Drip Marketing: What It Is? When to Use It? & Why?

 With a simplistic look at drip marketing, it is essentially the ability to give subscribers the correct information at the right time. Drip marketing is all about being proactive about reaching out and sending emails to subscribers. Marketing often carries the power to persuade a subscriber to make the purchase or click throughout the website for future products solely based upon the fact that the emails are sent off of the subscriber's actions. This ensures the interest, as well as the trust in the brand, to continue their shopping experience. 

You may have heard of drip marketing, otherwise known as:

• Drip Campaigns
• Automated Email Campaigns
• Lifecycle Emails
• Marketing Automation

All these terms encapsulate the same thing: automated emails according to a pre-determined schedule based upon pre-defined factors. It originated from 'drip feeding,' which in translation means 'provide gradually and in small amounts.

What is Drip Marketing?

Drip marketing is An essential strategy that involves sending out marketing emails on a regularly scheduled basis that is strictly made around a user's interactions. The great thing about drip campaigns is that they are customizable; you can choose how and when they're sent out. Often an email will go out right when a subscriber signs up, and another will follow up a few days later. This will then be altered based on the actions the subscriber takes with the first couple of emails. The content within the email is typically based on the subscriber's activities; a couple of examples of an action that might create a drip campaign are signing up for a service, making a purchase, abandoning a shopping cart, etcetera. 

Often the situations in which emails are sent out have already been prewritten; there is no need to send one out individually. If it is automated, then the personalization can be done by the system you use; Mailsoflty offers a great emailing platform In which you can personalize messages before they are sent out in mass quantities.

A few characteristics of Drip Marketing make it so persuasive and successful. First, these emails are typically prewritten and are triggered, meaning that action needs to be taken by the customer for the email to be sent out. 

Why use Drip Marketing?

Marketing campaigns typically pinpoint a specific User Group. This is done by using your email list and segmenting it based on demographics, time zone, purchase history when they first subscribed, etc. segmentation can be based upon anything that you brand with c as applicable. With this being said, that is how you reach the target audience to which you wish to push ads or campaigns without specific things. Running a drip campaign prevents the possibility of annoying or sending too many emails to a customer; a respectable amount of emails is either to remind somebody of a product, let them know something is in their cart, or recommend an item that goes with something they previously purchased. 

The benefits of drip marketing are endless; with the proper time and effort put into a campaign, it is much more effective to incorporate drip marketing. Below are some great benefits that drip marketing can help you in:

Boost engagement and loyalty - Drake email campaigns allow prospects and customers to be more engaged because the emails are sent based on triggers that subscribers make. A great example of this is to pretend that a customer bought a product; this then triggers a drip email to be sent out that recommends other products on the website that go well with what they have just purchased.  

Lead Nurturing - These are the customers that are more hesitant to make purchases; down the line, they have the potential to be a customer, but for the time being, it is essential to nurture their needs and inform them of what the company consists of, what values the company holds or products and services that could be even it beneficial to them. Drip email campaigns assist in the nurturing process because it allows communication and the ability to create trust in creating a healthy relationship with the customer solely based on their knowledge of the brand. If you think about it and the broad spectrum of things, it is essentially having a sales pitch be sent out and convincing the customer that would take place in a store but over a sequence of emails. 

Brand Awareness - When constantly sending out emails, it will keep your brand in the front mind of customers, continually showing what the brand has to offer. By using drip marketing, it creates a relationship for your business that sets you up for success. Building a trusting relationship with customers that frequently interact with your brand will increase the likelihood of them continuing to make purchases and recommend to others. 

Re-engage with unengaged customers - An automated drip campaign opens the door to many lead outreach opportunities. Over time some contacts may become unengaged and stop reacting, but there are fun ways to re-engage and retarget them. A fun way to reach out is to include something about missing them in the subject line, and it adds some lightheartedness to it! There is also Drip Marketing that goes into social media, which is also another platform that you can capitalize on. 

Abandoned Carts -  Customers or leads that abandon their carts have already expressed interest in products and made choices based on what they have seen. It is clear that they are interested; sometimes, people get sidetracked and need to remember their accounts entirely. When piecing together a campaign for those who have abandoned their cart, ensure that the email itself is on brand, grabs the readers' attention, and sparks enough interest that they return and make an effort to return to the site and reevaluate. 

Promote Relevant content - If there is a prospective customer, ensure the emails sent out are targeted towards what part of the sales funnel they fit into. Whether tailoring content or segmenting the list, ensure the email is relative. Drip marketing allows sharing content related to a product or service that a customer has already purchased, giving them an idea of what to buy next.

