What is drip marketing?

Drip marketing involves sending emails to interested users over a period of time. The emails in a drip campaign build on each other and give the reader more and more information on your products and services each time.

What is drip marketing?

Drip marketing, also referred to as a drip campaign or drip email marketing, is the process of systematically getting through to potential customers using email marketing. It involves sending regular, automatic emails (or ‘drips’) to customers and potential customers.

The goal of this marketing strategy is to ensure a continuous flow of information with good, relevant newsletter content like upcoming sales. The desired outcome of a drip campaign is engagement and interaction with content, with the ultimate goal of sales conversions.

The intervals in which emails are sent are determined in advance. They’re usually based on the user’s behaviour. So, when a user takes a certain action, the next step in the drip process is activated. If the user reacts to this, then the next step is triggered.

What’s involved in a drip campaign?

The most important part of a drip campaign or drip marketing campaign is defining the individual steps in the flow of communication content. This also involves deciding on which actions on the part of users should trigger the next step in the process. A simple drip campaign might look as follows:

• Welcome email: After someone has signed up for your newsletter or created a profile with their email address, you should send a welcome email. The email should contain a welcome offer, service information, etc.

• Follow-up email: After the welcome message, you should send a follow-up email with more detailed information about your company’s products or services. This can include trust-building information like reviews, case studies and tips and tricks.

• Activation email: After a user has got acquainted with your products and services, they should receive more targeted information. This can include emails with discounts and sales or new releases, which can be used to test sales opportunities.

• Information email: If the activation email didn’t result in the reaction you were hoping for, you can send an email with more service content. The goal is to foster more interest on the part of the user and dispel any doubts they might have.

• Reactivation email: This email serves as another attempt at activating the user and converting their interest into a sale. The reactivation email can contain better offers or more information.

Drip campaigns involve a marketing automation workflow, which automatically executes the email sequence you’ve defined. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to spend any time manually sending emails. All the content is created in advance, and the emails build on each other.

Why should you use drip emails?

Drip campaigns are useful for a number of reasons. They’re very effective at leading users to a purchase due to their granular structure and intervention at basic decision-making points:

• Personalised contact: Personalised newsletters not only result in more clicks but also increase the chances of a purchase in the end. You can personalise based on users’ preferences or previous interactions, which will increase the relevance of your content for them.

• Stronger customer retention: A drip campaign can help companies build a relationship with their customers or strengthen existing customer loyalty. Maintaining regular contact with customers can be especially beneficial for industries with products that require a lot of research before purchasing.

• High-quality leads: Lead nurturing also benefits from drip marketing. The step-by-step nature of drip campaigns means that your business has contact with customers throughout their decision-making process, making it easier to collect various kinds of information on user behaviour.

• Better conversion rates: Since drip marketing essentially involves a continuous flow of relevant information to the user, it comes with a higher chance of getting the reaction you’re looking for.

• User friendly: Once a drip campaign has been started, it runs automatically and doesn’t require any further resources. At the same time, you can easily add or adjust content without causing any problems for the campaign as a whole.

• Constant chance for optimisation: The multitude of KPIs on the overall campaign level and the individual emails make it possible to optimise content and improve the performance of each step in the campaign.

Drip campaign examples

We’ve already touched on the basics of building a drip campaign above. Below we’ll use the example of an online shoe shop to illustrate the main ideas again. The objective is to attract subscribers to your newsletter, get them enthusiastic about your product and indirectly promote sales.

• Welcome email on day one: After registering for the newsletter and confirming their email address, the new subscriber receives an email with a welcome discount of 10%.

• Follow-up emails on days three and six: In the first week, the newsletter will be fresh in the user’s mind — two emails are sent to them in quick succession to keep the momentum going. The first email provides an overview of recently released shoes. The next email features insights and recommendations from the shop’s employees.

• Specials email after two weeks: The next phase features offers for select shoes, including discounts for first-time customers. The offer in this email is a special for subscribers and is only valid for a limited time, which will add some pressure to make a decision.

• Content email after three and four weeks: To keep up the flow of communication, the shop sends out emails with information about current trends or shoe-outfit combos.

• Reminder email after five weeks: If the customer hasn’t taken any action towards a purchase, the last email will signal the end of the campaign. The welcome discount is mentioned again, with a reminder that it’s only valid for a limited time.

Note that it’s important that the content in a campaign anticipates and adapts to users’ potential reactions. Users’ email tracking also needs to be complete. Recommending a certain product doesn’t make any sense if the user has already bought that product based on a previous email.