7 Tips to Help You Set up a Killer Email Drip Campaign

How are you planning to market your products and services?

That's probably the most relevant question for any business owner.

And the answer isn't an easy one.

Not because you don't have any marketing procedure to embrace, but because you're spoilt for choice these days.

But have you ever given a thought about embracing drip marketing for your business?
They are in-vogue these days.

Want to know why?
Because email drip marketing increases the open rate of emails significantly.
Average single open rate of drip campaigns is 32.85%. In fact, drip open rates are about 3 times higher than the click through rates of emails sent individually.
So, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t start a drip campaign to increase the return on investment for your business.
So, what's the best way to do that?
In this post, I’ll discuss how powerful drip campaigns are and will share actionable tips to build a killer email campaign that’ll increase sales and enhance customer retention.

Benefits of Email Marketing

Email is an extremely effective marketing tool for businesses, both established and start-ups. And that's not without any reason.
Did You Know?
• 82% of B2B and B2C companies use email marketing to reach out to their customers.
• Automated email messages experience 70.5% more open rates and 152% greater click-through rates than any business email.
• With email marketing, you are 40 times more likely than Twitter or Facebook to get new customers for your business.
Besides, here are a few benefits of email marketing, which can come in really handy at times.
• It reduces your marketing costs by helping you go digital.

• You can easily connect with your target audience.
• It helps to spread the word about your business.

• Ensures that you can connect with existing customer and attract potential ones.

In short, email marketing can help you reach out to a wider audience within a short time.

So, what is an email drip campaign?

An email drip campaign refers to sets of automated emails, which are sent out based on various aspects, such as user actions, specific timelines, and so on. For example, when a user registers for an account or performs an action on a site, an email is sent out to him. So, the emails sent out for drip campaigns are not required to be written manually every time. They are chosen from a set of already written emails, which are sent out to share the necessary information with the audience at the right time.

Is the email drip campaign really useful? How do they work?

Let’s have a quick look at a couple of case studies about the use of the email drip campaign.

Case study 1: A visitor registers on your website. An automated email is sent to the user to welcome him.

Case study 2: A document detailing your business is sent to a user. If he opens it, he is given one option. If he doesn't open it, another method is tried until the end of the drip.

This flowchart from the infographic on the website of Pardot, the marketing automation company, is a perfect graphical representation of the details of the drip campaign.



So, the email drip campaign can come in extremely handy to establish a brand name for your business. But that’s not an easy task. You’ll have to ensure that the right steps are undertaken to give an edge to the email drip campaign’s efforts.

So, how can you make your email drip campaign effective?

Here are a few tips that can come in quite handy for the purpose.

Know What You Want to Achieve

Why are you planning to begin an email drip campaign?

The objectives are usually quite simple: it's either to boost the sales and get new customers, to increase brand awareness, or to retain the existing customers.

But when you are starting the campaign, you should have a clear idea, which of these things you want.

How will having a clear goal help?

You can plan your steps of the email campaign in such a manner that they are meant to achieve the target you've already set for yourself.

Focus on the Quality of the Content

You have planned your email drip campaign. You have a proper goal in mind and you have also decided about the frequency of sending out the emails.

Yet, you are not achieving the desired results.

There can be several reasons behind this.

The most common, in fact, is that the quality of the content shared on the emails is not quite as good as your target audience would like them to be. Remember, when you are sending out emails for marketing and for generating leads, you can't send out any write-up.

So, you must create excellent email content before sending them out. Ensure that the content is engaging. You can shift from sharing simple text-based content and include various other media, such as images, videos, and so on.

Decide the Frequency

When you are engaging in a marketing campaign involving emails, you need to focus on one thing properly.

That's the frequency of sending out the emails.

You must have a clear idea about how frequently you should mail your current and prospective clients.

• 42% people think you should email your customers 2-3 times a week.

• 17% thinks you should mail 4-6 times.

• Only a few people (4%) think sending mails more than six times a week actually helps.

The frequency of sending out the emails will depend on the objective of your campaign.

For what are you sending the emails?

This will define whether the emails should be sent on a daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis.

Remember, one of the most important reasons for sending the emails through drip campaigns is to ensure that your brand remains in the mind of the current and prospective customers. It will also drive them to subscribe for your products and services.

The whitepapers or other documents can also be sent through drip campaigns. And these are mostly sent out on a fortnightly or monthly basis.

You can also set the time of sending out the emails. They should be planned in such a way that the target audience gets it during such a time of the day when he is most likely to open and go through it.

Keep an Eye on the Sequence

Even when you are sending the emails following the right frequency, you might get it wrong somewhere else. For example, you might send the emails on a wrong sequence. And that can be as bad as it can get!

In fact, an error like this can impact your brand name. Besides, your target audience might feel that you are spamming them.

How can this happen?

Here's an example.

When a person registers on your website, you are supposed to send a welcome email. You have set it to send out on day one. The next day, you are supposed to send out an email, which will ask the user how his experience of using your website has been.

Imagine a situation where the second email is sent out first and then, the user receives the first email the next day. This surely is going to be a debacle.

So, it is essential that you keep an eye on the sequence at which the emails are being sent out. This will help you perform the email drip campaign in a proper way.

Maintain a Checklist

There are quite a few things that you need to manage while creating an email drip campaign.

But it’s really not an easy task. And with so many things to do, you might miss out on one or two.

Well, that’s really going to be the worst thing possible. Missing even a single of those emails or sending them on a date, which isn’t scheduled can have an extremely negative impact on the email drip campaign.

So, is there a way to solve this problem?

Of course, there is.

You can create a checklist, which will help you keep a track of all the steps of the campaign.