When is it appropriate to use Drip Marketing?

Welcoming Emails - Frequently, drip marketing starts by sending a welcome email that is sent out once a customer subscribes; it is then frequently followed up with product releases, restocks, deals, etc. Stats say that 59% of welcome emails are opened, which is approximately 14.6% more than a regular email. When the email is sent right after a user signs up, the rate will increase to 88.3%. These are the most common examples of drip marketing; these emails are used for new subscribers to get acquainted with the brand. The email content is typically brief, but it is concise and offers valuable information to those who are unique to the brand. The goal of welcome emails is to show appreciation and show them what the brand is about—essentially setting the basis for the content they will receive. When looking at drip marketing strategies, a welcome email can often contain a coupon or an exclusive offer. If your brand has the ability, you could also include a gift. If the intent is to make the welcoming emails a series via drip marketing, ideally, send them three days apart. 

Onboarding Emails - These emails are sent out after the new customers have purchased something to offer additional information from your brand. When looking at SaaS brands specifically, onboarding emails allow new customers to get familiar with the product or service, often through tutorials. Onboarding is a step-by-step process that informs the customer of all the benefits, programming, or steps required to use the new product successfully. To complete drip marketing strategy, it is good to reflect and ask if the information will be beneficial and if there is an opportunity to promote additional products. 

Retention Campaigns - If the word retention is unfamiliar to you, it is essentially marketing towards current customers; in this case, these customers may have purchased something in the past but have lingered away from the brand. This is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on Drip Marketing. Setting up a drip campaign and automatically sending content to unengaged users. Retention emails are the first step to triggering a movement for customers who have been unengaged for some time. Start with a simple email saying, "_____ misses you!" or "check our new products!" Both are great attention grabbers to draw them back in, hopefully. If this method doesn't work, the second email could include a discount code or an exclusive offer. 

Product Recommendations - Drip Marketing is a great way to follow what customers have purchased and turned around to offer something that pairs well. Or, based on recent purchases, you can recommend something that is being released that they will enjoy. 

A great example of this is, say, you own a running store; your clientele has accounts with their shoe sizes, type of foot, and recent purchases. Based upon this, you can email them when a new shoe is released in that brand with that style!

Unsubscribing - If there is ever a significant decrease in subscribers, it is probably due to customers unsubscribing. If somebody has gone ahead and unsubscribed from an email, it is an excellent opportunity to send an email asking for feedback. This feedback can then be used to better the brand and prevent others from unsubscribing. 

Let's Get you Started!

1. Start with goals - to approach creating a Drip marketing campaign, it is essential to establish what you will get out of it, it should aid in the current market strategy and not be the center of it. It is a great way to generate new customers so take advantage of it. Always remember that the goal needs to be a SMART goal. 
2. Define your audience - The audience is the main component in Drip Marketing, so it is essential to identify who you are reaching out to. There are multiple ways to define your audience and the triggers that you are specifically looking for. A couple of parameters that are commonly used are: Demographics (location, age, gender), Dates (birthdays, anniversaries, when they subscribed), etc
3. Be Clear - When you have your goals and audience set, the next is to work with the content. The content needs to be concise and specific to the purpose; anything extra distracts from the goal. The content must follow the brand's suit and ensure the aesthetic is stuck.
4. Run the Campaign - When the choice is made to run the campaign 4 things need to be established, the first is SMART goals, second is the audience you are targeting and the triggers they must partake in. Third is the email itself and the content that is going to be included. Then fourth would be how many emails will be included in your Drip campaign. All these factors then join to create your campaign. 
5. Check out the results - Once the emails have been sent out, check the feedback and monitor the performance. There are a couple of metrics to keep an eye on to ensure that the drip campaign is on the right track, such as open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. There is a massive opportunity for A/B testing, which needs to be taken advantage of.

Conclusion

Wrapping it up is a lot to consider to ensure that a Drip campaign runs smoothly. There need to be steps followed to implement Drip Marketing Campaign successfully, but when it is done; the ball is rolling. The attention to detail is what brings in customers as well as retains customers, creating a relationship that is deeper than sales. All this is done through emailing software; Mailsoftly offers a collaborative and innovative approach to sending automated emails. Creating a campaign and entering a contact list, segmented or not, has always been more challenging than it is with mailsoftly. Drip Marketing plays a significant role in that Mailsfolty wants the process to be as quick and simplistic as possible.