very important to research user segments afterward also. Then finally you are all set to launch your drip campaign.

• Monitor and Measure Your Campaign’s Performance- 

If you want a successful drip campaign you need to access it after launching also you just cannot sit back and relax even if you are using marketing automation software and its tools. You have to constantly monitor your drip campaign and make the possible changes to be at the top. You can analyze the metrics like open rate and click-through rate to calculate the success of the campaign.

Elements of Drip Marketing Campaign

• Triggers- These are the events that set up the drip marketing campaign. It can be creating a new subscriber or lead, a lead leaving the site without purchasing when someone creates an account in your e-commerce store.
• Conditions- The actions after the trigger are conditions. These are based on how you plan your campaign so it’s very subjective. Some examples are sending an email after a lead has clicked on a particular link, or waiting for some days before sending out a sequence of emails.
• Actions- These are the engagement elements that establish the relationship of businesses with their customers. These actions can be in the form of emails, SMSs, social media messages, live chats, etc.

Types of Drip Marketing Campaigns

When it comes to drip campaigns, there is no one-fits-all solution. You have to closely examine each customer segment and place them in the appropriate drips. Let’s have a look at some proven examples.

1. Welcome Drips– You buy a product from a brand after which you receive a welcome email from the brand showing their gratitude and treating you as a new customer. You are delighted by such a personal touch. This is the form of a welcome drip campaign. This is mainly sent in order to introduce your business to your leads. The aim is to encourage people to visit your website by providing links so that they can be further motivated to buy your products. This really helps in getting more website traffic as well as giving a remarkable first impression on customers. Welcome emails have four to five times more opening rates than other marketing emails. You must give amazing offers in your welcome emails for additional benefits. Avoid too much information in your welcome emails just introduce your brand and provide some offers.

2. Educational Drips– These are in the form of online courses or workshops. This is to educate people more about your business and make them realize that you are the best in the market. If a person signs up for the first session they have entered your drip campaign. Then you have to add them to your list to make sure that they receive all the notifications of other sessions also.

3. Re-engagement Drips- These are the emails sent when a customer or a subscriber hasn’t bought from your brand for a long time. It is used for getting them back. There can be many reasons for their showing less interest in your brand than they previously showed. They might have simply lost the same interest in your brand or forgotten you. They may have found alternative products or simply didn’t understand the benefits of your brand. Winning back customers is no less important than getting new ones son always try to win them back.
   • In order to get your customers back you have to show them that you value their presence. The emails can be related to new offers just for them, new product updates, or you could use their feedback to improve their services.
   • Send personalized emails to make them feel important. Also, you can make them talk to your staff members with whom they have interacted before. Small things like this will show how valuable existing customers are.
   • Ask them for feedback, why they left, what happened wrong from your side, or how you can improve your services. This way a customer feels that their choices are being taken care of. 
   • Through such emails, there are always high chances to get your previous customers back.

4. Cross-sell/Up-sell Drips- Suppose you purchase a phone. After purchase or at the time of purchase you get emails regarding offers on its cover, earphones, or any accessory related to it. This cross-sell email marketing is where customers are provided offers on the related products so that they are motivated to buy some of them also. Similarly, you are buying a phone and you get offers on its upgraded versions also so that you are motivated to buy that upgraded version also. This is the upsell drip marketing where when you are about to purchase a particular thing and you get offers on its upgraded versions also. Both these strategies provide additional profits to the companies. 

5. Promotional Drips-  On every festival, your email is flooded with emails of brands providing during the time period of that festival. This is a form of promotional drip marketing where various enticing offers are sent during a particular festival encouraging people to buy more. As people generally do shopping during festival time and brands don’t lose this opportunity to utilize this time for their profit at its best.

Examples of successful drip marketing campaigns 

• Netflix’s Win-Back Campaign-

Netflix created a win-back drip campaign to reduce its customer churn rate and keep its existing customers engaged. For three months it sends its former customers a series of emails with all new movies and TV series that they were missing upon. Showing all the recently added series and users’ top picks it got a boost in its subscriptions from its former customers. After some series of personalized drip campaigns, Netflix finally got an immense boost in its sales. 

• Kenneth Cole’s Cart Abandonment Campaign

All the people who put stuff in their shopping cart but left it unattended and didn’t proceed with the payment were sent an email by this brand giving them a 15% discount, on top of that they made it valid for only 48 hours. Through this, they got an immense boost in their sales during that time.

• Tone It Up’s 21-Day Challenge Campaign

In order to engage customers the brand used a 21-day fitness challenge to engage the people. They sent emails regarding this. By signing up people received workout schedules and diet recipes. In the next email, the brand wrote about the benefits of this challenge and some other tips for staying fit. They didn’t stop here. They kept sending personalized emails to the people along with their names to give a more personal touch. They also integrated email marketing with social media. This really helped to boost their sales and acquire new customers. This helped the brand to build its reputation and gain the trust of the people.

Difference Between Drip Campaign and Traditional Campaign

	Drip Marketing	Traditional Marketing
1	Reaches the audience mostly through digital platforms like emails etc.	Uses traditional media like newspapers, magazines, etc.
2	Messages are customized and personalized for segments of people.	Messages are generalized i.e same for everyone.
3	People feel connected and valued here.	These email feels like generic emails and not personalized at all.
4	It’s a customer centric approach.	It’s a business centric approach.

How does Drip Campaign help in Personalized Customer Experience?

Giving customers a personalized and unique experience is every marketer’s ultimate goal. Delivering the right message to the right person at the right moment along with the right suggestion is a task that has to be handled intelligently. 

Personalized marketing is optimizing your marketing strategies based on marketing analytics. This includes a customer’s purchase history, shopping preferences, and interests, abandoned carts, etc. Based on these the marketer sends personalized messages to the customers through emails, social media ads, and so on.

According to surveys-

• Emails with personalized subject lines have 50% more opening rates than traditional ones.
• The chances of buying from a customer are 75% more after reading personalized messages.
• 70% of the customers only respond to emails if it is personalized for them.

Through personalized marketing strategy marketers use marketing analytics to study customers’ data in order to provide them with more personalized messages according to their needs and likings. People generally consider personalized messages and find general mass messages annoying. 

Businesses use analytics to

• Reach the target audience
• Identify and target potential customers
• Nurture leads throughout their journey

Check out this blog, here we have done case studies on best Email marketing campaigns and breakdown the key points as well.

Benefits of Personalized Marketing

For marketers

•  Enhanced customer experience
•  Reduced customer churn rate and increased customer retention
•  Increased ROI (Return on Investment)
•  A better understanding of the market

For customers

They get more options that are targeted and personalized according to their needs and likings  rather than general ads which can be annoying

Drip marketing is a type of personalized marketing only where emails are automatically sent to a set audience at a set time with personalized messages and suggestions based on their actions or changes in their status.

Ending Note

Today when everyone’s emails and social media posts are flooded with advertisements. How can your business stand out and encourage people to choose your brands from all others? Well, this can be done through drip marketing campaigns where you need to send personalized and customized emails to different segments of people to make them feel connected and incline them towards your brand. This strategy has helped many businesses to build their brand value.