It will also come in handy to have an idea of the emails, which are going to be sent to the potential as well as existing customers through the campaign.

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Why Email Subscribers are Important and How to Get Them with Incentives

Many articles you read about email marketing will tell you how to convert a casual blog reader into a customer. Sounds like a natural progression, right? After stumbling upon your blog a couple times and reading some posts at random, a reader will have enough information to know what you’re about, trust that you’re an authority in your industry, and hit that Buy button.
The reality of that happening is actually highly unlikely. All those posts you were previously reading about the transition from reader to customer are missing one really important step– email subscriber.
The true progression of a reader looks something like this:

There's a level of trust you have to build with a reader before they'll be willing to become a customer, and that can’t be done correctly when you’re just hoping and waiting for them to keep stumbling on your site. In fact, it’s a widespread misconception that readers are going to start buying your products after just reading posts on your blog.
Don’t fall into this same bucket of misguided bloggers. It’s time to stop expecting your readers to sing your praises and buy your products without first creating trust and authority. It’s only through this work that you can create loyal and dedicated followers (aka profitable customers). And to do this, you need to focus on that sometimes overlooked Subscriber stage.

The importance of an email subscriber

You could have thousands of views on your site, but those views don’t necessarily translate into money or progress toward your goals. A subscriber, however, represents a certain level of commitment from a reader. It means they’re invested in your brand, interested in what else you have to say and teach, and are more likely to buy a product you’ve created.
Building an email list to keep track of those subscribers as soon as you start out is your most valuable asset as a blogger. When a reader gives you their email address, they’re also giving you permission to show up in their inbox.
Email is the most direct, personal, strategic, and constant form of communication between blogger and reader. Unlike social media, you have complete control over your email list. Once you have an email address, you have an open invitation to write directly to that person and a greater likelihood of turning that individual human into one of your life-long raving fans.
Through your email list, you’re able to build trust and create a relationship that feels personal to your audience, which in turn sets you up for pitching and selling your products and services. And while your job is always to serve your audience, the end goal has to be to make money, right? Making a living with your online business is the only way to earn the privilege to keep doing this work.
You’re a blogger because you want to make a living by teaching what you love. To do that you probably create products or offer services to help your audience reach their goals through your teaching. So to get readers to buy your products, you really do need them to move from casual reader into the Subscriber stage.
The big problem here is that so many people often get stuck in the Reader stage. Without any reason to stick around on your site, they’ll move to another site that offers similar information and will probably keep blog hopping from there.
Readers are looking to be drawn in. They need targeted content that sounds like it was created just for them. If that’s true, the solution to move readers into the Subscriber stage is to create material that provides incredible value for your readers and offer it in exchange for their email address.

Four ways to add value with incentives

There are a lot of aspects of your site you can control that help keep a reader sticking around. A well-designed homepage, valuable content, and interesting images and graphics are the bright shiny objects that initially grab a reader’s attention. Once you have them with that, it’s time to offer up a little extra incentive.
Providing value can come in many different avenues. You could create a weekly or monthly newsletter to keep up with your updates. That works, but it’s also pretty boring. If you really want to add value and show your readers that you care about them, creating a true incentive is key.
Incentives are the easiest way to turn readers into email subscribers because you’re giving them something valuable in return. As long as your audience sees that value, they are more likely to want to see what else you have to offer and will give you their email address to stay in touch.
Here are four examples of incentives that your readers are look for to entice them into becoming email subscribers:

Content upgrades 

Content upgrades are an incredible way to increase your conversion rate. In fact, Brian Dean increased his site-wide conversions from .54% to 4.82% in just one day with content upgrades
The upgrades can take many forms depending on your content and the needs of your audience. Whether you’re creating a checklist, how-to guides, templates, eBooks, or other bonus downloads, creating something extra for your reader shows an extra level of care. You can learn more about these incentives with our Complete Guide to Content Upgrades.

Email Courses 

If your main product is a course and you’re trying to get new traction, giving away a part of that course through an email is a great idea. Learn more about email courses and how to set up an email course using ConvertKit with Zen Courses.

Webinars 

Hosting a special webinar where you focus on teaching instead of selling shows your readers that you care about helping them reach their goals. It’s also an important way to get face-to-face time with your readers to help you build trust and authority. Learn more about hosting your own webinars with the Run Webinars Like a Pro Toolkit.

Exclusive offers

Everyone loves a limited time offer or to know that you’ve created something just for them (maybe in a community or group). Your offer could be anything from a discount on a product/service (this works especially well with physical products) to a personal 1×1 consulting service.
Exclusive offer incentives are also smart to add to any guest posts you have coming up. Catching a new readership’s attention with an exclusive offer they can’t refuse will guide them to your site and into your email list with ease.

How to promote and deliver content upgrades and other incentives

To promote content upgrades on your site, you’ll need to use forms. These are the boxes you see at the end of a post or on the side bar that ask for an email address. Normally it’s a simple “Sign up for my newsletter” situation, but now you can create exciting content that readers won’t hesitate to trade in their email address for.
Delivering on your promised content is easy to do with ConvertKit's incentive email. The incentive email is what is sent immediately after someone subscribes to your list through your email form on your site. You may know it better as the confirmation email or the double opt-in process. We call it an incentive email because we deliver your signup incentive while also asking for confirmation, turning a two-step process into just one.
Want to watch a video of how to deliver an incentive? Check out Megan Minns’ post, “How To Deliver A Free Download Using ConvertKit.”

Ready to turn your blog readers into email subscribers?

Now that you know the benefit of an email list and how to give your readers more value, what will be your first incentive that you create? Share your ideas in the comments as well as any questions you might have about creating incentives to turn readers into email subscribers.

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