Drip Campaigns to Automate Email Marketing (Because Old is Gold)

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I know emails are old. But done right, they can really prove to be gold. And like everything else, they need a strategy too.

You can’t just keep bulk mailing without any goals or strategy and then blame emails for not getting you any response. Start with deciding the ultimate goal you want to achieve through your campaign and then break it down into several small goals. In this way you can associate each email you frame to a small goal or CTA (Call to Action).

The primary goal of an email marketing campaign is to attract the right subscribers. Send subscribers highly relevant emails that encourage them to commit to your call to action.

It is important to strike the perfect balance of building an email list (Check out the strategies ebizondigital.com uses for this) and keeping your subscribers engaged allowing you to appease your target audience, which is crucial in a sustainable email marketing strategy.

Come, start automating…

What are drip campaigns?

Drip campaigns are composed of multiple emails sent out at specific times and dates. To receive drip emails, your readers need to subscribe to your opt-in form first. Upon signing up, they will receive the emails in a timely fashion until the campaign ends.

Drip campaigns are implemented using marketing automation so you can set up the emails and schedule when each will be sent to the subscribers.

Creating your first drip campaign with PushFlew is easy as pie. Just login to your PushFlew dashboard and follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to Campaign Builder and choose Email

Step 2: You can choose from sending an immediate email, a time scheduled single email or an entire drip campaign. Today I’ll focus on the drip campaign so choose the ‘drip campaign’ tab

Step 3: Click on ‘Create a New Campaign’ and choose your campaign name and the target audience for it

Step 4: Click on ‘Email Listings’ and create a workflow for the campaign created. You can add an email or a delay to your workflow to suit your mail routine

Keep adding the emails at every step or you can edit them later. Once you are confident about your workflow you can go to ‘Actions’ and select ‘Start’. By default, your campaign will be in the ‘Pause’ mode.

And you’ve created your first workflow. Feeling good, eh?

Let’s see some of the Expert Drip Campaigns that are nailin’ email automation so effortlessly (you can simply follow these or customize them as per your need):

    1. Pre-Event Drip: A pre-event drip campaign can help you send personal invites to your top prospects and follow up if they don’t reply— hands-free.
      Ideally, you want to have at least two emails in this sequence. Yesware sales reps have found success in spacing these emails five days apart, but be sure to test what works best for your recipients.
    1. Drip for Cold Sales Leads: Engaging cold leads with a drip email campaign that gets them back into the buying cycle is no easy feat. Luckily, we got hold of InsightSquared which uses a three-stage cold lead drip campaign. This campaign not only helped them get a huge number of meetings fixed but also in achieving their targets even before the month end:
      1. ‘Free for lunch Wednesday?’
      2. ‘Are we still on for tomorrow?’
      3. ‘Sorry that yesterday didn’t work out.’
    2. Persistent Inbound Lead Drip Campaign: Inbound leads have a short shelf life. You’re seven times more likely to qualify an inbound lead if you follow up within less than an hour, according to research cited in the Harvard Business Review.
      But that’s not to say it’s one shot or nothing. It often takes more than one attempt to connect, qualify the lead, and turn it into a sales qualified opportunity. The best way to stay persistent is to set up a drip campaign that makes it easy for someone to agree to a call or meeting as soon as possible.
    1. Onboarding Drip Campaigns: Not having a strategy to nurture free users is a huge missed opportunity. As a user, if you’re not shown the value of the more premium package, then there’s nothing convincing you to leave your no-strings-attached state.
      The timing and pace of your onboarding email flow ultimately depend on your trial length and standard sales cycle. Be sure to experiment. As a jumping off point, here’s the sequence Klaviyo uses:
      1st mail – 5 days wait – 2nd mail – 3 days wait – 3rd mail – 5 days wait – last mail
  1. Drip Emails to Drive Retention: One of the best ways to retain current customers is to help them get more value out of their investment. You can use a drip campaign to share useful information about emerging trends impacting their work, inspiration reasons to use your product, and other helpful resources long after the deal has closed.
    After closing the sale, Contently sales reps send customers weekly emails sharing blog posts that add value. Director of Sales Corey Cummins keeps it casual and to the point.

I’m sure you must be feeling a lot more confident about drip now. Don’t just stop on collecting emails, put them to use too. Why not try your hands on it right now?