There’s no denying that emails are one of the best ways to attract the right potential customers for your brand and build a strong relationship with them. However, in today’s digital marketing landscape, internet users hold complete power. If you want your brand to be recognized and your products or services to sell, you must impress them and make them take action. Most importantly, drive them to talk about your business with others, either in-person or on a social media platform. And believe me, sending subscribers emails with irrelevant content (they are not interested in) won’t take you anywhere.
Brands across the globe are leveraging the power of email marketing with the integration of automation drips to strike a balance between list building and keeping users engaged. While email marketing is not a new concept, some marketers might not have much knowledge about how those automated drip marketing campaigns exactly work. That leads us to our next question:
What is an Automated Drip Campaign?
Known by a variety of names such as autoresponders, marketing automation, lifecycle emails, and drip campaigns, automated email campaigns contribute a great deal to building a brand image for your business.
An automated drip campaign refers to composing and sending a set of marketing content or messages to leads, at scheduled intervals or in response to events.
These drips allow you to automate the tedious process of managing gaps in the marketing pipeline, converting leads into customers and nurturing them until they are sales-ready. Based on actions taken by your leads on your application or website, you can observe their purchasing behavior and consistently get in touch with them with relevant information. Many businesses fear that this approach neglects their prospects, but it does not. In fact, they can focus on the tasks that matter most and complete projects faster and more efficiently while saving their valuable marketing and sales resources.
1. Welcome Drip Campaign
The very first thing that every business should understand is that the process of selling products doesn’t start by sending emails about their products or services to prospects, but it begins by welcoming them. Let’s say you walk into a shop to purchase a shirt and go to the help desk. The attendant doesn’t greet or welcome you in any way and just floods you with the questions and information right off the bat. How does that sound? Not great, right?
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think from their perspective. When they sign up or subscribe to your channel, blog, or newsletter to learn about your business and get product information, start off by sending a personalized ‘welcome email’ with their first name. The purpose of this automated digital marketing drip is to establish a relationship with your leads and introduce them to your company and products.
straightforward, and simple to automate. One important factor that you need to consider is that new leads in your database are different than your existing prospects. That’s why it’s imperative to encourage a feeling of warmth and worthiness to the newbie.
2. Onboarding Drip Campaign
Next comes onboarding drip campaigns that offer targeted sales messages and ultimately help marketers introduce customers to their brands, products, and values. In layman’s terms, this drip shows your users what to do next and how to interact with all the resources. These include offering introductory training and educational resources, product timelines, helpful blog links, and FAQs.
For instance, if a new user gets stuck or lost somewhere on your website, help them successfully walk through the process and complete the milestone.
3. Educational Drip Campaign
The onboarding emails are followed closely by educational or awareness campaign drips. Today’s customers are ‘smart buyers’ and demand the requisite amount of information when they go through various stages of the purchasing process. A typical purchasing process includes five stages:
Awareness: This is the first stage where leads identify their needs and make sure your business has all the necessary resources to satisfy them.
Consideration: They look for several different options and start comparing how exactly your products or services will help them.
Preference: They use their emotional and intellectual inclination to choose a suitable business and best solutions.
Purchase Decision: They figure out whether or not to proceed with the purchase.
Purchase: Lastly, they make a purchase.
Each stage has its own particular significance. If you provide them with the relevant information for each stage, you can push them through the final stage of the buying cycle without any hassle. Since these drips are vital to nurturing your leads, you should offer educational, valuable content covering your brand, various problem statements plus their plausible solutions. Sharing useful and appropriate resources with your potential clients will help them take the right decision. Keep in mind that every customer is different and might have different requirements, so don’t send the same email to all the prospects.
4. Event-Based Drip Campaign
Event invitation emails are one of the most productive tools in your event promotion arsenal. The primary goal is to persuade readers who look for events and webinars to register before the deadline. Creating a proper segmentation of email lists and sending highly personalized and targeted emails to each of your attendees will help you uplift your event’s attendance. However, businesses need to figure out the best time and frequency to send the event invitation emails to their leads. After all, sending too many emails might frustrate their recipients, tank their open rates or raise unsubscribe rates, whereas sending too few might reduce engagement and conversion rates. Here are some tips to create a successful event-based drip email campaign:
-Create a relevant, catchy subject line which appeals to your audience.
-Add your email signature at the end of the email with your contact information.
-Use banner ads, images, and other visual graphics to enhance the authenticity of the invitation.
-Define the purpose of the invitation and make sure to include a call-to-action button.
-Integrate a time-limited promo code to create a sense of urgency and encourage them to take immediate action.
-Provide your prospects with the valuable insights on why this webinar, conference, or any other event will be beneficial for them.
5. Transactional Drip Campaign
Reminders, alerts, or push notifications always cause a great amount of user engagement. Whether it’s a simple reminder to renew your account or a receipt giving product confirmation and payment details, emails like these improve your chances of converting your leads into customers with minimal wastage. Transactional drip campaigns play a pivotal role in building trust and relationships with your leads and boosting your overall marketing ROI at the same time. That’s because the open and engagement rate for a transactional email is 8x higher than a traditional email.
The transactional emails are different from commercial emails. Commercial emails are standard promotional and marketing emails that are sent out with the purpose of sharing content or other relevant information with prospects. Transactional emails, on the other side, are sent strictly to inform the user about the confirmation of a product or service and transaction made. For instance, if the user buys a digital product, like a website template, on a website or app, and the product is emailed to them, it’s transactional. Sending a receipt or a download link is a part of that transaction. These emails are entirely automated and action-oriented, and ignoring the importance of these messages can drastically hamper the growth of your business.
6. Promotional Drip Campaign
What could be a better way to grab your prospects’ attention and spread the word about your products or services than a promotional drip campaign? A well-timed promotion or special deal acts as a catalyst to give your monthly sales numbers an extra bump to your monthly sales numbers. Email platforms, like Gmail and Outlook, provide users with the capability to sort their inbox into various categories such as Inbox, Social, Scheduled, Updates, Forums, Promotions, etc. based on their interests. Many businesses think that sending promotional messages in bulk is an excellent tactic to get noticed by their leads. In truth, the opposite is the case. When users are bombarded with the same email countless times, they see it as annoying spam. So the key for your special promotional email to work well is to be specific and highly relevant. Craft an email in a way that instantly helps your users sense positive and friendly vibes and establish a connection.
For example, restaurants and eateries registered on UberEats, an online food ordering and delivery platform, offer time-based sales promotions and discounts to attract more users and compel them to make a purchase. Additionally, it gives them the ability to nurture their relationship with consumers through engagement and retention.
