Use Drip Campaigns to Increase Sales and Increase Brand Awareness

Drip campaigns are a great way to push out automated content relevant to your audience. They are on the rise, too. No one can deny that. Typically concise, they are most effective when things work very quietly in the background, increasing awareness of your brand, product, or service. They do not require a lot of attention at all.

At some point, drip campaigns managed to shake off the boring image of “just another newsletter” and break through all kinds of resistance to get on par with other kinds of marketing. That’s why companies of all sorts – from small businesses and startups to giants like Amazon, use drip email campaigns for generating leads and sales, and generally to interact with existing and potential clients in a more personal way.

A drip campaign is a series of messages – typically, but not necessarily, emails or SMS - that are automatically sent according to a schedule or based on one or more triggers.

Table of Contents

1. The basics
2. List of use cases
3. Lead nurturing campaigns
4. Welcome campaign
5. Post-purchase campaign
6. Abandoned cart campaign
7. Educational campaign
8. Unsubscribe campaign
9. Key Takeaway

The basics

First things first. Your content should be compelling, viewable across as many devices and formats as possible, and every sentence should entice the reader to read the next. Drip campaigns tend to be more concise, too.

When developing drip campaigns, consider your target audience, their expectations, and their needs.

Good drip campaign emails have three parts:

1. A subject line that is interesting and that promises an interesting subject.
2. A quarter of a second glance is usually all the time you will get before somebody decides to read your email or not.
3. The body of the email, which usually contains a link to something on your site.
4. Every sentence should entice the reader to read the next. Pay attention to proper formatting and to clean design. You may even bolden the most important, summarising sentence so a quick glance lets the reader immediately know why they should continue reading.
5. A call to action, an instruction, or next steps.
6. This could be to buy your product, view a video, sign up for a course or event, download software, or merely another way to continue engaging with your brand.

List of use cases:

Drip campaigns are useful in building trust, brand loyalty, and subscriber loyalty, and in growing email lists.

After all, they are the means to an end. Below is a long, non-exhaustive list of various uses for drip campaigns, all of which can be automated:

• Increasing sales
• Increasing conversion rates
• Increasing customer loyalty
• Increasing repeat purchases
• Slowly introducing customers to other products based on their activity
• Sending onboarding messages and slowly guiding new users through your software
• Sending special offers or coupons
• Educating customers
• Sending abandoned cart reminders
• Finding new prospects for products
• Sending recordings about previous events to users most likely to be interested
• Sending thank you messages
• Sending email reminders for appointments
• Letting users know about advanced, useful features one at a time

Lead nurturing campaigns

These types of drip campaigns work best when the same message is delivered over an extended period of time. People don't buy the first product they see; they buy what they are reminded of. What’s more, these campaigns are most effective when messages provide valuable information in a concise, logical manner.

They have three main phases:

1. Capture: A lead captures their interest by subscribing to a newsletter or filling out a form.
2. Nurture: The lead is nurtured with a series of automated messages. You can consider only sending the next one if the reader has interacted in some way, such as opening the email.
3. Close: The lead is converted by making a purchase or completing a form.

Welcome campaign

The welcome campaign, for example, might be a set of ten emails sent over 10 days. The campaign might start with an email leading to the new member's first event, and include emails about the group's various opportunities.

Drip campaigns often involve content, such as articles, videos, and white papers. The content should be related to what people can expect to learn when they join. Or it might link to articles introducing people to new ideas.

By sending a drip campaign to new joiners, no past knowledge is assumed, and you can give them a great recap of the best content you have put out. Quickly bringing them up to speed and piquing their attention.

Post-purchase campaign

That is what Drip campaigns are all about. You send people just enough emails to remind them to buy the next time they need something. Or you can provide discounts, offers, and showcase complementary products. It is a fantastic way to cross-sell or upsell.

The most profitable marketing channel is post purchase. And the most effective way to get people to buy is by getting them to buy a tiny bit at a time; to form a habit. What makes this tricky, though, is that if you send them too many messages, they won't bother. 

Drip campaigns are, first, a way of sending people the right message. You are sending people emails specifically because they have bought from you and you understand their needs. You understand where their interests lie. So you are sending the right message, at the right time, to the right people.

Second, Drip campaigns are a way of getting people to buy more. If you only send people messages once, or not at all, they are more likely to forget to buy the next time. Ideally, your customers are engaging just enough, you are sending them just enough messages to turn a one-time buyer into a regular buyer.

Abandoned cart campaign

These types of drip campaigns have been used for years, and are a great way to encourage customers to return to your site and complete a purchase.

They are a type of email automation that send a series of emails over a period of days to weeks to nudge shoppers back into a purchased state. Abandon cart emails are triggered when a customer adds an item to their cart and abandons it before checking out.

Some companies even offer exclusive discounts to finally nudge those that have been on the brink of buying.

Educational campaign

This is one area where drip campaigns are especially useful. You are sending subscribers information that is useful to them based on previous interactions that indicate they would enjoy this content and find it valuable.

Educational drip campaigns turn a static list of subscribers into an active list of subscribers. These subscribers, because they have been treated well, will more likely click on ads, join your affiliate program, and buy from your store.

You can provide useful, relevant, and concise information. This could be in the form of text, a video, an event invitation, or even recordings of past events when they are deemed relevant in that users’ journey.

Unsubscribe campaign

Not all users that are unsubscribing do so because they believe they would never be interested in your brand again. Some do. But a non-negligible number do so because they are cleaning their inbox and would prefer to engage through a different channel.

Sending a “sorry to see you go” email with a call-to-action to engage through other channels – social media, youtube, etc. - can be a way to retain their attention and not leave money on the table.

Key takeaway

Every interaction you have with a customer is a chance to nudge them toward the next interaction you want them to have. Every newsletter, every email, every product review is an opportunity.

Drip campaigns are a way to turn these small nudges into a big nudge. They take advantage of the fact that customers tend to move slowly toward their goals. If you nudge them in the right way, you can nudge them a lot.