What is a Drip Campaign? And Why Do You Need One?

A drip campaign is a great email marketing tool that helps you provide valuable information to your customers and potential customers. A drip campaign is a set of automated emails that can be sent to certain groups at predetermined times. For instance, new users receive a specific email welcoming them to the newsletter, existing customers receive an email after purchasing a good or receiving a service, and older customers who haven’t been in touch for a while receive an informational email or a coupon that might prompt them to reengage.

The schedule for sending can be automated in email programs like Infusion Soft and MailChimp (stay tuned for a comparison of email programs).

Targeted emails sent in a drip campaign are much more effective than emails that are sent to a wider group. This means that your open rate is likely to be higher, and people are more likely to actually click on the content included in the email.

The initial setup of a drip campaign is definitely the hard part, but once you have your content created for the various emails, you can reuse it many times.

Why Use a Drip Campaign?

Here are just a few specific instances in which a drip campaign can be effective:

• Following up on leads
• Welcoming new customers
• Renewals
• Confirmations and thank yous following a sale
• Ongoing engagement

How to Segment Your List for a Drip Campaign

You can easily set up emails to go to anyone new who signs up for your newsletter or purchases a product or service. But your existing contacts will also need to be segmented for a successful drip campaign. Think about whether your customer base is made up of unique groups. For instance, if you are a plumbing specialist, do you have both residential and commercial customers? These customers would probably value information and sales targeted specifically at their needs, so segmenting your list into these groups will help you create more valuable email marketing campaigns.

Again, this is something that requires effort up front, but once you have segmented your list into relevant categories and tailored content to fit each group’s needs, your ongoing efforts should be made easier, not harder.

A drip campaign is essentially a way to give your customers the information they need exactly when they need it. We would be happy to help you set up an effective drip campaign for your business. Contact Niki at [email protected] to get started.